Abuja — Up until the 1950s, British schoolmasters made the pupils in this country's schools to read a book that easily reflected the Europeans' condescending attitude towards both Africa and China. The opening passage of the story was, "Once upon a time there was a Giant. He lived in Africa. He went to China to buy a lamb..."

Actually the Brits were mistaken, if you think about it. The Giant lived in China, and he only went to Africa to buy a lamb. That much is evident from the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation meeting that opened yesterday at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sham-el-Sheikh.

In his opening speech at the Forum, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao pledged to give African countries 10 billion dollars in concessional loans, on top of the 5 billion dollars in assistance that the Chinese pledged to Africa at the Forum's last meeting held in Beijing in 2006. In addition, Mr. Wen pledged to cancel the debts of 31 African countries and to build 100 clean energy projects across Africa.

All should stand up and listen, because this matter of China-Africa "cooperation" is going to be heard more and more often. It has already caused considerable unease among the Europeans and the Americans, people who have become accustomed in the past 500 years of seeing Africa as their natural dustbin.

But now the Chinese are coming. Since 1995, when President Jiang Zemin ordered them to "Go abroad!", Chinese firms have been pouring investments into oil and other raw materials in Africa in order to fuel their own country's roaring economy. In the last five years alone, Chinese direct investment in Africa soared from 491 million dollars in 2003 to 7.8 billion dollars in 2008. Total trade between China and Africa surpassed 100 billion dollars in 2008, a tenfold increase in eight years. The Chinese dragons have also built schools, hospitals and clinics to fight malaria and have offered scholarships for Africans to study in China.

However, envious Western journalists, academics and politicians are pouring sand into the Sino-African garri by alleging that the Chinese assist repressive African regimes in return for lucrative business deals and that they do not demand good governance or respect for human rights before they jump into bed with an African regime.

Very good. Who is complaining about Africa's romance with the Chinese? Who was it in the 1960s who invented the word realpolitik? China is projected to be the next superpower, with an economy projected to overtake Germany's this year, overtake Japan's in a few years' time and overtake the US' Goliath economy anytime between 2035 and 2040. We Africans want to grab the short Chinese coat-tails and ride on it into what is expected to be the Chinese Century.

All those people who are saying that the Chinese are a dangerous partner to Africa, what did they themselves do when they lorded it over this continent in the last 1,000 years? Beginning with the Romans; when Alexander the Great came charging into Egypt, all the books that the Greeks and Romans later wrote, allegedly plagiarised from looted Egyptian libraries, did they pay for the copyright?

All the Arabs who brought mirrors and kaftans to African chiefs and marched away across the Sahara with long columns of slaves, were they better than the Chinese? The Portuguese too should shut their mouths in this matter. Since they came to the African coast 600 years ago and began carting away our palm oil and then their ace sailors piloted the ships in which 10 million West Africans were shipped away to slavery in the Americas, which human rights did they respect?

Even the French, what can they tell us about being wary of the Chinese? The French should remind their cousin, King of the Belgians Leopold and his heirs, to pay reparations to us for sitting down in Berlin in 1884 and using a pencil to carve out Africa into colonial entities. The French themselves should pay for "assimilating" Africans during the colonial era.

The Brits should also keep quiet on this matter. Is it our fault that their British Empire collapsed? For 100 years, they made African pupils to be singing, "The sun shall never set on the British Empire!" while they were busy carting off African cocoa, cotton, groundnuts, hides and skins, oil and bambara nuts. Now they want us to be wary of the Chinese. What can the Chinese do that they themselves have not already done? I am reminding our father the Emir of Kano to send to Westminster his bill for the rebuilding of Kano City's wall, which Lord Lugard used a Maxim gun to breach in 1903. If it were the Chinese, who know the value of Great Walls, they would never have shot down Kano's wall.

Let's not talk about the Germans. All the colonies they grabbed across Africa in the 19th Century, in Tangayinka, Namibia, Togo and Cameroun, what did they do with them? Why, despite the so-called German national efficiency, did they draw a poor boundary line around Bakassi, and set the stage for our troubles with Cameroun?

Even the Russians, we won't listen to their admonitions to be wary of the Chinese. Anyway, we thank them for helping the liberation struggle in many parts of Africa, though they didn't do it for humanitarian reasons, but as part of their Cold War against the Western Powers. All that they were good at giving to us were Kalashnikov rifles, T-54 tanks, surface-to-air missiles and MiG fighters. Apart from the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, completed since 1956, which other important socio-economic project have the Russians done in Africa, including the Ajaokuta Steel Mill, uncompleted after 35 years [maybe not entirely their fault]?

Even the Japanese, if they come here warning us to be wary of the Chinese, we will drive them away, because we hear that they are yet to atone for the Rape of Nanking in 1937, or even to update their school textbooks and mention what their troops did in China in 1937-45. Apart from inundating Africa with Sony TVs, Honda cars, Suzuki motorcycles and Yashica cameras, what else have they done?

The Taiwanese too, we Africans want to advise them to go and reconcile with their elder brothers in the Peoples Republic and see whether they can benefit from the One China, Two Systems policy that Hong Kong got. Otherwise, we Africans are fed up with sub-standard consumer goods manufactured by Taiwanese factories, allegedly with specifications from crooked African businessmen.

Or the biggest one of them all, the Americans. We Africans have followed them sheepishly all through the American Century, and all we got was an Africom military command based in Stuttgart. Now they do not want us to follow another strongman. Who said? Today, this Mandarin Chinese music sounds sweeter in African ears than American jazz. Look, the Chinese Giant is here to buy a lamb, and we will ensure that he buys a goat, a Gudale bull and a bag of Bambara nuts as well...