In trying to depict its current dealings with Africa as “win-win” cooperation, China deliberately seeks to portray Africa’s current relations with the West as exploitative. Unlike China, its leaders claim, the West continues to hold African countries hostage through a combination of unequal trade deals, lack of access to capital markets, aid dependency, financial deregulation and economic liberalization, budget austerity, crippling debt, political meddling, and military intervention.