Chronology
From a CPC official to an ambassador is more than a job change, he said. “It was the time I represented my country, and it made me very proud.”
Without the previous experience of inter-party exchanges, Ai said he could have faced more challenges in the new position. The friendship established previously always helped him reach the right person in an efficient way: “It was like having an extra channel for communication.”
After his term ended in 2004, it took Ai six years to return to Ethiopia. When he went there as deputy head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee in 2010, he was amazed by the changes. He also realized China-africa relations had entered a new level.
In the new era of globalization, Ai says the basis of diplomatic relations between countries goes beyond similar ideology, party-to-party relations or individual friendship. Mutual benefit achieved through cooperation is the core issue.
“In any country in the world, diplomacy always serves domestic needs,” he said. “China has been focusing on economic development since the initiation of reform and opening up in the late 1970s, so the aim of its foreign policy is to create a favorable environment for modernization and promote economic exchanges with other countries.”
After retiring from the International Department of the CPC Central Committee in 2014, Ai was
July 1921: founded.
October 1949: The CPC becomes the ruling party of China.
December 1977: The CPC Central Committee conducts exchanges with some political parties in countries in Sub-saharan Africa, breaking the tradition of the CPC conducting exchanges only with Marxist and Leninist parties. The decision not only was a breakthrough in its exchanges with political parties in African countries, but also heralded a new era for the CPC’S foreign-exchange initiatives worldwide.
May 1978: A Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party delegation visits China. This was the first African political party received by the CPC.
1991: A CPC delegation led by Li Ruihuan, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, visits Senegal, Burkina Faso, Uganda and Burundi. This was the first high-level delegation to Africa after the CPC began exchanges with the ruling parties of African countries in the late 1970s. Since then the CPC Central Committee has been sending delegations to Africa annually.
1994: The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front sends its first delegation to China.
2001: A South African Communist Party delegation visits China.
December 2004: A CPC delegation arrives in Madagascar for the first national congress of Tiako I Madagasikara, the ruling party.
December 2012: A CPC delegation attends the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
April 2013: Ai Ping, Vice Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, attends the founding ceremony of the Council of African Political Parties in Khartoum, Sudan.
July 2016: The CPC and South African Communist Party both celebrate their 95th birthday. The Communist Party of China (CPC) is elected as Vice President of the Chinese Association for International Understanding, a non-profit organization established for “letting the world understand China, and letting China understand the world.”
zhengyang@chinafrica.cn