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In March, under the banner, ‘The New Colonialists?’ the Economist explored China’s role and impact in Africa. This followed a Forum for China-Africa Cooperation hosted by Beijing in November 2006, when 48 African heads of state signed deals worth billions of dollars.

China primarily imports oil and other resources from Africa, exporting manufactured goods there. But nothing is as simple as it seems. Its businesses usually invest in partnership with Western firms or local companies. Oil is sold on the open market, which means that Chinese taxpayers are subsidizing world oil prices.

China also provides finance in the form of investment and loans. Last October Chinese businesses signed over $5 billion to the Democratic Republic of Congo to build new infrastructure there. Unlike others, the Chinese have a reputation for paying promptly and well. Their trade and investment merely mirrors Western patterns but on a smaller scale and in a handful of African countries.

Why China matters

Kerry Brown: The importance of China in solving our main global problems

Background

• The poison infecting China

• The farce of bashing China's human rights record

• China is losing the human rights race

• How experts replaced intellectuals

Eco-imperialism is alive and well and living in the West

James Woudhuysen: The West's pleading with China to cut carbon emissions bursts with ulterior motives

As the World Bank has noted, Africa presents huge investment opportunities for those willing to take risks to reap high returns. Africa has reversed six decades of decline in its share of global trade. Most countries there are growing at higher rates than the world economy.

China’s increasing influence in Africa is often discussed without regard to this new situation. Chinese investment is a consequence of Africa’s growth, not the cause. Countries that grow 5-6 per cent a year for a decade need new roads, power stations and manufactured goods.

Only countries ostracised by the West, such as the Sudan, have China as their main commercial partner. China’s presence there is a sign of its weakness, not its strength. China has been left with markets too small for Western investors.

Of course, China’s influence on the continent will not be entirely benign. But it is a sign of the West’s inability to view Africans as capable of dealing with their own problems – and their view of China as malign – that things are presented as a problem. These are relations between developing countries that only the people there are in a position to sort out.

But it is not Western governments that the Chinese appear to be upsetting. For years Western NGOs have sought to teach their domestic audiences that all that is required in Africa is small-scale, sustainable development. Oxfam encourages people to buy Africans a goat, some seed, condoms, a toilet, or even dung for Christmas. And all this comes with moral hectoring about Aids and the need for population control.

No wonder the Chinese, with their no strings attached investment policies are so welcomed across the continent. They get things done.

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Dr Bill Durodie is an Associate Fellow of the International Security programme at Chatham House and, from September 2008, the Senior Fellow coordinating the Homeland Defence programme of the S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. His research focuses on the factors that shape our social attitudes to risk.