Two schools of thought guide most of India's debate on Africa. On the one hand, you have the emulationists who believe that India should match Chinese moves in Africa without any delay or hesitation. But the reality is that New Delhi simply lacks the capabilities and profile to compete. India's public companies have a record of bids lost to the Chinese, starting with the 2006 Angola oil debacle and, more recently, in a large Ethiopian rail project. On the political front, the 2008 India-Africa summit in Delhi attracted merely 14 African leaders, as compared to 48 who visited Beijing in 2006.
