I have written about Professor Brautigam's excellent blog numerous times (China in Africa: The Real Story). If you want to learn the real deal on what China is doing in Africa, read everything that you can get your hands on by her and Ambassador David Shinn (http://davidshinn.blogspot.com/). Her latest posts makes some excellent points. You can click on this post's title to read her entire post but following is the most important paragraph:
"China has a long way to go in improving its multi-faceted engagement on the continent, but the US is not there yet either. The difference is not as complete as Secretary Clinton would have us think. Pointing to the principles that do generally guide our aid, ignoring US companies happily investing with a pat on the back from the Obama administration in places like Equatorial Guinea, and then comparing our aid to Chinese aid and investment is a common debate tactic among op-ed critics (Michael Gerson did this recently in the Washington Post). I would have hoped that Secretary Clinton would do better than this. But perhaps as her major advisor on Africa (and, probably, on China's role there) is Ambassador Johnnie Carson, the person who, in the Wikileaks cables, famously dismissed China in Africa as "a pernicious economic competitor ...[with] no morals", it's not a surprise. "
Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I 'heart' Ambassador Carson, but I would tend to agree with Brautigam in this case. HOWEVER I would add that I am sure Carson's view is slightly more nuanced than the Wikileaks cable makes it out to be.
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