Everyone is talking about how China is making big investments in Africa...

But it seems this economic relationship is not new at all...

A joint expedition of scientists led by Chapurukha M. Kusimba of The Field Museum and Sloan R. Williams of the University of Illinois at Chicago has unearthed a 600-year-old Chinese coin on the Kenyan island of Manda that shows trade existed between China and East Africa decades before European explorers set sail and changed the map of the world.

Anyone who has studied African history with any kind of depth (which I did in high school—one of the few great achievements of the post-revolution Zimbabwe government was the implementation of college-level courses in African history at the O Level) will not be surprised by this finding. Many in the West have no idea of how rich and fluid the African past was...

"Zheng He was, in many ways, the Christopher Columbus of China," said Dr. Kusimba, curator of African Anthropology at The Field Museum. "It's wonderful to have a coin that may ultimately prove he came to Kenya," he added.
Dr. Kusimba continued, "This finding is significant. We know Africa has always been connected to the rest of the world, but this coin opens a discussion about the relationship between China and Indian Ocean nations."