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With the increase of China’s economic strength and its international political status on the rise, providing international public goods has become an important part of China’s participation in reshaping the international order. As a piloting effort prior to the Belt and Road Initiative, China-Africa cooperation has provided Africa with a large number of regional public goods, among which infrastructure construction and the alignment of China’s development experience with Africa’s development strategy are the best and most unique ones.

China’s Contribution to Regional Public Goods Supply in Africa

Since the launch of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000, with the deepening of ChinaAfrica cooperation and the upgrading of their strategic cooperation level, China’s regional public goods for Africa have also shifted from hard ones such as infrastructure to both hard and soft ones. Soft regional public goods include knowledge, experience and institutions conducive to the sustainable development in Africa.

1. Material public goods: promoting connectivity of infrastructure in Africa

Parag Khanna, an American scholar, believes that the most important public good of the 21st century is infrastructure, and China is a major provider of it. According to statistics from the World Bank in 2017, the annual funding shortage for African countries in infrastructure construction was $48 billion, while the African Development Bank estimated the figure at $68-$108 billion. China-Africa infrastructure cooperation was included in the “Ten Major ChinaAfrica Cooperation Programs” declared at the FOCAC Johannesburg Summit in 2015 and listed as a major area in the “Eight Initiatives” declared at the FOCAC Beijing Summit in 2018. According to the US accounting firm Deloitte, China has funded one-fifth of Africa’s infrastructure projects and undertaken onethird of Africa’s infrastructure projects, being the largest funder and contractor of African projects. Because of China’s influence, infrastructure construction in Africa, once marginalized by western aid, has again drawn attention from major powers. For example, in April 2019, the UK launched a three-year-long Prosperity Fund infrastructure project. Japan has also listed the expansion of overseas infrastructure investment as its top priority of development cooperation.

2. Institutional public goods: underscoring the importance of African issues

The post-war international order is essentially a set of Western-dominated international institutional arrangements with rules more reflective of Western development experience, serving the interests of developed countries, although developing countries in Africa and other continents have nominally been equally included in the global governance system. Africa remains in a vulnerable position in the international order.

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