To feed the voracious appetite of its economic machine galloping at a dizzying 9 percent clip, China has been trolling for resources in Africa. It has spent billions of dollars securing drilling rights in Angola, Nigeria, Sudan and Angola; has exploration or extraction deals with Chad, Gabon, Mauritania, Kenya, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Ethiopia; and has invested in the copper industry in Zambia and Congo as well as buying timber in Gabon, Cameroon, Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea and Liberia. Across Africa, Chinese companies are muscling out Western and other foreign companies, winning contracts to pave highways, build hydroelectric dams, upgrade ports, lay railway tracks and build pipelines. All these forays have been sugar-coated with euphonious anti-colonial verbiage: That China was not a colonial power in Africa. But I dismiss this as "chopsticks mercantilism." With chopsticks dexterity, China can pick platinum from Zimbabwe; oil from Angola, Nigeria and Sudan; cocoa from Ghana; diamonds from Sierra Leone; etc. - all on its own terms.