The Chinese president, Hu Jintao, begins a tour of Africa today to further encourage Beijing's burgeoning trade with the continent while reassuring leaders China will do more than buy up its oil and minerals.
Mr Hu offered a sweetener immediately before leaving for Cameroon, the first of eight countries on his 11-day tour, by announcing $3bn (£1.5bn) in credit to African countries along with additional aid and interest-free loans. China emphasised that the new money comes with none of the "political conditions" attached to aid from western governments.
But that has prompted concern in some countries that Chinese money encourages corruption and misrule and helps to prop up pariah regimes such as that of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
Among the most closely watched stops on the tour will be Mr Hu's visit to Sudan, which has become a major oil supplier to China. Beijing continues to sell weapons to the Khartoum government despite international condemnation of the bloodshed in Darfur, where the UN estimates 200,000 people have been killed in a conflict blamed on the Sudanese leadership.
Some foreign governments and human rights groups are watching to see if Mr Hu will use China's influence to press Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, to accept UN peacekeepers and to end government attacks on Darfur.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2002301,00.htmlAnd, of course, more Chinese cash lent to Africa is less lent to the US government, though the amounts look small so far. But you have to wonder when China will think its money can be better used than propping up Bush's deficit.
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