Same Story, Different Day

China has a rapacious hunger for nearly everything under the sun. Now the Waking Dragon is turning its head-and its wallet-towards Africa.

President Hu Jintao is one of the most well-traveled men in the world, especially since he took the reins of China and its juggernaut economy in 2003. Amid the hobnobbing with leaders of the developed world, Hu’s trips to emerging countries and so-called “frontier” markets have been notable.


Hu has ventured to the outskirts of the world economy because he knows that what those places lack in financial flair, they make up in resource wealth.

He pays little attention to pesky topics like human rights abuses and corruption, the only rankings where poor countries are kings of the hill, ignominiously.

So he goes to Africa, thrown to the wolves when Western colonial powers finally acknowledged the shape and shame of their own fixation after World War II. He goes to Sudan, site of rape, expulsion, and genocidal rampages-and where the country’s new presidential palace will be constructed with Chinese funds and hands.

Energy and Capital