There is need for Russian and African business partners to know more about each other’s capacities and needs so that the significant potential of economic cooperation between these two parties can be utilised. 

China sees no evil, hears no evil in Africa – precisely the kind of posture African dictators, tired of Western lectures, relish. But the problem is not China. It is African leaders who adamantly refuse to learn from their own history, which teaches that every foreign entity that goes to the continent does so to pursue its own interest.

As he launched the African Regional Centre of the New Development Bank (NDB) in Johannesburg on Thursday, nearly 18 months behind schedule, South African President Jacob Zuma must have had mixed feelings. Strife-riven Brazil, Russia, India and China are more risky allies than Zuma reckoned when in 2010 he accepted Beijing’s invitation to join the club.

The response to the Brazilian coup shows that the BRICS powers are not a real alternative to US imperialism.