Editorial
Forty African Heads of State met their Chinese counterpart in Beijing, China from the 4th to the 5th of October 2006 to convene on the Third Sino-Africa Conference. The ‘enhanced’ China-Africa cooperation is purportedly aimed at ‘deepening mutually beneficial cooperation’ and realize ‘common development’. In that regard China has already taken a series of measures including debt relief, tariff exemption and personnel training to push the China-Africa partnership to a new level.

However, any rational thinking citizen of the global South would not let China’s promises pass as sheer benevolence. Whilst others have assumed that prior to the present day questionable expansion of China, China had no burden of historical guilt in Africa, unlike the global North, Rangarirai Machemedze says China’s courtship with Africa is a well calculated move to enrich itself. As we promised in the January issue, Sino-Africa relations will be demystified in this issue and others to come as we follow its developments. We will find out whether Africa’s relationship with the East will ease or worsen the debt crisis.

Did the World Social Forum address the third world imperialism that China is alleged to be representing or not? What is happening in Zimbabwe under the ‘Look East Policy’ regime?