http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/18/...tment-chinese/Jeff Kiarie was guarding a Chinese mine back in early 2014 near Arusha, Tanzania when Chinese managers and investors picked up and left, leaving their excavators, tractors, and wheel loaders behind, offering no explanation. “They couldn’t just leave so many machines here,” Kiarie, the lone Tanzanian now guarding thousands of tons of Chinese mining equipment, says he reasoned. But that’s exactly what seems to have happened; Kiarie’s mine remains abandoned, and other Chinese operations on the African continent seem to be in peril. For years, Western media has covered Chinese trade and investment with the continent somewhat breathlessly; a November 2006 New York Times report declared that Chinese development “looks more like Africa’s future than its past,” and a February 2011 article for the BBC proclaimed that “the Chinese are coming” to Africa. Now, with the recent drop in Chinese investment and trade with the continent, it might seem appropriate to declare that the Chinese are going. But as some are leaving, others are innovating, exploring, and digging in.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/a...he-real-story/In December, Chinese president Xi Jinping offered a whopping $60 billion loan and aid package to Africa, according to Voice of America. Xi said that China aims to develop infrastructure, improve agriculture and reduce poverty on the continent. This is only the latest example of China’s burgeoning economic presence in Africa. Its investment there has skyrocketed in recent years from $7 billion in 2008 to $26 billion in 2013, according to figures cited at a Wharton Africa Business Forum held last fall. But the relationship is fraught with controversy.
Opponents assert that it is exploitative for China to finance African infrastructure projects in exchange for the continent’s natural resources. Some accuse China of “neo-colonialist” behavior as it acquires the raw materials like oil, iron, copper and zinc that it urgently needs to fuel its own economy. Supporters, on the other hand, say that China’s initiatives to build and improve infrastructure such as roads, railways and telecom systems have been a boon to Africa’s manufacturing sector; have freed up domestic resources for other critical needs such as health care and education; and have aided everyone doing business on the continent.
See also
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...&postcount=147
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