It is an all-out campaign to win African hearts and minds. The Summit will see leaders of 48 African nations converging on Beijing to highlight the Asian superpower’s growing role in the African continent.

• In the last decade, Chinese companies have plunged capital into African projects, from railways in Angola to telecommunications in Nigeria to hotels in Sierra Leone. China has extended African nations more than $1 billion in debt relief.

• China is increasingly reliant on African raw materials, especially energy, to feed its roaring economy, even as it seeks to rival the West as model and financier for the developing world. For African leaders, Chinese money often comes without strings attached by other aid sources, such as the World Bank, which insist on environmental or labour stipulations or try to impose penalties for corruption.

Why China is chasing African oil

2nd largest oil consumer in the world after the United States. China overtook Japan in this regard in 2003.

100 million barrels is what China wants in emergency strategic reserves over the next five years.

One-third of China’s total crude imports comes from Angola, Sudan, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad and Nigeria.

Top crude supplier to China is Angola, sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer after Nigeria. From January to September 2006, Angola supplied 18.2 million tonnes of crude, while Saudi Arabia supplied 17.9 million tonnes. Congo is China’s sixth biggest supplier of crude and shipped 4.3 million tonnes to the Asian country in the same period. $50 billion is the projected bilateral trade between China and Africa this year. $6 billion is the worth of investment that China has made in the African continent, mostly in energy and infrastructure projects.