China and Africa

Are China's initatives in Africa good for Africans? For the US?
More and more poor countries are choosing to accept China's assistance over the "strings attached" assistance of the West. "...China has shown countries from Africa to Asia to South America that robust economic growth can be achieved and sustained under the controlling hand of the state. In place of the aid structure ...known as the Washington Consensus, which imposes onerous, free-market conditions on emerging countries in exchange for assistance, a Chinese alternative has emerged that provides generous debt relief, infrastructure investment and other assistance with fewer demands. The Beijing Consensus, as Halper calls it, diminishes the monetary and ideological suasion of the West that has long guided international development."

Always thought it an impossible requirement to expect poor countries to first become democratic THEN become economically sound and secure, as the US insists they should. If a poor man/woman can’t go to the factory or farm because there are... no jobs and the country is insecure, he/she is certainly not going to invest in democracy first. Democracy is a luxury more and more poor countries can do without (for the time being let’s hope) in their striving for economic and material improvement. China is showing them a new way upward and out of poverty....