Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures—and Yours

Chapter Eleven

Old and New Roads to Mandalay

Hard Power in Burma and Beyond

In February 2007, when President Hu Jintao visited Africa, I happened to be in both Nanjing and Johannesburg in the same week. While in Nanjing I saw how the Chinese media lauded the president’s African tour as part of China’s “peaceful rise” on the world stage. The official message was that China was bringing jobs and prosperity to a neglected continent.

Bame Pule, whom I met in Johannesburg a few airports and days later, gave me a more nuanced view of the Chinese investments in Africa. Bame is a Botswanan and a recent graduate of Harvard Business School. He works for a Pan-African venture capital fund in Johannesburg. Having lived and worked in Boston, Los Angeles, ...