"Build it, and they will come" is China’s dictum for infrastructure construction at home, but has it been able to do the same in Africa? A new report by the National Bureau of Asian Research looks at just how well China’s huge investments in that continent are turning out. The basic numbers are impressive: Over the last 20 years, a small handful of Chinese financiers and state-owned enterprises have financed one in five new infrastructure projects across Africa, and built a third of them.