Like so much of China’s push overseas these days, the rapidly-developing relationship with Africa can look like a carefully co-ordinated and meticulously planned strategy. There are the summits in Beijing and Shanghai, the detailed policy documents and long visits to the region by top Chinese leaders.

Chinese diplomats like to point out that they are not complete newcomers to the continent – the country established relations with a number of African nations in the 1960s and a few state-owned companies have been looking for investments in Africa since the early 1990s. Yet the engagements on all fronts between China and Africa have accelerated rapidly over the past few years because the continent fills so many of China’s immediate needs.