RD: Exactly, but I mean that's what the Chinese do, they do secret deals with the bosses and they don't encourage any accountability from Africans.

DM: The reason I'm more sympathetic to the Chinese model is because as an African you can see a road that has been built by the Chinese, there's a bridge, people have jobs because of the Chinese. The Pew surveys which were done out of the US, they went to about 15 countries in Africa and they surveyed Africans. What do you think about the Chinese being here? Better or worse economically for you? Who do you think is better, the Americans or the Chinese? Consistently, contrary to media reports, Africans - whether they're in Ethiopia, Ghana or Zambia - said they preferred the Chinese.

RD: What's wonderful about the Chinese - and here I would completely agree with you - is that when they go to Africa they live with Africans, they don't require 4x4s and air-conditioned houses, they just live as ordinary people and they don't have that poisonous colonial relationship and they treat Africans fairly straightforwardly and equally. I think that's really, really good. But how is it that they are already, in Zambia and lots of other places, doing jobs that Africans should be doing? They're running little shops, they're starting to cultivate little plots of land.

DM: Absolutely, but, again, this whole aid dependency model creates a situation where Africans just sit there and have somebody else come in. This whole notion of foreigners coming into Africa and setting up businesses and being part of the mercantile or the middle class, it's not a new story, the Indians have done it for a long time, the Lebanese in West Africa are very well known. It is a great tragedy and I do in that sense defer to your point about the culture but Africa is suffering from a very serious PR problem. When you think of Africa, you think of what I call the four horsemen of Africa's apocalypse: you think of poverty, you think of war, you think of corruption and you think of disease. That is what people think of Africa and until people start to think, "Wow, this is actually a place to go and invest, there's an opportunity to go and meet Africans who are interesting, who want the same things that - guess what? - we all want." Until we change that fundamental model we are being asked to raise African children in an environment where they are constantly being told they can't do something. They're poor, they're dirty, they're not smart, they're beggars and they're always going to be at the bottom.