China is expanding its presence and influence across Africa. Sino-African trade has jumped nearly six-fold in recent years, and some 800 Chinese businesses operate across the continent. After centuries of enslavement, colonization and failed economic policies imposed by the West, Africans are attracted by China's no-strings-attached model of aid and investment. But while China is helping to build new ports and roads, it also is inundating Africa with low-cost goods and labor, resulting in the loss of many African businesses and jobs. Moreover, China's ever-growing demand for oil and other natural resources has led it to invest in oil-rich countries like Sudan, which have been condemned by the West for genocidal practices or human-rights abuses. In response, the United States and other Western nations are playing catch-up in the race for African oil, while scrambling to hold onto their once-historic dominance over Africa's other resources and markets.

Karen Foerstel is a freelance writer who has worked for the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report and Daily Monitor, The New York Post and Roll Call, a Capitoll Hill newspaper. She has published two books on women in Congress, Climbing the Hill: Gender Conflict in Congress and The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Congress. She currently lives and works in London.