On Monday, I was invited to speak at an Africa-China conference under the theme “China’s partnership with Africa: improving aid architecture for policy effectiveness.” By sustaining rapid economic growth over the last two decades, China has emerged as a major global economic power. The major driver of this growth is export of manufactured products. This has made China hungry for raw materials.

African countries are largely producers and exporters of raw materials. The demand from China is already increasing the price of these materials in international markets. This creates big opportunities for both China and Africa to make joint gains from trade and investment in the production and export of these materials. Why then should Africa’s partnership with China be based on charity (assistance) rather than on these mutual gains?