The First Ministerial Conference of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was held in Beijing on October 10th 2000. The FOCAC Summit has been held every three years since then. On December 4th and 5th 2015, The Summit was held in Johannesburg of South Africa, the first one held on the African Continent. As the FOCAC mechanism matures and improves, China-Africa relations have entered a period of all-dimensional and in-depth development. During the 2015 Johannesburg Summit, President Xi Jinping and African leaders agreed to upgrade China-Africa relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership. He proposed 10 major cooperation plans covering industrialization, agricultural modernization, infrastructure, finance, green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty alleviation and people’s well-being, public health, culture, peace and security as priorities for future China-Africa cooperation. He promised that China will provide US $ 60 billion in funds to support African development. The Summit drew a new blueprint for win-win cooperation and common development for China and Africa. Since the conclusion of the Summit, the two sides have been carrying out effective cooperation in political, economic and cultural fields. Major progress has been achieved as the outcomes of the Summit are being implemented.

 

Increasing Close Political Exchanges

 

Since the Johannesburg Summit, high-level visits on both sides and personnel exchanges in various fields have increased remarkably. Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi visited 4 African countries in January and February, 2016, which marked the 26th year that Chinese Foreign Ministers chose Africa as the destination for their first foreign visit in the whole year. As soon as the “two sessions” concluded in March, Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress paid a visit to Zambia, Rwanda and Kenya. Then Yu Zhengsheng, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference visited Gabon, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghanna. In the meantime, President Buhari of Nigeria visited China at the invitation of President Xi Jinping from 11th to 15th, April, making him the first African head of state to visit China after the Johannesburg Summit in December last year. In May, President Xi Jinping held talks with Faure, his visiting counterpart from Togo and the two leaders agreed to lift China-Togo relations to a higher level. In June, Kenyan Foreign Minister, Amina Mohamed visited China. In July, President Xi Jinping met visiting President of Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso and jointly decided to upgrade bi-lateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership. In August, Presidnet Yoweri Museveni of Uganda met Foreign Minister Wang Yi. In September, President Xi Jinping met President Zuma of South Africa, President Sisi of Egypt and President Deby of Chad at G20 Hangzhou Summit. In October, Foreign Minister of Sudan Ibrahim Ghandour visited China. On November 2nd, President Xi Jinping held talks with President Alpha Condé of Guinea in the Great Hall of the People and the two heads of state decided to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Guinea. These high-level exchanges of visits show the importance China attaches to Africa and its determination to promote the implementation of Johannesburg Summit outcomes, therefore further increased political mutual trusts and laid sound foundation for the two sides to deepen cooperation in various fields. It is worth noting that as the host, China invited two African countries—Egypt and Senegal to the G20 summit this year and integrated support to African countries’ industrialization in the communiqué. The act shows China’s attention on African countries, and provides the latter with a chance to participate in global governance reform which is necessary and urgent for Africa.

 

Political stability provides environment for economic growth. China has been playing an important role in supporting African Union to maintain African peace and stability, promoting African development and integration. In October 2016, the Special Representative of Chinese Government on African Affairs Xu Jinghu attended the AU Extraordinary Summit on Maritime Security and Safety and Development in Africa at the invitation of AU in Lome, Togo. The two sides exchanged views over relations between China and AU, expanding cooperation on maritime security and blue economy as well as other hot topics concerning the African region. President Xi Jinping announced in last year’s UN Peace-keeping Summit a commitment of US $100 million military aid in the next 5 years to help AU build the African Standby Force. Chinese Permanent Mission to AU is in close communication with relevant departments of AU over the issue. In addition, China has actively participated and promoted peace process in South Sudan, and urged the two sides in conflicts to cease fire, stop violence and accelerate reconciliation. At the request of the UN, Chinese military will soon dispatch a helicopter squad for the first time to Darfur, Sudan. China also plans to train 200 international peace-keeping personnel and participate in 10 landmine clearance missions in the next 5 years.

 

Steadily Growing Economic Cooperation

 

Africa has been the fastest growing continent in the last decade with its average GDP growth rate reaching 4.5% in 2015. But the growth has been limited by poor infrastructure. In 1970s Chinese people assisted Africa in building the Tanzara Railway under extremely harsh conditions. The railway became a symbol of friendship and has played an important role in China-Africa relations. Yet another way of friendship and prosperity was completed in 2016. On October 5th, the Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway was open to traffic. The railway, entirely using Chinese construction standards, is the first modern electric railway in Africa, marking a new page in the history of railway in Africa. Construction of the railway created 48,000 jobs. In addition, Chinese enterprises will design and build a standard railway transportation university to help Ethiopia develop its railway sustainably, thus transforming the model of assistance from “giving someone fish” to “teaching someone how to fish”. Another railway linking Mombassa west and Nairobi is under rapid construction. It is the first new railway in Kenya over a century and the starting point of railway network in East Africa. The railway, once completed, will shorten travel from Mombassa to Nairobi from 10 hours to 4.5 hours. Chairperson of the AU Commission Mme. Dlamini Zuma once said, “African people have a dream—linking all African capital cities with high-speed railways”. Results of China-Africa cooperation have brought Africa nearer to the dream.

 

With China’s active participation, the transportation in some African countries is constantly improving. As networks of railway and highway extend, and electricity supply becomes increasingly stable, a large number of Chinese businesses are coming to Africa for investment.  Their presence has created more employment and taxation, earned more foreign currency, and promoted industry and technology transfer. In the Eastern Industry Zone of Ethiopia, 64 Chinese enterprises have chosen to put up businesses there while 31 have already started operation, totaling an investment of 220 million USD and creating over 8000 local employment opportunities. In October this year, a Chinese-invested pharmaceutical company laid down its foundation in the industry zone. It is the first Chinese medicine project in the zone and will create another 300 jobs upon completion. An Ethiopian International Shoe Market run by a leading lady’s footwear manufacturer—Huajian Group is also located in the zone. Huajian Group employs 4200 local employees, owns 6 production lines and shoe material factories, and exports 2.4 million pairs of women shoes annually. The labor-intensive industry is conducive to lowering unemployment rate in a populous country like Ethiopia. Huajian also trains local employees in a way to “teach them how to fish”, so as to promote Africa’s independent and sustainable development. 

