China began taking part in Sudan's energy development in the mid-1990s. By the end of 2003, the country invested a total of $2.7 billion in Sudan, laying 1,560 km of oil pipelines, building an oil refinery with an annual processing capacity of 2.5 million tons of crude oil and a number of gas stations.

These projects not only turned Sudan from an oil importer into an exporter but also gave Sudan an oil industry setup complete with prospecting, production, refining, transportation and sale operations. China also spent more than $20 million helping Sudan build domestic installations such as schools and hospitals.

As for Nigeria, the reality is that the largest oil-producing country in Africa is still an exporter of crude oil that relies on imported gasoline more than 50 years after Royal Shell started extracting oil there, because it has yet to possess a complete oil industry with both extracting and processing capabilities.

What makes the World Bank report even more remarkable is that, regarding enthusiastic debates among media entities as well as scholars whether China's format of trade and cooperation with Africa and ways to proceed are better than the West's or the other way around, it maintains "with new actors and new modalities, there is a learning process ahead for borrowers and financiers, both new and old".

Indeed. And this learning process should involve all parties concerned learning from one another, because it is aimed at helping Africa realize the UN Millennium Goals and benefit from globalization as a player who can hold his own.

The author is a researcher with Institute of West Asian and African Studies of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

(China Daily August 5, 2008)