Democratic Republic of Congo has just agreed a loan for $5 billion - not much less than its average annual gross domestic product over the past few years. You may not be too surprised to hear the money's being lent by China.

Congo wants to use the cash to build some 6,400 kilometres of railways and roads, hospitals and health centres, two universities and government housing units, reports Howard French in the International Herald Tribune. Not to be sniffed at in a country with few decent roads, rampant tropical diseases and "no education system worthy of name".

If the Chinese move at their usual lightening pace, Congo will see more progress in three years - the time needed to complete most projects - than in 47 years of independence, French says.

Naturally, China has an economic interest in trying to revive Congo. The country will pay off the loan by granting China mining concessions, as well as toll rights for the roads and railways constructed with the borrowed money.

Besides extracting resources, China is also "redrawing the economic map in central and southern Africa", French says. Congo's southern copper region will be linked with the Atlantic and the rest of its mineral-rich areas with Chinese-built networks in Angola and Zambia.

But for all China's expertise in infrastructure and its business-like approach, French believes sustainable progress may not be possible in Africa without "big strides in political development" and stronger civil societies.

"What is the good of a university without books, or hospitals without medicines?" he asks.

If the Chinese projects succeed, it's to be hoped they bring benefits for the Congolese people, unlike some existing arrangements with Western mining and logging companies, as John Vidal reports in Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Some foreign companies have managed to secure huge swathes of forest for little more than paltry packages of goods like soap, salt, machetes and, ironically, wood for villagers' coffins. Even those that have promised a little more than a few bars of soaps and sacks of salt don't seem to be honouring their commitments.

According to Vidal, logging conglomerate Safbois promised to build a school and a hospital in three villages in eastern Congo. Yet while precious trees are disappearing from its 100,000 square-mile (259,000 square-kilometre) logging concession, local communities are still waiting for their benefits to materialise.

"Two-thirds of the people in Congo, 40 million people, depend on this forest to provide food, medicines and building materials. It is critical for the survival of the people and animals. This is also one of the biggest stores of carbon in the world, so it is critical, too, for climate change. Yet the companies are being encouraged to take what they can," René Ngongo, who runs Kinshasa-based ecological group Ocean, tells Vidal.

"What is happening is that the exploiters promise to improve living conditions by cutting down the forest. It's a paradox we do not understand," he adds.

The company's financial director, David Blattner, maintains that only a few trees are taken per hectare. But even if that's true, the loggers build roads deep into the forest to get to the most valuable trees. In the process, many more are razed - often those needed by communities for food and medicines. Replanting trees doesn't feature highly on corporate agendas.

"(So), for a few square metres of flooring, or a kitchen door, or a bedpost, the second greatest forest in the world is being destroyed, probably for ever," writes Vidal.

Kinshasa announced in April that it would review all mining contracts, but with little hope that the process will be transparent, Britain's Economist magazine says the review may well be a sham.

Information is hard to come by, with the cost of photocopying given as one excuse for the secrecy. The government has reportedly rejected a proposal for an independent commission, and the review body may remain politicised, serving the interests of the rich elite surrounding Congolese President Joseph Kabila, the Economist warns.

All this underlines how Western involvement has failed to bring about significant improvements in Congo's governance. Sadly for its impoverished population, there's little reason to believe China will do any better.

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