'China Safari' drills down to heart of China-Africa partnership

— -- Africa: a land of dictators, famines, wars and epidemics; a continent doomed to failure. This, at least, is the image that's been ingrained into the American psyche.

Not so, say authors Serge Michel and Michel Beuret, for China. In Africa, where the West sees endless misery, the Chinese see opportunity and are well on their way to seizing it. In China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa, the pair of Swiss journalists take us on a journey to the heart of this Sino-African partnership, one, they argue, that is transforming the African continent to a degree not seen since decolonization.

The book, which includes a 16-page insert by photojournalist Paolo Woods, is the result of two years of on-the-ground reporting from 12 African countries and China. From the forests of Congo-Brazzaville to the uranium mines of Niger, the story of China's expansion is much the same. Ambitious entrepreneurs break ground, while the Chinese government signs massive contracts to build direly needed infrastructure, often with imported Chinese labor. In return, China gets access to African markets and concessions to the natural resources it craves as a rising global power: timber, copper, uranium, cobalt, coltan, gold and, above all, oil.

It's a relationship that works in part because of Africa's disillusion with the West, bent on human rights, democracy and haunted by the ghosts of colonization. In China, Africa has a partner that does not patronize, that turns a blind eye to internal politics and is ready to build anything at an unbeatable price. As the authors quote one Western diplomat in Brazzaville, "God bless the Chinese. They build roads and dams, and frankly we don't have what it takes to do those things anymore."

While Michel and Beuret are optimistic that China's presence will ultimately benefit Africa, China Safari is by no means Beijing propaganda. The authors expose the dark side of the Sino-Africa partnership — everything from cheap Chinese imports driving local goods out of markets to Beijing's cavorting with repressive regimes, such as that of Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, and profiting by selling them weapons.