Beijing is offering crisis-ridden Guinea $1.5 billion for a 47 percent stake in the world's largest unmined reserves of iron ore. It will likely get it because China is offering huge investments in infrastructure -- highways, schools, industry, airports and the like -- in a barely functioning state that has little infrastructure.

Guinea is the world's largest bauxite exports but also one of the poorest states in West Africa. It also has significant deposits of gold, diamonds and uranium.

The country was recently plunged into turmoil by two military coups since the December 2008 death of longtime military dictator Lansana Conte. But multi-party democracy is unlikely to emerge.

In the meantime, Chinalco, the state-owned metals and mining company, is embroiled in a legal battle with Rio Tinto, the British mining giant, over the much-prized Simandou concession in the southwest.

China appears to be prepared to go to great lengths to secure the concession to increase the global supply of iron ore to throttle the power of Australian and Brazilian iron-ore companies to dictate prices.

In October 2009, the Hong Kong-registered China International Fund signed a $7 billion deal with Guinea's repressive military regime, which killed 157 protesters in the streets of Conakry a month earlier, for access to the country's bauxite and other minerals.

This has thrown an economic lifeline to a regime many consider to be rogue. This willingness to do business with such unsavory regimes lies at the heart of Beijing's success over the last few years in securing energy and raw material supplies across Africa.

In return, it promises huge infrastructure investments in countries that are badly run and usually impoverished through rampant corruption. Estimates of Chinese investment in Africa range as high $50 billion since 2001.

This has drawn mounting criticism from human rights organizations that China's dealings with Africa's dictators impedes the progress of social and political development in a continent wracked by war and civil strife and prevents good governance.

The Chinese have taken advantage of the economic upheaval in the industrialized West because of the global financial meltdown. The footholds it is establishing open potentially lucrative consumer markets for China down the road. Africa also offers Beijing important diplomatic backing on global issues.

CIF is a private company and its real ownership isn't clear. There is considerable speculation that it is ultimately run and funded by the Beijing government.

This company has been particularly active in the investment field. In Angola, Africa's leading oil producer, it has secured access to an important supply of energy from an undemocratic regime.

In return, CIF has brokered huge infrastructure projects that include 215,000 housing units, restoring 1,000 miles of highway and 1,665 miles of railroad, plus the construction of a new international airport in Luanda, the capital of the former Portuguese colony.

In troubled Niger, the Chinese have managed to oust the French, the former colonial rulers, for access to the West African country's vast uranium deposits.

In oil-rich Algeria, some 50 Chinese companies, most of them state-owned, have been awarded government construction contracts worth some $50 billion.

The Americans and Europeans have been the big importers of Algerian oil and gas for years, but China is muscling in -- while taking home a big slice of Algeria's petrodollars.

China's trade with Africa has soared 10 times since 2001, hitting $1 billion in 2008.

In Kenya, China is offering to fund a big piece of a $4 billion project to develop a port at Lamu on the Indian Ocean together with and oil pipeline and road and rail links that would connect it to southern Sudan and land-locked Ethiopia.

China has extensive oil interests in southern Sudan, which is expected to vote for secession from the Arab-dominated north in a 2011 referendum that is already threatening to re-ignite the country's ruinous civil war.

The Khartoum regime isn't likely to allow the oil-rich south to secede without a fight. The south's oil currently is piped to the north but a new export route through Kenya would give the south the basis for a viable economy.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News