China-Africa Summit

African nations are quickly learning that China may be a better trading and development partner than Europe and the US have been. There's a basic plus to the China relationship: China is not bogged down in neoliberal growth-at-all-costs ideology. China plays it well in its own interests, but it's not forcing it down anyone's throat. What will be forced down the throat is oil. That's what China is in it for. Africa needs the manufacturing, which China dominates. It also needs ownership over its immense natural resources, which the West dominates and China wants. But China, despite its possible human rights and labor abuses in Africa, is taking more risks than the US will.