Trade and investment are likely to dominate the agenda when African and Chinese leaders meet for a summit here this weekend that is expected to yield pledges for more aid, training, health and agricultural assistance, and debt relief for Africa.

More than 40 African heads of state and representatives are expected to attend the two-day summit, which opens on Saturday with all 48 invited countries sending representatives.

The five remaining nations in the 53-strong African Union that have kept ties with Taiwan, which China does not recognise, have also been invited to send observers.

China’s Foreign Ministry says the summit is the largest and most extensive gathering of Chinese and African officials in history. While Western nations increasingly condition financial assistance on political reform and respect for human rights, analysts say many African leaders welcome China’s streamlined, no-questions-asked approach to aid.

Beijing has preached a policy that says free trade and investment are enough to kick-start economic growth in Africa, and has backed up its rhetoric with massive imports of African oil, cotton, timber and minerals.

More oil used to keep China’s engines moving comes from Angola than anywhere else in the world, and China accounted for 10 percent of Africa’s exports last year as it struggled to fuel a steady nine percent growth rate and natural material shortage.

Meanwhile, cheap finished products manufactured with African raw materials, ranging from sandals to jet fighters and motorbikes, are being sold cut-rate back to Africa.

But near the top of the agenda at this weekend’s summit will be pledges by China to send more doctors and nurses to Africa, offers to share China’s agricultural knowledge, and to keep building infrastructure such as hospitals, hotels, roads and ports.

Some 950 Chinese doctors and nurses are currently working in Africa, according to China’s Ministry of Health, and several thousand African students have been trained in China.

A significant commitment of Chinese troops to United Nations peacekeeping is also expected at the summit, and Beijing will also cancel more African countries’ debts – it has already dropped over US $1 billion for 36 countries.

Chinese leaders are hoping their show of magnanimity will help to cool a backlash of resentment against their presence on the continent that has already seen their oil fields in Angola and copper mines in Zambia threatened.

Western human rights watchdogs have criticised China’s policy of prioritising trade and sovereignty while keeping quiet about politics, and especially condemned its arms trade and financial links with Sudan and Zimbabwe, both accused of massive rights violations.

The Sudan government in Khartoum is accused of sponsoring genocide in the country’s western Darfur region, but China has refused to back any initiatives that go against its bedrock diplomatic principle of “non-interference” in the affairs of other countries.

On the sidelines of the summit, Chinese leaders have been meeting separately with Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the Sudanese president. Bashir is scheduled to brief the press on Friday morning.

A recipient of food aid until 2005 when the UN World Food Programme (WFP) declared China self-sufficient, earlier this year WFP announced that China had already become the third largest food donor in the world.

While China has lifted itself out of the mire and is now among the fastest developing countries in the world, most African countries have seen income and growth levels stagnate since the 1970s, despite having extensive reserves of raw materials and minerals.

Although most Chinese food aid is sent directly to North Korea, US $11 million has been sent to WFP projects mostly in Africa since 2000, according to WFP.

The summit is the third time Chinese and African leaders have sat down together since the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was established in 2000.