All-weather Friends

African leaders pay state visits to China, vowing to build an even stronger shared community

The 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which attracted leaders from more than 50 African countries, witnessed commitment from both sides to forge a stronger China-africa comprehensive strategic and cooperative partnership. In addition, bilateral relations between China and individual African countries also gained momentum for further advancement by dint of the multilateral platform. Before and after the summit, at the invitation of Chinese leaders, heads of state and government from 10 African countries including Ethiopia, Egypt, South Africa, Botswana and Cote d’ivoire paid visits to China, with fruitful bilateral cooperation deals signed.

He Wenping, a researcher at the Institute of West-asian and African Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that since the establishment of the FOCAC mechanism, both multilateral and bilateral cooperation between China and African countries have realized leapfrog development. Under the cooperation framework of the FOCAC in recent years, cooperation in the fields of trade, investment, construction assistance, people-to-people exchanges and finance between the two sides have all seen rapid expansion.

According to the scholar, not only has China been Africa’s largest trading partner for eight consecutive years, Africa has also become China’s third largest overseas investment market and the second largest overseas engineering contract market. By the end of 2017, China’s investment stock in Africa had exceeded $100 billion, while more than 3,500 Chinese companies were operating on the continent.

A 2017 field study by Mckinsey & Co. found that in some 1,000 Chinese companies operating in eight African countries, 89 percent of the employees were local. Two thirds of these companies provide on-thejob training for local employees and about half of them have set up apprentice workshops or schools. Leading global accounting firm Ernst & Young said in a report last year that Chinese investment in Africa created more than three times the number of local jobs than that of the United States in 2016 alone. Since the introduction of the 10 major cooperation programs at the 2015 FOCAC Johannesburg Summit, Chinese companies have created about 900,000 jobs in Africa and provided technical or vocational training for over 200,000 African people.

What’s more, despite increasing global economic instability and rising protectionism, China-africa cooperation has been pioneering and innovative. In 2017, the total import and export trade between China and Africa reached $170 billion, up 14.1 percent year on year.

Closer relations

Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted that African countries are China’s true friends and called on both sides to firmly support each other on issues concerning their core interests and major concerns. The defining features of China-africa relations—sincerity, friendship, mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit and common development—remain unchanged in the new era.

Ethiopia is often mentioned as “the China of Africa” and the Ethiopian Government sees China as a model for development. By pursuing a development path similar to China in recent decades, the country has averaged about 10 percent growth over the past 10 years.

During his visit to China, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali hailed China as a reliable friend in the course of Ethiopia’s development, and said China’s invaluable assistance has always been crucial to Ethiopia’s economic restructure and achievements. Abiy also said Ethiopia hopes to actively participate in the building of the Belt and Road Initiative, broaden bilateral exchanges and cooperation and strengthen coordination in international affairs with China.

Abiy also praised the role Chinese enterprises have played in the economic and social development of his country, and declared that Ethiopia is willing to strengthen human resources, energy and infrastructure cooperation with China, improve the business environment and welcome Chinese companies to invest in Ethiopia.

Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s visit to China marked a historic milestone in the development of China-botswana relations. In an interview with Chinese media, Zhao Yanbo, Chinese Ambassador to Botswana, noted that China has funded over