CHINA SAFARI: ON THE TRAIL OF BEIJING'S EXPANSION IN AFRICA
By Serge Michel and Michel Beuret
Nation Books, $27.50, 336 pages, illus.
REVIEWED BY GREG HOULE
It is well known that since China began to embrace capitalism in the late 1970s, its economy has, for the most part, raced forward at breakneck speed. Last year, China's economy ranked second in the world, behind only the United States.
In order to keep up the frantic pace of economic growth to which it has become accustomed, the formerly isolationist nation has begun to spread its wings. And largely driven by an intense need for more sources of energy, China has been using some of its vast holdings of foreign currency to invest in new opportunities abroad.
Nowhere has this Chinese expansion been felt more strongly than on the continent of Africa. Bilateral trade between the two regions increased from $10 billion in 2000 to $55 billion in 2006, and China recently has become Africa's second-largest trading partner. Over the past four years alone, Chinese government leaders have made seven tours of Africa and visited more than 30 nations on the continent. New direct airline routes have paved the way for thousands of Chinese entrepreneurs and opportunists to flood into Nigeria, Ethiopia, Cameroon and a dozen or more other African nations to seek their fortunes in this brave new capitalistic world thousands of miles from home.
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