...is being won by China. Hands down.

As you may have read in the newspapers the last week, South Africa made a right ass of itself handling the whole Dalai Lama issue.

Little itty bitty background:

South Africa is hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup. So, running up towards that completely overrated, overhyped, unnecessary and incredibly expensive event, together with the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee, SA decided to hold a Peace Conference whereby sport is held as the main focus of bringing peace and prosperity to the world.

Great. Another chance for South Africa to showcase its stability and ownership of the moral high ground to the international community... or another chance for South Africa to showcase its complete idiocy to the world?

Well, turns out that last year, when the planning for this particular event took off, the planning committee (i.e. the South African Government) personally invited a whole bunch of Nobel laureates to attend, all of whom gladly accepted. Amongst which, the Dalai Lama.

...only for the South African government to refuse the Dalai Lama a visitor's visa last week.

A complete and utter shitstorm erupted over this particular diplomatic cock-up, and local Nobel prize winners who sat on the planning committee, Desmond Tutu, FW de Klerk and even Nelson Mandela himself, voiced their disgust at the South African government and decided to boycott the congress in protest. After these three Big Boys of South African history quit, the planning committee decided to postpone the event indefinitely.

Now, instead of showcasing the best South Africa has to offer, the government is sitting with huge egg over its face.

And all because China put pressure on South Africa not to invite the Dalai Lama.

It's all over the European press, and I want to let you guys know that the local South African population is outraged at the government for its stupidity.

We're not all bad.

We're just sitting with a crap government who are dancing to Beijing's beat, and to hell with all that is just, right and moral.

But this is just the latest illustration of the title of this post.

Beijing have been keeping Robber Mugabe in power for the last decade, shipping him weapons, giving him money, all to keep him in power so that China, in return, gets access to Zimbabwe's mineral resources. Without raising any objections at all as to his gross human rights violations and disrespect for anything lawful or even constitutional.

And the same goes for tons of countries on the African continent.

Also, in South Africa, the Chinese government have succeeded in getting the South African government to classify Chinese people as "black", with the express intent of getting them in on the action as far as government contracts are concerned. Over here, government contracts are given to companies based on their black ownership, as a form of Affirmative Action to redress the "imbalances of the past". Now, Chinese construction firms get orders left, right and center, because, according to the South African government, they're "black". They're not even South African, for chrissakes. The profits end up neatly and squarly in Beijing, and the local white population (who would've at least kept the money in the country) are simply barred from participating or benefitting from any local engineering on construction work. They mostly sit at home, slowly sinking away into a sea of poverty with their post graduate degrees, diplomas and certifications hanging uselessly on the walls, their frames nothing more than anchors for spider webs. Not allowed to participate in the economy, local skills sits uselessly at home, waiting for the sweet embrace of death as the country's infrastructure rots away due to an incredibly huge skills shortage.

The next Scramble for Africa is on, and China is winning it hands-down. A century from now, Africa will be recolonised. Locals will study Mandarin en masse, those who can speak the language of the new colonisers will have a better chance of progressing in serving the new master's needs. Those who speak English or French or any of the old colonial languages, will be largely useless to the new masters. And, after realising that the new communism imposed on them is much harsher than what the old colonists subjected them to, a new freedom struggle will begin. A century from today, Africa will still be knee-deep in shit, and the rest of the world will wonder what happened.

But it's inevitable. One way or another, Africa will be recolonised. If only because we're sitting on the largest reserves of untapped resources anywhere in the world - and African governments simply seem unable to do anything about it by themselves.

So - if Europe, America, or any other country in the world wish to have access to Africa's vast storehouse of mineral wealth in the later 21st century, they should start countering the Chinese influence in Africa. Because sure as shit, the African countries are dancing all the more to the Beijing Beat.

The unfortunate incident with the Dalai Lama merely being the latest illustration thereof.