From The Telegraph:
China's modern-day "Scramble for Africa" to buy up the continent's mineral wealth enters a new phase this week.
Full scale work by the Chinese begins to rebuild 2,050 miles of roads in the Democratic Republic of Congo, left to rot in the rainforest after the Belgian colonialists pulled out 48 years ago and further shattered by seven years of war.
The vast project, which will triple Congo's current paved road network, is part of China's largest investment in Africa, a £4.5 billion infrastructure-for-minerals deal signed in January.
As well as the roads, Beijing has promised to repair 2,000 miles of largely defunct railways, build 32 hospitals and 145 health centres, install two electricity distribution networks, construct two hydropower dams and two new airports.
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My Comment: China's involvement in Africa has always been a two edge sword. They come in with the capital to lay down an infrastructure, but that infrastructure comes with a high cost that is not realized now .... but later.
What the Chinese are not sensitive to is that agreements with third world nations are always fluid. Oil companies have learned this hard way .... the Chinese will also if prices for strategic metals continue their upward climb. African nations have been the beneficiaries of hundreds of billions of dollars in aid from Europe and the U.S. for the past two decades ..... but unlike the West the Chinese do not give their money away.
Will the Chinese be as accommodating as oil companies if their assets are nationalized by countries .... my gut tells me no. Their money comes with long strings attached.
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