China will continue to play a role in uplifting Africa
IN THE past decade and a half, China has emerged as Africa’s largest development partner, tying extensive bilateral and multilateral investments to consolidate Sino-Africa relations.
The Chinese economy, flying at double digits, has fuelled diversifying partnerships in infrastructure, mining, agriculture and manufacturing. Now, it is emphasising quality investments in new technologies and climate friendly green economies, which could help Africa realise its climate change targets.
Where China has succeeded in doing business and forging strong political and economic relations with African countries, Western policy makers and business leaders tend to view the continent with condescending scepticism, almost akin to historical colonial sentiments.
Yet in the past year, Africa has seen more interest from Western powers, with high-ranking government officials from Europe and the US traversing the continent, making promises to assure African leaders that the continent continues to be their priority, despite decades of general neglect or indifference, except for treating the continent as a case for Western aid.
Many critics of China have suggested that China-Africa relations face their first major threat since a decade and a half due to the post-pandemic challenges associated with what they view as sluggish economic recovery in China.
Suggestions are that heightened Western interest in the continent could trigger trilateral geopolitical competition among the big powers, likely to checkmate Sino-Africa relations. Furthermore, economic slowdown in China could scupper some of the most progressive and transformative bilateral and multilateral relations experienced on the continent, judging by the resonating impact, particularly in infrastructure development, political solidarity and consolidating diplomatic relations, some of the reasons why the West is trying to claw back the continent.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) says it is dedicated to pursuing happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation and promoting human progress and world harmony, emphasising that Africa will not be left behind in the realisation of this mission, duty, aspiration and goal.
Speaking at a meeting with the media during the Two Sessions meeting in Beijing on March 7, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China was on course for post-pandemic recovery, at 5% gross domestic product growth, and, through its new reforms anchored on tech-innovation, also called future economies, would play its role in uplifting African countries, the global south, and the rest of humanity by sharing its peaceful development with others.
Wang said Beijing would hold the next meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac) in China this autumn, where Chinese and African leaders would gather again after six years to discuss future development and co-operation and exchange governance experience.
Leaders from China and Africa are set to enhance their long-standing friendship and deepen unity and collaboration to open new avenues while strengthening the partnerships within Focac for faster common development centred on a new chapter for a China-Africa community with a shared future.
Africa continues to be a key member in continental and global initiatives such as Focac, BRICS+, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Global Security Initiative, the Global Development Initiative and the Global Civilisation Initiative, among others, which have set critical shifts beyond hegemonic relations dominated by the West, creating broader spaces for multilateral co-operation rooted in visions of global equity and mutually beneficial relations.
The BRI is playing an important role in multilateral socio-economic development, linking diverse continents through infrastructure, technology and broader economic development. Focac is the prime multilateral platform for China-Africa relations, bringing together 53 African countries, the AU and China.
African giants, such as South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia, are key members of the expanded BRICS+. The BRICS has emerged as a key grouping of countries from the Global South promoting the collective interests of developing nations and advocating for an equal, fair and inclusive multipolar world.
China has remained Africa’s biggest trading partner for 15-consecutive years. Africa-China relations dates from years of solidarity during struggles against Western colonialism and imperialism.
Wang visited Africa in January this year, fulfilling the 34-year tradition that Chinese foreign ministers make their first overseas trips to Africa at the beginning of a new year, marking an unparalleled history of international exchanges.
Wang said China would continue to stand firmly with Africa to support the continent in charting its development path, exercising independent thinking to generate homegrown ideas, including supporting continental capacity for self-driven development and faster modernisation in Africa.
Since independence, African countries have struggled with externally imposed Western models of development that have generally aggravated socio-economic challenges on the continent. Policies such as the Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes, driven by the Bretton Woods institutions in the 1990s, have resulted in enduring legacies of socio-economic turmoil and political instability on the continent, denying Africa muchneeded political stability, economic prosperity and room to experiment with endogenous initiatives and ideas to drive home-grown development and exercise African agency.
Sino-Africa political solidarity has evolved into strong diplomatic relations denominated by mutually beneficial development partnerships, the upliftment of the socio-economic well-being of African and Chinese people, and permissive of African creative ideas to nurture home-grown development based on African conditions.
As a major power, China continues to foster peaceful development and political stability by ensuring that its domestic economic development uplifts socio-economic conditions in other countries, while contributing to conflict resolution to foster peace and stability, based on the principles of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith, and taking the right approach to friendship and interests, as advanced by President Xi Jinping.
China is one of the largest contributors to peace missions through the UN, sponsoring peace diplomacy based on dialogue and mediation to build bridges between violently polarised societies, based on the values of mutual respect and respect for national sovereignty. The simultaneous pursuit of peace and development is not only crucial for stability but provides broader solutions that address structural long-term causes of conflicts, particularly in poorer African countries under fragile states.
Considering consolidating economic and political relations between China and Africa, accelerated post-pandemic recovery in China will be crucial to Africa’s prosperity and stability.
As a major partner in building a community with a shared future for mankind, Africa should innovatively leverage its strong mutually beneficial relations with China for domestic socio-economic transformation and continue to equally participate and share in fostering peace and prosperity for humanity at home and globally.