 

With a population of 1.1 billion people, Africa encounters food shortage frequently and needs to import large quantity of food every year. Agricultural development is related to people’s livelihood and economic independence in Africa. Agricultural modernization is one of the priority areas of Agenda 2063 which elaborates on the urgent need of Africa to make its agricultural sector larger in scale, better  organized, industrialized and more international. Agricultural modernization is also a major focus in the cooperation between China and Africa. In the Johannesburg Summit, the two sides agreed that agricultural cooperation should be prioritized as promoting agricultural modernization is an important way to help Africa realize food security. On September 23rd, 2016, the largest agricultural cooperation and development zone between China and Sudan was inaugurated in the Rahad irrigation area. The project is jointly developed by New Era Agricultural Development Co. Ltd. which is owned by Shandong Expressway International, Sudanese Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Rahad irrigation area. It is developed as a platform for mutually-beneficial agricultural cooperation and a pilot project for Chinese agricultural companies to accumulate experience in Africa. Crops such as cotton, oil sunflower and sorghum which grow well in the area can not only enhance local production capacity and food security, but also improve the international competitiveness of local special industry such as cotton, increase revenue and improve farmers’ livelihood. The development zone symbolizes a concrete and new step in China-Africa agricultural cooperation.

 

Cultural Exchanges in Full Swing

 

FOCAC Johannesburg Action Plan clearly points out that “China welcomes African countries to include Chinese in their national education and will support more African countries to build Confucius Institutes and classrooms”. Confucius Institutes are now a global phenomenon. There are currently 500 Confucius Institutes and 1000 Confucius Classrooms in 134 countries over the world, among which 46 are in 32 African countries. On January 25, 2016, a Confucius Institute jointly established by National University of Equatorial Guinea and Zhejiang International Studies University of China was launched in Malabo. It is the first Confucius Institute in Equatorial Guinea. This is an example of implementing the outcomes of FOCAC Johannesburg Summit. More Confucius Institutes spreading Chinese voice and telling Chinese stories in Africa will definitely help China and Africa learn from, identify with each other culturally and sympathize with each other emotionally. 

 

China also promised in the Johannesburg Summit to continue “China-Africa News Exchange Center” program, carry out workshops for African media officials and journalists, and train 1000 media personnel for African countries every year. Measures will be implemented to promote exchanges and visits of Chinese and African media staff and support more news agencies in both China and Africa to dispatch journalists to the other side. In March, 2016, 22 African journalists participated in the coverage of China’s “two sessions” and were dubbed “most popular journalists in China” by French media. The African journalists listened to briefings by experts in various fields on “the secret behind China’s success”and became participants of China’s “soft power”program. In the meantime, Chinese media has sped up its march into overseas market. With support of Nigerian National TV station, China has successfully attracted a large Nigerian audience to take part in cultural exchanges between the two countries. China’s film industry also made great success in popularizing Chinese films to Nigeria. A Chinese film festival held in Lagos attracted many local students and government representatives. A survey by BBC in 2014 found out that Nigeria is the country with most positive sentiments toward China in the world as 85% of Nigerians hold favorable views about Beijing’s influence in the world. Such a result shows that people-to-people exchanges can ensure long-term and sustainable development of China-Africa relations, which enjoy stronger public and social support thanks to the FOCAC framework. 

 

Exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and African think tanks and scholars have attracted increasing attention from all over the world. Since its initiation in 2011, China-Africa Think Tank Forum has been a permanent mechanism for non-governmental dialogue and a strong guarantee for long-term and stable cooperation between Chinese and African academic circles. The forum is not only a non-governmental exchange platform which can stimulate civil society’s dynamism in a bottom-up manner, but also a national platform for academic and social leaders to speak for African scholars top-down, using their own language and way to publicize Africa, China and relations between the two. On April 15th, 2016, the Fifth Conference of China Africa Think Tank Forum was held in Yiwu, Zhejiang. Chinese and African entrepreneurs in various fields carried out in-depth discussion over the theme “Industrial Capacity Cooperation and African Industrialization”. The forum not only promoted communication of ideas and policies, but also helped to solve the obstacles in non-governmental cooperation, laying sound social foundation for upgrading of China-Africa relations and implementation of industrial programs. In August, this year, China-Africa Media Think Tank Forum was held in Mombassa, Kenya. Over 150 renowned think tank leaders and mainstream media representatives from 20-plus countries including China, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, Tanzania, Nigeria, Morocco and Egypt attended the conference. The Forum discussed plans for future cooperation and development, which enhanced political mutual trust, expanded people-to-people exchanges, deepened economic cooperation, and carried China-Africa friendship from one generation to the next.

 

Over 600 years ago, Chinese navigator Zheng He traveled to over 30 Asian and African countries, where he left behind splendid Chinese civilization, advanced technology, peace and friendship. The framework of FOCAC fully carries forward the spirit of Zheng He and makes China-Africa friendship stronger through sincere cooperation and mutual-learning. The Johannesburg Summit has laid a solid foundation for China-Africa solidarity and pointed out direction for future cooperation. China and Africa is working together to create a better future.

 

(Liu Shiqi, studied International Relations in New York University, currently a PhD student in Institute of West-Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)