DM: If you look at traditional investors in Europe and the US, yes, there are clearly challenges going on. I wouldn't say it's dried up, I'd say there are a lot of people sitting on the sidelines waiting for things to come back. Most of the discussions I've had with people who are potential investors in Africa, or even globally, are more interested in timing than in whether or not they're going to invest. They're sitting on piles of cash, they're definitely going to come back to the market. So in this type of an environment, what should African countries be doing? What I would argue is that they should be fostering alliances with other countries, non-traditional investors that actually do have money. China has four trillion dollars in foreign reserves. They have seven per cent arable land and 1.3 billion people to feed. Why is Africa wasting its time in Doha, in the World Trade Organisation, round number x, instead of really fostering its relationship with countries that need African food and that are very interested in actually buying African produce? That's what the Africans should be doing. They should be trying to court and to foster alliances with places like India who do have money and I believe really understand African risks, perhaps in a much more sophisticated way. Western investors have always had a donor-recipient relationship with Africa, whereas the Chinese don't come to Africa for free. They want something in return. So there's this whole business culture, entrepreneurial culture that has emerged, which I think is really important.

RD: Yes, Africa's got what China wants and the Chinese have got the money to pay for it. At that level, it's brilliant. But because they only deal government-to-government, the Chinese are even more supportive of those elites and bad governments and they don't believe in accountability, or transparency, or democracy even. They're not going to criticise Africa for not being democratic because they're not democratic themselves. At that level, it's really, really bad. We know they pay considerable amounts in bribes to ministers and others to get what they want and they don't support an accountable, transparent system, so in the governance department they're pretty bad news.

DM: I always find it quite, even very, funny that people in the West, but in the Western media in particular, are very critical of China in Africa, particularly on the issue of corruption, and yet some of Africa's biggest kleptocrats and corrupt individuals have reigned in Africa during the West's supremacy, the aid supremacy. And a lot of them have now passed on, but the Idi Amins of this world, the Mobutu Sese Sekos, the Bokassas-they're almost mythical figures.