For all the fears and complaints about the Belt & Road, it at least offers Africans opportunity.

China actually does more good for Africa than most other countries and organizations you could name.

China’s presence in Africa, by the numbers.

One of China’s largest and most powerful construction companies, with operations all over Africa, discharges local employees if they test positive for HIV. Chinese companies are not known to be paternal in their dealings with employees. Where there is discrimination in Africa by Chinese firms it is mostly social and implicit.

Beginning by educating Africans on Chinese culture through Confucius Institutes on the continent, China now provides thousands of scholarships per year to African seeking to study at Chinese universities. But this arrangement is more than an educational exchange; it is Chinese soft power at work.

Ugandan petty merchants believe not that Chinese are sharper traders than they are but that they are subsidized by the Chinese government, meaning unfair competition. Just as the Trump administration in the United States asserts that China dumps raw steel on world market, selling its own glut of steel below cost, so the vendors of Uganda and Zambia are confident that Chinese traders in their countries can only provide imported goods at lower cost because they are somehow subsidized with export rebates from the Chinese government.

The president-elect’s seeming antipathy for African-Americans and Africa itself concerns many who saw Hillary Clinton as more engaged with the continent. If the Trump administration truly adopts a policy to marginalize Africa, the US may well lose its status among African people as the favored model of development to China.

With São Tomé’s shift, only twenty-one members of the United Nations are still linked to Taiwan. China promises to build roads throughout the two islands and construct markets, shopping centers, and other commercial facilities.

Zimbabwe’s Central Mashonaland province once produced abundant quantities of high-quality tobacco. Production then dropped heavily when Zimbabwean politicians took control of the farms and neglected the lands. But this may change, as Mugabe recently leased five large farms in the area to Chinese entrepreneurs. This development may increase tobacco production and help uplift the local economy.