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.

Hu's twelve-day, eight-nation safari is not a standard state visit, filled with platitudes like, "Your country is very pretty."

It is more the research and development junket of a company strategist, locking in on economies of scale and ensuring that his enterprise has the lifeblood of growth. In this case, the pulse of budding industrial China is dependent on raw materials, much like the smog-ridden infancy of European and American dominance.

So off to Zambia, the southeastern African nation where China's biggest overseas copper venture is located. Chinese engineers traverse the Zambian mines in their trucks, and some people are not so happy to see the tracks they are making.

Smelting Trouble

Wage protests forced Hu's people to cancel a personal visit by the leader to the Zambian Chambishi mine this week, but a deal still got done. Hu Jintao and Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa agreed to the establishment of a joint Sino-Zambian economic development zone, the first of its kind in Africa.

And both leaders promise that it will not be the last.

In Zambia's Copperbelt Province, adjacent to a similarly bountiful region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the new $800 million investment flow spurred on by this week's agreement could create 60,000 sorely needed jobs.

President Mwanawasa clearly prefers China's outstretched hand to that of many other nations, as it is filled with candy.

"People come here and talk about U.N. reform and conflict zones," the Zambian leader said. "China has decided they will take a different route. They will take an economic route." Though Zambia is ranked 111 out of 163 countries in the 2006 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, I'm sure China will instill the values of accurate bookkeeping with a powerful fist.

Unless, of course, China brings its brand of communist party cronyism to Zambia, supplanting executive performance with a who-knows-whom system of privileges within the raw materials industry.

China's coal mines are undergoing a process of administrative cleanup, but old habits die hard and many of those being purged from their domestic positions may seize the opportunity to resume their ways far from the scrutiny of regional CCP bosses back home.

Late to Rise

Ever-conflicted between profit and politics, the United States is exactly what Levy Mwanawasa was referring to when he spoke of meddlesome "people" preoccupied with reform and peace.

Now, this Tuesday, February 6, the US seems to have smelled the coffee. Whether soft diplomacy or stern patronage is the method, the US has not exerted sufficient effort toward either stabilizing Africa or capitalizing from it.

The White House announced Tuesday that the US would establish a military command center in charge of Africa by September of 2008. Run along the same lines as Central Command (Centcom), based in Doha, Qatar, the new African Command would "prevent problems from becoming crises and crises from becoming catastrophes," according to Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs Theresa Whelan, quoting a 2006 DoD policy document.

In an interview with Voice of America radio, Congressman Donald Payne voiced his bewilderment at the announcement. He claims not to have been consulted about the decision, though he is chairman of the House Africa subcommittee.

"I think there'll be a lot of skepticism, because there has been so little attention given to Africa, as other regions have gotten," Payne said. "All of a sudden to have a special military command, I think the typical person would wonder why now and really what is the end game?"

The typical person would and should wonder indeed.

Regards,

Sam Hopkins