THE QUESTION
China's leader Hu Jintao just provided Sudan with an interest-free loan to build a presidential palace. Meanwhile, genocide continues in Darfur as Western sanctions prove ineffective.
Does China's willingness to invest in Africa without preconditions cause more harm than good? In the end, could Africa be re-colonized by China?
Posted by William Gumede | Your Thoughts
FROM THE PANEL
Bashir Goth is a veteran journalist, freelance writer, the first Somali blogger and editor of a leading news website. He is also a regular contributor to major Middle Eastern and African newspapers and online journals.
America Is Colonizing Us Quietly
Sure, products say "Made in China" but America is the one re-colonizing us quietly. I cannot extract juices from a small plant in my native village for medicine because an American pharmaceutical company owns the rights to it.
Bashir Goth, Somalia/UAE |Feb 9, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Andrew M. Mwenda is an editor at Uganda's Monitor newspaper. He is also a founding member of ACODE, a public policy research think tank in Kampala, Uganda. He was born in Fort Portal, Uganda and became a reporter with Monitor Newspaper in Kampala. In 1999, he won the British Chevening scholarship and did an MSc in Development Studies at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. He is currently a John Knight Fellow at Stanford University.
Africa Must Fix Itself; China and the West Won't Do It
Andrew Mwenda, Kampala, Uganda |Annie Wang is a journalist, public speaker, and author who specializes women’s issue. She has published eight Chinese books and two English novels. Her English debut, Lili - A Novel of Tiananmen, (June 2001 Pantheon Books) published internationally to critical acclaims. A multi-layered novel, Lili, is a story of a "bad girl's" maturation and adventure in the Post-Mao Era leading up the Tiananmen Student Movement in 1989. Her most recent English novel, The People’s Republic of Desire (Harper Collins 2006) is a hilarious satire and an insightful portrait of China’s MTV generation, urban women, and cross-cultural relationships. It has been hailed as a cross between Sex and the City and Joy Luck Club. A child prodigy in her native China, Annie Wang studied mass communications at UC Berkeley and won the Berkeley Poetry Contest in 1996 with two poems, "Speaking to Mao Tse-tung, Tongue-in-cheek" and "A Woman from a Mountain Area". She has worked for high-tech companies in Silicon Valley, and then served in the Washington Post's Beijing bureau and the US State Department. In 2004, she returned to China and ran a fashion magazine in Shanghai. Currently, she lives with her husband and son and divides time between the U.S. and China.
China and Africa Must Bridge Cultural Divides
Annie Wang, Shanghai, China | William M. Gumede is Associate Editor at Africa Confidential. He is Research Fellow at the School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He recently released the bestselling book Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC.
Don't Condemn Africa to Underdevelopment
William M. Gumede, South Africa |READER RESPONSE
» Yankee Robert, Baghdad | Interesting observations. I guess we are all in a more complex web of colonial cross feeding instea...
» China Confidential blog, USA | Chinese President Hu Jintao has promised to reduce China's $3 billion trade imbalance with Africa by...
» H Jennings, DC | Unfortunately for the continent of Africa, China's Africa foreign policy is a continuation of a hist...

