Stephen Marks and Sanusha Naidu

Donald Kaberuka, head of the African Development Bank, called the impact of the crisis on Africa an ‘emergency’ and ‘deeper than anticipated at the beginning’.

Jeffrey Sachs, economic adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, expressed the hope that ‘China can lead the world out of this crisis first’.

The speech wove together China’s traditional friendship with Africa and the forging of a new consensus. It indicated how Beijing seeks to cement its ties with the continent in a changing global environment of instability and economic uncertainty.

The spectacle of a China-US trade war raised its head again last month when Paul Geithner, President `Obama’s nominee for the post of Treasury Secretary, told the Senate’s finance committee in a written response to questions, that “President Obama – backed by the conclusions of a broad range of

The world’s financial markets took a boost this week when China announced a $586bn programme of investment in infrastructure and social welfare amounting to 7 percent of GDP in each of the next two years.