The Washington Post reviews China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa
It’s easy to see what the Chinese — hungry for oil, timber, uranium and other minerals lacking at home — get from the arrangement. The question is whether ordinary Africans will draw lasting benefit from this new association, or suffer as their leaders repeat the mistakes of the Cold War and colonial era, when they were routinely outmaneuvered by foreign partners with a similar lust for the continent’s resources.
Accompanied by photographer Paolo Woods, Swiss journalists Serge Michel and Michel Beuret put in extensive legwork trying to provide an answer. Frustrated by the empty rhetoric of the 2006 China-Africa summit attended by 48 African nations, they spent nearly two years talking to those lower down the food chain: Chinese loggers in Congo-Brazzaville, ditch-diggers in Angola, curio sellers in Egypt. The result is a work whose style may occasionally come across as peculiarly baroque — the translator stumbles when attempting to convey the irony of the original — but whose message is clear: Africa has much to gain but needs to be on guard.
China’s sales pitch, stubbornly trumpeted despite its insincerity, is that it refuses to preach, impose conditions or interfere in the affairs of sovereign nations. In stark contrast with Africa’s former partners, the line goes, China is only interested in trade.
The authors skewer that claim.
Read also an earlier review from the New York Times.
