China pledges 10 Billion to Africa

Since China is trading and giving money without the conditions from aid money, you are not going to see a change in better governance in most of Africa anytime soon. China is the ultimate c-block for improvement.

China offered African governments a multibillion-dollar package of financial and technical assistance on Sunday, stepping up a courtship that already has gained Beijing wide access to oil and minerals across perhaps the most resource-rich continent in the world. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao pledged to grant African countries $10 billion in low-interest development loans over the next three years, to establish a $1 billion loan program for small and medium-size businesses, and to forgive the remaining debt on certain interest-free loans that China previously granted less-developed African nations. .....The gestures are likely to further cement China’s good relations with many African nations, and may help address rising concern in some quarters that China is merely replacing Europe as a colonial power. China’s focus on extracting oil and minerals from Africa has drawn some criticism from African scholars, and labor and safety conditions at some Chinese-run mines and smelters have set off outcries by African workers. Some critics say that the flood of low-cost Chinese goods into African cities has displaced products once made by local workers. China has long offered low-interest loans to African nations, usually on the condition that governments spend the money on Chinese-made goods or on projects built by Chinese companies. African governments have eagerly accepted the loans, in part because they are free of conditions that international and Western lenders often attach to loans, like improvements in governance.