"I spent a week with the Chinese who were mainly PLA (People's Liberation Army) engineers. I was hugely impressed about how they could get it all done, fix it and have all the manpower and finance in place to do it. It is a way of operating that outpaces anything the West can deliver."

Meredith embarked on writing books after he returned to the UK to become a research fellow at Oxford.

He wrote the first full biography of Nelson Mandela, just beating British writer and former editor of South Africa's Drum magazine Anthony Sampson's authorised one on to the bookshelves.

"I was riveted by Winnie (who was married to Mandela for 38 years) and Anthony said my book was more about Winnie than it was about Nelson. Of course, Winnie was off limits in the authorised version," he laughs.

His latest book illuminates the melting pot of civilizations of the 10,000 political entities that existed before colonization.

Meredith says that some societies such as the Bugandans (from modern day Uganda) made dramatic progress despite having no literacy.

"They had quite advanced administrations without using writing or money right up to the 19th century which proves that it is possible to do this."

It was, however, European colonization that had a devastating effect on the continent with the "Scramble for Africa" in the late-19th century, according to Meredith.

"If you are looking for the problems of modern Africa they all date back to this scramble. It created artificial states that are colonial constructs that encompass all kinds of rival groups and hatreds.

"Nigeria is a completely artificial state containing some 300 linguistic groups and I quote Nigerians themselves as saying that this is something the British dreamt up and not them."

Meredith believes that China could play a role in putting the fragmented continent back together, particularly in making the various customs unions work economically.

"I was asked this at a China forum some years ago and it struck me that China could play a really beneficial role. The British, for example, were trying to put east Africa together as a serious economic grouping but it has now broken apart. I think China now has the real influence to do this."