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Mugabe and Sudan’s Bashir listened with evident approval as the Chinese leader talked of “a regular high-level political dialogue . . . to enhance mutual political trust”.

In Sudan, China’s strategic interest in securing oil supplies has led it repeatedly to block any efforts by the United Nations Security Council to intervene in the conflict in Darfur, where aid agencies say a human catastrophe has occurred.

Hu blandly told the Sudanese leader last week that he hoped Bashir’s regime “can find an appropriate settlement, maintain stability, and constantly improve the humanitarian conditions in the region”. Chinese diplomats have also frustrated any UN sanctions against either Sudan or Zimbabwe.

Hu preferred to focus on “win-win” economic growth — China and Africa conducted £22 billion worth of trade in the first nine months of this year, up 40% on a year earlier — and of “cultural enrichment” through exchanges of ideas.

The latter has baffled many Beijing residents as their capital has abruptly been plastered with propaganda posters promoting all things African — although some of the African visitors may not be wholly pleased by the visual emphasis on elephants, jungle, warlike tribesmen and colourfully clad women of ample proportions carrying outsize bundles on their heads.

However, both sides are determined to overlook any unfortunate cultural misunderstandings in their enthusiasm for doing business without strings attached.

The Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao said China’s aid to Africa would, as always, be “sincere and altruistic” and China has just announced it will cancel about £1 billion in debts owed by some of the poorest African nations.

However, China has also revealed itself extremely sensitive to accusations that it is behaving like a modern colonial power. Xinhua yesterday dedicated a commentary to refuting what it called “the fallacy that China is exercising ‘neo-colonialism’ in Africa”.

“The forces that are circulating the fallacy are fearful of China’s fast growth and the positive development of Sino- African relations,” it said, identifying the culprits as “some people from the West”.

Their aim, said Xinhua, was to “block China’s peaceful development so as to maintain their established interests in the world arena”.

China has devoted an extraordinary effort to make Beijing pristine, pollution-free and devoid of traffic jams for the summit, in a useful dress rehearsal for the 2008 Olympic Games.

For Mugabe, the reference to China as a “second home” may be more than a pleasantry. Some diplomats in Beijing think the Zimbabwean leader would be assured of a safe refuge there should he ever fall from power.

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