Angola’s government, in need of reconstruction funds after the country’s long civil war, was in the process of negotiating a new loan with the International Monetary Fund in 2004. The IMF, aware of Angola’s long history of corruption and poor governance since independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, was keen to include measures to cut corruption and tighten the country’s economic management. But as bank officials pushed harder for a signature, the government suddenly broke off negotiations. The Angolans had received a counter-offer: a $2 billion loan proposed by China’s export-credit agency, Exim Bank. The deal from Beijing came with minimal rates of interest, a generous payback period, and none of the IMF’s “conditionalities”. The government in Luanda accepted China’s offer.