By Tom Ashbrook.

Chinese president Hu Jintao hits the road in Africa today for an eight-nation tour, just the latest in a flood of exchange between China and the world’s poorest continent.

Across Africa today, Chinese crews are building railroads and schools, roads and bridges and hospitals and fiber optics. They’re pulling out mountains of minerals and oceans of oil to feed China’s roaring economy. They’re raining billions on cash-starved Africa.

But they’ve also provided the helicopter gunships that terrorize Darfur, the shiny blue tiles that decorate the roof of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, and the diplomatic cover that keeps bad actors in power.

This hour On Point: China in Africa, and the new face of global power.

Guests:

Garth Le Pere Executive Director of the Institute for Global Dialogue in Johannesburg, South Africa

Adama Gaye in Lome, Togo, author of “The Dragon and the Ostrich”

Simon Robinson in Pandharkawada, India, South-Asian Bureau Chief for Time Magazine

Peter Takirambudde, Executive Director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch

Karen Monaghan, national Intelligence Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

Mure Dickie, Financial Times Beijing Correspondent.