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.

China is South Sudan’s last best hope. Given the interminable bloodletting and brutal fratricide that engulfs Africa’s youngest nation, and given the inability of the African Union and United States to broker an effective peace, intervention and assistance by China may provide South Sudan with its only viable lifeline.

Without Chinese help, sub-Saharan Africa’s power drought, its daily blackouts, and its ability to attract foreign investment would suffer. Fortunately, China is providing an essential part of the answer in terms of actual construction of new facilities and the finance that will present Africa new supplies to power and upgrade infrastructure.

In mid-March, Mainland China and the Gambia re-opened official links that had been severed since 1995 when the Gambia recognized the Republic of China (Taiwan) instead of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). China will have undoubted leverage for boosting the Gambia’s economic growth.