The late Chinese Prime Minister, Chou-En Lai, upon being asked whether the French Revolution had been a good thing in world history, was reported to have said: “It is still too early to tell.” Watching the Western media analyze the recent emergence of China as a major investor in Africa and likely to become a new factor to rival the historical EuroAmerican ascendancy in African politics, one is even more justified in saying that it is “too soon to tell” what the outcome of the Chinese love affair in Africa will be. Besides China, India is also increasingly mentioned as a new source of large-scale investments in Africa. For the moment, the emergence of the Asian superpowers, themselves once in the sphere of British imperialism, as investors and trading partners in Africa, seems to offer an opportunity of shaking the “marginalisation” into which most African countries have fallen since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989.