As Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, once pointed out, the good Lord did not see fit to put oil only where there are democratic governments. The Horn of Africa, one of the world's last unexplored oil frontiers, bears this out, as a division of Chinese oil company Sinopec discovered to its cost in the remote Ogaden region of Ethiopia this week. There, nine of its workers were among 74 people killed in an attack by separatist rebels.

Instinctively the Chinese prefer dealing with authoritarian governments, in Africa no less than elsewhere. But stable authoritarian states like China itself are one thing. Operating within unstable, authoritarian states can be quite another.