Under the red star on the roof of the People’s Palace in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday 5 September launched promises to increasingly involve China in Africa. In front of him were some fifty heads of state and government who had come to participate in the Forum on China-Africa cooperation. “The Western path has inflicted profound suffering on developing countries”the Chinese president launched, but “China and Africa’s common quest for modernization will bring a wave of progress to the entire Global South”.
The strongman in Beijing, who presents himself as a great defender of the South in its fight against the West, quickly made concrete announcements, as if to demonstrate that, despite the economic slowdown, Chinese interest in the continent remains as keen as ever. The volume of Chinese loans to Africa peaked in 2016 and fell sharply during the years of the Covid-19 crisis, before resuming in 2023. Between now and the next China-Africa Cooperation Forum, in three years’ time, China promises to commit 50 billion dollars (about 45 billion euros) to the continent, including 29 billion euros in credit lines, 11 billion dollars in aid and 10 billion dollars in business investments.
In return for this generosity, the heads of state who took the podium in succession, Senegalese Bassirou Diomaye Faye, South African Cyril Ramaphosa, Congolese Denis Sassou Nguesso, Nigerian Bola Tinubu, Tanzanian Samia Suluhu Hassan, all thanked China for its solidarity. No one has forgotten one of the most important formulas for Chinese diplomacy, the “The One China Principle”or its support for the Taiwanese issue.
Because the issue is far from just economic. The secretary of the Chinese Communist Party began by listing the initiatives that should make the continent an infallible ally of China and boost its model. Beijing plans to launch a “Platform for the exchange of experiences on governance” and opens 25 “Study centers on China and Africa”. A thousand personalities from African political parties will be invited to China for programmes on “Party building and state governance”It will also offer 60,000 places in vocational training institutes.
“Job creation”
Security and military rapprochement are among China’s priorities, and Beijing is seeking to speed up the process, while the People’s Liberation Army has already opened its first base outside its territory, in Djibouti. It plans to train 6,000 soldiers from African countries and a thousand police officers, and wants to increase joint training and patrols.
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