It is time for China to build soft power in Africa after having made significant achievements in the continent economically, says Fana Gebresenbet Erda of the Institute for Peace and Security Studies in Addis Ababa.
Consolidated partnerships that benefit infrastructure creation and technology transfer should be the main plank of Sino-Africa financial cooperation, says Mike Blades, head of corporate and investment banking of the East Africa office at the Johannesburg-based Standard Bank Group.
Frederico Congolo, a lecturer and researcher at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Mozambique, believes it is wrong to call China a neo-colonizer, an accusation that he says is formulated by Western countries, most of them being former colonizers.
Migration flows between China and Africa have made a defining contribution to the growth and development of both economies, says Ian Goldin, professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford.
Morocco has served as an important link to the West down the ages, yet most Chinese know very little about the country, says China's Ambassador to Morocco, Sun Shuzhong.
Kuruvilla Mathews says the West has been caught off guard by China's new engagement in Africa.
Though the Chinese government has expressed its eagerness to transform China from being the world's manufacturing hub to a knowledge economy, it needs to tread carefully, a Cambridge University professor says.
Chinese funds are now increasingly being deployed for projects that are crucial for African development, says Wang Lipei, the economic counselor of the Chinese embassy in Mozambique.
Sam Kutesa has had plenty to do with China since becoming Uganda's minister of foreign affairs nine years ago, but even before then the lawyer-turned-politician had an intimate knowledge of the country, having visited it many times.
Alemayehu Geda says it is the West, and not China, that still has the bigger economic impact on Africa.
Zhao Qizheng is out there getting China's message across every day through better communication
Boardroom veterans and big shots mingle in the green room of the Beijing business conference, exchanging cards and talking shop while they wait for their turn to deliver a speech or lead a panel discussion.
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