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Illustration: Luo Xuan / GT
The Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi have made an official visit to Ethiopia, the African Union's headquarters, Burkina Faso, Gambia and Senegal from 2 to 6 January, which was his first diplomatic trip 2019. As a diplomatic tradition, the Chinese foreign minister visited Africa for the first time every year for the past 29 consecutive years. The continued China-Africa cooperation is not only intended to deepen their traditional friendship, but is also necessary to support economic development on the African continent.
With the acceleration of economic development, industrialization and urbanization in Africa, funds were continuously injected into various African countries. Currently, China is the largest investor in the continent, with its investment covering many areas of development. For this reason, during the 29th African Union (AU) Summit, in 2017, several senior officials of the UA said that the link between the 2063 Agenda of the AU and the The "Belt and Road" initiative (B & R) should be strengthened. Subsequently, 37 African countries and the UA signed the B & R cooperation documents with China, which agreed to seize the B & R opportunity to deepen cooperation and help support development demands. of the region. In terms of political communication, through continuous high-level exchanges between China and Africa, China's development experience has been gradually accepted and adopted by many African countries.
According to a recent report published by the African survey company Afrobarometer, almost two-thirds of respondents said that China's influence in Africa is quite or very positive. As for infrastructure connectivity, in 2017 the Mombasa-Nairobi railway and the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway started operations, effectively promoting the integration process in Eastern Africa. In addition, China is steadily pursuing the project of energy connectivity in East Africa, the project of the energy transmission channel in Central Africa and the cross-border hydroelectric energy project in West Africa.
Meanwhile, thanks to reciprocal bilateral trade relations, trade between China and Africa has grown rapidly, from $ 10.8 billion in 2001 to $ 169.75 billion in 2017. Bilateral trade has also reached $ 222 billion in 2014.
Furthermore, China has also offered substantial aid and investment in Africa. According to the EY & # 39; s Attractiveness Program Africa report in 2017, since 2005 China has invested in 293 projects of foreign direct investment in Africa, for a total of $ 66.4 billion and creating over 130,000 jobs.
China-Africa development cooperation has achieved wide recognition among African countries. Because of the different national conditions and demands in several African countries, China always combines the needs of various countries with its capabilities to design a differentiated development cooperation program to allocate aid, investment and commercial resources in a rational and mutually acceptable. A similar model of development cooperation with Chinese characteristics has gained broad support from the African people.
In the last decades, China has helped Africa to build over 10,000 kilometers of highways, over 6,000 kilometers of railways and hundreds of airports, ports and power plants, with the construction of numerous hospitals and schools across the continent, helped also from China. China has also helped train hundreds of thousands of professionals for various sectors through human resource development projects.
Furthermore, the success of China-Africa development cooperation has also attracted the attention of the international community in Africa. After the Cold War, African issues were again gradually marginalized by the West. It is the continued expansion of development cooperation between China and Africa that has recently attracted the attention of the West. The reason why Western countries have focused on African affairs in recent years is mainly due to their concerns about "Chinese competition" on the African continent.
Cooperation between China and Africa is at the same time a historic choice and the need of the times, which is not one-sided, but a win-win cooperation for all. Not only does Africa need China, but China also needs Africa. Although the West may not be pleased to see China "entering Africa", some major Western powers see a sharp increase in Chinese activities and the growing Chinese presence of Chinese influence in Africa as a challenge to their interests.
However, in the face of the deliberate spread of China-Africa cooperation, African governments and people ignore this discord and firmly adhere to friendly policy towards China. This is actually the best defense and interpretation of "building a China-Africa community with a shared future".
The author is an associate researcher at the Chinese Academy for International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce. [email protected]
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