“As soon as we have problems, we ask someone else to take care of them for us,” Isaac continued. “We ask the Europeans. We ask the Americans. We ask the Chinese. We will run this train into the ground, and then we will tell the Chinese we need another one. This is not development.” I thought of the wreckage by the tracks. In China, there is no such thing as metallic waste. Armies of migrant workers scour the countryside with hammers and chisels, collecting and selling every scrap to the insatiable smelters that feed the country’s industries. Here, by contrast, was a land without industry.”
-Howard French, in his fascinating Atlantic article called “The Next Empire”....in conversation with a young Tanzanian riding the Chinese-built Tazara Express from Dar Es Salaam to Zambia's copper belt, a relic of the idealistic imperialist presence of the Cold War in the 1970's, and a symptom, in this instance, of all that divides the booming economies of the East with the stagnation of the African continent, even with the current commodity boom fueled by Chinese demand.
French introduces the key questions facing 21st century development: “China’s burgeoning partnership with Africa raises several momentous questions: Is a hands-off approach to governmental affairs the right one? Can Chinese money and ambition succeed where Western engagement has manifestly failed? Or will China become the latest in a series of colonial and neocolonial powers in Africa, destined like the others to leave its own legacy of bitterness and disappointment?”
