ABSTRACT
Old China's links with Africa pre-dated those of Europe. The breach between the erstwhile communist allies was the most important political development since the People's Republic proclaimed itself the lawful government of China in 1949. In sub-Saharan Africa, China encouraged dissidents and insurgents in independent states under western influence, as in the Cameroon and Congo in the early 1960s, when the Russians were displaying greater pragmatism. Western powers were beneficiaries because the disarray of their challengers transcended their own contradictions and disunities. By the start of the 1980s disenchantment in Mozambique, over the scale and kind of Soviet development aid, had deepened and western help was solicited. The British colony - the bazaar of Asia - by 1980 had emerged as a booming market-place for the merchandise of two of the international community's least likely business partners.
