Mining OPEC for Africa?
Monday, May 17, 2010 at 12:04AM 
Inevitable development and proper channeling of what will be substantial blowback inside Africa (maybe not on top but definitely from below) regarding Asia's (and particularly China's) ramping up of demand for the continent's mineral resources.
It's misleading and premature to cast China's "penetration" as a colonial-style grab for power. What is happening is the development of a huge co-dependency relationship that lack counterparty capacity (it takes two to tango fairly on any deal) on the part of African nations. In short, China's got its state capitalism shtick in line but African nations lack a cohesive counter, creating uneven transactions (i.e., Africa can always do better) that so far generate a lot of investment and activity and jobs (all great); it's just not clear how evenly that new wealth is being distributed locally in a sustainable fashion.
Gist of piece: time to call the companies' bluff about being able to go elsewhere if they're not treated right by the Africans. With China's heavy entry, that bluff starts looking a lot weaker because finding such volume elsewhere is a whole lot less feasible with each passing year of "sticky" investment.
