The Coronavirus crisis has created a welcome opportunity for us to reassess the relationship between China and Africa on several levels - trade, supply chains, excessive borrowing and predatory lending, racism towards Africans.

Its $300 billion in trade with Africa is threatened, and more important, African countries can't pay their $200 billion in debt to China and are asking for debt forgiveness.

Not least important, China offers a classic lesson in the importance and potency of a coherent worldview backed by masterful strategy, which is what my book Emerging Africa recommends to African leaders and peoples.

Third, with China's capitalist economic transformation started in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping, it's influence in Africa is now driven more by the need for raw materials and energy to support its economy than was the case in the socialist past when it was more about "solidarity".

China's vastly expanded foray into Africa over the past two decades is part of a worldview of global expansion and economic dominance.