From The Sunday Times, via the Australian:
Indeed, the Chinese go out of their way to ingratiate themselves with dictators. They donated the blue tiles that adorn Mugabe’s new $17million palace in Harare.
In Nigeria, a Chinese-language newspaper now serves 50,000 immigrants. At no stage in Britain’s colonisation of Nigeria did the British numbers reach such a figure.
At grassroots, this is highly unpopular. Chinese goods sent to Africa are notorious for their poor quality. None of a shipment of 50 buses to Zimbabwe is still working and an order for 250 more has been suspended. [Full text]
For the Zimbabwean government view on China-Africa relations, see this editorial from the official Herald newspaper.
