Xi Jinping had a clear aim as he hosted delegates from more than 50 African countries for a major summit in Beijing this week: proving beyond doubt that China is the continent\u2019s premier foreign partner. <\/p>\n
The Chinese leader made his case with ceremony on Thursday when, flanked by dozens of African leaders and the UN secretary general in the Great Hall of the People, he vowed to elevate ties between China and the continent to an \u201call-weather community with a shared future\u201d \u2013 a status that Beijing reserves for its staunchest diplomatic allies. <\/p>\n
He also made a raft of promises to the continent, to be fulfilled over the next three years: more than $50 billion in financial support; the creation of one million jobs; tens of millions in food and military aid \u2013 while vowing to \u201cdeepen cooperation with Africa in industry, agriculture, infrastructure, trade and investment.\u201d <\/p>\n
Leaders including South Africa\u2019s Cyril Ramaphosa, Kenya\u2019s William Ruto and Nigeria\u2019s Bola Tinubu assembled in the Chinese capital this week for the three-day forum that Beijing hailed as its largest diplomatic gathering in years. <\/p>\n
Xi\u2019s bid to African governments comes as China appears to be reining in its previously free-flowing funding for Africa\u2019s development \u2013 amid its own economic slowdown and criticism its lending there had helped to saddle countries with unsustainable debt. <\/p>\n
Now, other powers like the United States are ramping up their own efforts to boost ties with the resource-rich continent, as they seek to counter China\u2019s political influence and secure access to critical resources key to powering the green energy transition. <\/p>\n
The three-yearly forum on China-Africa cooperation, which wrapped Friday, was a key opportunity for Xi and his officials to telegraph their commitment to the continent, whose backing has only grown in importance for Beijing in the face of its mounting friction with the West. <\/p>\n
Here are the main takeaways from Xi\u2019s pitch to the continent this week. <\/p>\n
Xi and Chinese officials appeared keen to show that Chinese investment, including in African infrastructure, was not over \u2013 even as data show Chinese lending for Africa\u2019s development and big-ticket infrastructure has fallen substantially in recent years. <\/p>\n
The Chinese leader announced a commitment to back 30 infrastructure connectivity projects across unspecified countries and ambitions for \u201ca network of land-sea links.\u201d He said China would launch 30 clean energy projects, seen as part of a push from Beijing to make Africa\u2019s market a destination for its green tech like solar panels and electric vehicles that now face tariffs in the US and Europe. <\/p>\n
Deals cut in a procession of bilateral meetings this week also included infrastructure. China, Zambia and Tanzania inked a memorandum of understanding to \u201crevitalize\u201d the existing Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority line on Wednesday, and Nigeria and China referenced developing the West African country\u2019s \u201ctransportation, ports and free trade zones,\u201d in a joint statement. <\/p>\n
However, such projects and China\u2019s overall pledge of roughly $50 billion in financial support for the continent, while heftier than that of the last forum in 2021, was still less robust than those of the previous decade, observers said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not insignificant, but if you look at the details, it is not as striking as it used to be,\u201d said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, noting that this amount would be spread across many countries and a number of areas of cooperation from health to green technology. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt also means the funding for hard infrastructure will be reduced across the board. There might be a few major projects, but the more funding they take, the less there will be for other things,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
African country leaders had arrived in China seeking seeking investment, trade, and support industrializing their raw commodity sectors to create jobs. They are expected to be closely watching for follow-through on Beijing\u2019s wide-ranging promises in the coming years, with analysts saying fulfillment of past commitments have been difficult to track. <\/p>\n
This year\u2019s gathering also played out under the shadow of a debt crisis across a number of African countries, which have struggled under heavy foreign debt, including from Chinese loans, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic \u2013 and raised questions about China\u2019s role in fueling the issue. <\/p>\n
Analysts have largely debunked earlier \u201cdebt trap\u201d claims that Beijing was purposefully seeking to indebt countries in order to gain leverage over their assets, as it lent toward the construction of highways, rail lines and power plants across Africa under Xi\u2019s flagship Belt and Road Initiative. <\/p>\n
African leaders have also pushed back on the premise while in Beijing, with South Africa\u2019s Ramaphosa rejecting the \u201cnotion that when China (invests), it is with an intention of, in the end, ensuring that those countries end up in a debt trap or in a debt crisis\u201d in comments to reporters. <\/p>\n
China is also not seen by observers to be the main cause of African debt distress in most cases, with debt to its lenders making up a comparatively small portion of the continent\u2019s overall public debt. <\/p>\n
But the influx of Chinese loans increased the debt burden, and while Beijing has defended its lending practices and its efforts to ease debt repayment, observers suggest it has moved too slowly or been inflexible in cases helping countries that are heavily indebted to it get relief. <\/p>\n
These realities \u2013 along with China\u2019s own economic slowdown \u2013 are seen to have reduced its appetite for such lending. Even before the pandemic, Chinese lenders had already been slashing funding for the big-scale infrastructure projects and touting a transition to so-called \u201csmall yet beautiful\u201d investments, with smaller budgets and environmental or social impact. <\/p>\n
Xi highlighted such projects while laying out Beijing\u2019s plan for supporting the region in the coming years, but did not address the debt shouldered by countries in his public remarks. <\/p>\n
Instead, the Chinese leader reached back into history to paint the West as the driver of challenges both for China and for Africa \u2013 part of what observers say is Beijing\u2019s effort to portray the continent as firmly on its side when it comes to its broader geopolitical rivalry with the US. <\/p>\n
China, Africa and other developing nations have for decades \u201cbeen endeavoring to redress the historical injustices\u201d of Western modernization, Xi told visiting delegations, in an apparent allusion to colonialism and exploitative practices in centuries past. <\/p>\n
Now, Xi predicted, China would, along with African countries, \u201cset off a wave of modernization in the Global South.\u201d <\/p>\n
Analysts say Beijing sees the continent\u2019s backing as crucial to Xi\u2019s aim of positioning China as a champion of the Global South \u2013 and an alternative global leader to the US. <\/p>\n
Playing up that backing was also a likely motivation behind China\u2019s elevation of diplomatic ties with attending African countries to a \u201cstrategic\u201d level and its designation of the \u201call-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for the new era,\u201d observers say. <\/p>\n
The US and its Group of Seven (G7) allies have launched their own effort to fund infrastructure in developing countries, with US officials saying African countries should have \u201cchoices\u201d when it comes to their partnerships. <\/p>\n
Noting that \u201cmore countries\u201d were increasing attention on ties with African nations, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday said Beijing \u201cwelcomes\u201d such support for the continent \u2013 as long as it\u2019s not done with a \u201ccondescending approach.\u201d <\/p>\n
Visiting leaders at the summit also rebuffed the idea of competition defining the relationship. Speaking on the summit\u2019s sidelines, Senegal\u2019s Foreign Minister Yassine Fall said that there would always be global competition, but noted that \u201cAfricans today are saying that China is on our side.\u201d <\/p>\n
African country leaders, however, are unlikely to be willing to choose between Washington and Beijing. <\/p>\n
\u201cOverall (at the forum), the African side created the impression that China remains pivotal,\u201d said Paul Nantulya, a senior China specialist at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut this does not mean that they will ditch the US and others. They clearly do not want to isolate themselves from opportunities and multiple engagements and partnerships,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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