Following the release of the latest IMF 'regional economic outlook' report for sub-Saharan Africa, Stephen Marks argues that predictions around Africa's ability to bounce back from the global economic crisis rest on a number of 'good-news' assumptions.

In this week's emerging powers news, focus shifts to China's dealings with various African countries, notably Guinea, which has been under the spotlight for the brutal suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations. Elsewhere, a GreenPeace report accuses Chinese and under multinationals of breaching environmental regulations.

In this week's emerging powers news, Stephen Marks looks at claims by Robert Fisk that Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading, a new report from the IMF suggesting that emerging and developing countries are leading the recovery from the global financial crisis, and demands by Africa's poorest nations for representation in the G20

This week, Stephen Marks reviews Jamie Monson's book, . The book tells the story of the TAZARA Railway - a symbol of the first heroic stage of China’s involvement in Africa and an ideologically inspired symbol of anti-imperialist solidarity, in contrast with today’s more pragmatic and market-driven Chinese engagement with the continent.

Stephen Marks reflects on the recent detention of four Shanghai-based executives of the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto on spying charges earlier this month. Whereas Western governments and business leaders feared the possible implications of the incident for Western firms doing business in China, Marks argues that the incident may well signal a shift of gear in China’s economic strategy.

China’s continuing African trade investment and aid could act as a buffer for African economies, a recent report suggests. And if China can steer its way through the crisis it could become a ‘development partner of choice’, increasing its ‘soft power’ influence in the developing world and acting as a steadying factor in trade and investment compared to the West, writes Stephen Marks.

South Africa is home to one of the largest Chinese communities in Africa, estimated at over 300,000. Most have arrived since the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Africa and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1988, many of them as illegal overstayers. There are also an estimated 30,000 Taiwanese, the remainder of a once larger population of over 100,000 established during and after the 1970s, when the apartheid regime established close relations with Taipei.