China offers new growth pattern

Ivisited Zambia, Ethiopia and Ghana in September and had the opportunity to interact with government officials, academic circles, NGOs and the media about Sino-African relations. I had the vivid impression that most of the African hosts hold positive opinions about the continent's relations with China, although they do not doubt the Asian country's intention to exploit rich natural resources as part of its engagement in the vast African land.

Unlike Western countries, whose activities in Africa over the past half a century have been mainly dominated by unreserved attempts to snatch more natural resources, China, they believe, has also done a lot of infrastructure building. China's spectacular development in the past decades, according to them, should serve as clinching evidence that African countries should no longer regard the "European or US model" as the panacea to solve their problems in the process of economic and social development.

Theoretically, no country should excessively depend on outside elements to extricate itself from poverty and achieve development. But African countries' resolve to break away from the "Western model" bears clear testimony to their utter disappointment and dissatisfaction toward their failure to free themselves from impoverishment under the promised support of European and US aid and their markets.