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article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061031/ap_on_re_as/china_wooing_africa

After talking a couple classes about Africa, the headline “China Defends Dealings with Africa” caught my attention. China, for the past decade has been aiding Africa both politically and economically, raising trade and helping with the building of roads and coal mines for example. China gets natural resources such as oil, precious minerals to feed its expanding economy and new markets. The African countries get investment from China, and both parties are building political alliances in what seems to be growingly a western culture world. An interesting quote that I found in the article discussed how China is a developing nation investing in another delevoping nation. He Wenping says: “China is the biggest developing country and Africa is a continent where the most developing countries are situated. They need eachother.” Although it may seem like they need eachother, in certain parts of Africa China is not favored. They feel that the factories that were set up by China pay poor wages and have poor working conditions. Some critics have also claimed that China has fueled the conflict in Dafur with their arms exports. However, China has also been successful seting up more than 700 projects in Africa in fisheries, telecommunications, hydropower, education and health, proving that they have helped out at some point.

Other than this aspect of the article, there was also the mentioning of the new billboards that are being put up around the capital of China. Police have been pulled back into duty to make sure that these do not pose any threats or violent protests. (The billboards say: “Africa — the land of myth and miracle”) Although China wants to continue with trading and interacting with Africa, it seems as if Africa isnt as suceptible to this idea. I guess we will see what happens as time goes on between the two countries.