China’s aid to Africa has expanded rapidly as the continent has become a major source of oil from Sudan and Angola, and copper from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Chinese business model in Africa, linking aid, trade, and investment involves extensive infrastructure projects and granting loans as a mean to access natural resources and trade expansion. About 30 African heads of state or government and 20 speakers of parliament visited China from 2007 to 2011. Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice President Xi Jinping, Cabinet ministers and top communist party officials have visited Africa on several occasions. President Hu Jintao visited Africa four times covering 18 African countries. The past few years have seen the most robust high-level exchanges between China and Africa as Beijing has engaged Africa quite seriously. Apart from development assistance, China also promised to initiate the ‘China-Africa Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Security’ and train African armed forces and peace-keepers, implying more Chinese boots in Africa, above the U.N mandated system. These uprisings have adversely affected the internal security of some African countries and have wider repercussions in authoritarian China as the country has witnessed people’s uprisings at unprecedented levels in recent years.Įmphasizing the importance of increased assistance to Africa, Hu announced that China will build more technology demonstration centers and implement the “African Talents Program” to train 30000 personnel, offer 18,000 government scholarships, build cultural and vocational skills training facilities, and send 1,500 medical personnel in next three years to boost the new type of China-Africa strategic partnership. This carries particular importance as the Western world has actively participated in the Arab Spring, particularly in Libya, and the confrontation is reaching to a new level in the case of Syria or Iran. Hu asserted Chinese commitment to African countries’ independent choice of development paths, and he condemned any kind of external interference, a direct criticism on western policies and interferences in Africa and elsewhere. The Conference happens in every three years and 500 participants, including heads of state and top minsters from China and 50 African countries participated in this year’s conference in Beijing, including the presidents of South Africa and Niger, the prime minister of Kenya, etc.Īddressing the delegates, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, stated that “Chinese and African people have always treated each other as equals with sincerity and friendship”. In the recently concluded fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) on China-Africa strategic partnership, President Hu Jintao pledged a US$20 billion of credit line for African countries in the next three years-double the amount of what China promised to lend Africa at the last joint forum three years ago.įOCAC is a strategically-oriented move launched in October 2000 between China and African countries for collective consultation, dialogue, and partnership. China has outmaneuvered everybody else in the strategic calculations with respect to cultivating relationships with Africa.
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