The Chinese Government will welcome 48 African delegations to Beijing tomorrow for a diplomatic gathering of significance. The visitors are going for very good reasons that have nothing to do with shaking off “imperialist chains”, whatever Robert Mugabe may think; nor with the economic musings of Chairman Mao, however much the hosts might like to quote him. Africa’s leaders are making the journey to extract the best possible terms from an important partner in a trade boom that has as good a chance as any mechanism of lifting their continent out of its grinding, humili- ating poverty.

In ten years, the value of trade between Africa and China has risen from $5 billion to $40 billion annually. The bulk of Africa’s exports to Beijing are of oil and other raw materials, and the balance of trade is slightly in Africa’s favour. China has by far the fastest-growing share of total trade with the continent, helping to deliver growth rates of 3 to 5 per cent in its more diversified economies.

This new mercantile axis is un- related to the meaningless pacts that Beijing forged with fellow “non-aligned” states in Africa during the Cold War. China’s search now is for clients, not client states. But its relationship with Africa is still fraught. Soft Chinese loans to vulnerable and corrupt African regimes, arranged outside the painstakingly agreed Equator principles for responsible lending, risk reversing progress towards extricating such regimes from debt. All support for pariah governments such as those of Mr Mugabe and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan implicitly endorses their murderous domestic policies. And misconceived or badly executed civil engineering projects risk irrevers-ible environmental damage.

Such a critique is valid. Coming from the West, it is also has a hint of the hypocritical. China’s current scramble for African energy and resources is modest compared with Europe’s scramble for African territory a century and a half ago. And China’s sometimes reckless lending only mirrors gambles by Western banks and governments in the postwar era. But Beijing now risks repeating the West’s mistakes, and those of Japan when it allowed massive increases in overseas aid and investment in the 1980s, with no commensurate adjustments to its foreign policy.

China suggests that its growing clout in Africa brings responsibilities. Its challenge this weekend is to form a policy framework within which investors can exploit African opportunities without exploiting Africans. Africa’s challenge is to help to establish the terms of trade, not just accept them. With Africa’s resources and its ready markets for China’s products, there are the makings of a superdeal between China and Africa that Europe could never offer. But such a deal cannot be struck at the expense of the poor and dispossessed. Beijing has an opportunity to set standards that will be a source of national pride and international benefit. Confucius would hardly approve of an investment strat-egy that was full of cash but value-free.