Africa's trading partnership with China takes many forms

Tanzanian women wait for China's President Xi Jinping to arrive at Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam, March 24, 2013.

A building rises behind a Chinese engineer on the skyline of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan in 2009.

The first lady of South Africa, Bongi Ngema, surveys the table during a March 26 official state lunch while seated with China’s president, Xi Jinping.

China National Geological and Mining Corporation boosted Ivory Coast’s hope for increased manganese production after major investment in the Lauzoua mine in 2013.

The China Gezhouba (Group) Corporation completed this bridge in Bamako, Mali, in 2011, one of many engineering projects conducted in Africa to realize the ‘Chinese Dream’.

A Chinese vendor waits for customers in Omdurman, June 6, 2013. China is Sudan's main trading partner since a 1997 U.S. trade embargo

Nigerian entrepreneur Taofick Okoya found a Chinese manufacturer to produce the parts of a low-cost black doll he calle Queen of Africa. He sells about 8,000 made-in-China dolls each month.

A site manager from China Wuyi, Sinohydro and Shengeli Engineering Construction Group checks progress on Kenya’s Nairobi-Thika highway project in 2011. The $28 billion road is paid for by China, Kenya and the African Development Bank.

Patrons of the Tamoka coffee car in Addis Ababa live in the fifth-largest sub-Saharan economy, thanks to many major Chinese investors.

Chinese living in South Africa pay tribute to former South African President Nelson Mandela in front of the South African Embassy in Beijing December 6, 2013.

Djordje Ozbolt sculpted ‘Made in Africa (Assembled in China)’ for an art show at London’s Herald St Gallery in October, 2013.