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How China's taking over Africa, and why the West should be worried

Close relations: Chinese President Hu Jintao accompanies Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing

China's rulers believe Africa can become a 'satellite' state, solving its own problems of over-population and shortage of natural resources at a stroke. With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled. The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, and it's estimated that China will eventually send 300 million people to Africa... [snip]

Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing... [snip]

Confucius Institutes (state-funded Chinese 'cultural centres') have sprung up throughout Africa, as far afield as the tiny land-locked countries of Burundi and Rwanda, teaching baffled local people how to do business in Mandarin and Cantonese.

From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower's long-term survival.

However, there is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made assault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars over the materials and space the Chinese are desperate for...

[My initial 'trim' of this piece still numbered 13 paragraphs chock full of astounding statistics. If credible - and it seems so - it makes a convincing case that nearly all violent strife on that continent is being fostered directly by China, while the world looks the other way {worse: swoons over China's upcoming Olympics}. As you read it bear in mind that this is a country the UN has seen fit to award 'veto authority' of its Security Council. Long, but for its info., rarity and future consequences a MUST READ > ]

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