[happygrl]

It's not the Chinese who have an in there now; it's the Libyans. The Chinese are not big players now.

I would never consider the Chinese wonderful or altruistic, or the Libyans for that matter.

Africans' governance problems have more to do with authoritarianism and kleptocracy than socialism (just as that which transpired in most so-called communist and socialist nations was also a shuffing of those at the top, with the wealth of the nation skimmed off for the new elites). Mugabe and Zimbabwe are a case in point. There is an old habit, born during the Cold War of casting these politics as socialism, but it's really just theft with ethnic and racial politics thrown in.

[chemainus]

I guess you would say the same about Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and the horde of others who preach socialism and just happen to convert that wonderful political premise into pillage murder and theft.