Guest Opinion: Africa finds steadfast friend in China

by Yi Xin
Some international development partners talk about Africa as if it were a problem to be fixed. So they write prescriptions — “change this and that and you will be better.”
But Africa is not a problem.
Africa is a promise. To deliver on this promise, Africans must act together. A deep appreciation of this is what makes China’s Africa policy fundamentally different from that of many others.
It started early.
In the 1960s, shortly after leading their nations to independence, the great African statesmen Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda saw an urgent need to connect their countries with a railway. But funding was hard to come by. Western donors said no on the grounds that the proposal was neither economically nor politically attractive. But Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader, was resolute, and said: “You have difficulties. We do too. But our difficulties are different. China will help you build it, and if need be, we will put our own railway projects on hold.”
China extended zero-interest, zero-condition loans, took out huge sums from its limited foreign exchange reserve to buy the best machines from the West, and sent Chinese engineers to the wilderness in Africa and unreservedly shared technical know-how.
It was one of the earliest endeavors to connect and unite Africans to encourage development. Africans call it the “Freedom Railway,” an indication of how much hope was attached to it.
As Africa continued to build synergy, China actively aligned its policy toward the same goal. In 2002, African nations’ aspirations for brotherhood and solidarity gave birth to the African Union. Two years earlier, China had launched the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the world’s first format to bring African countries under one roof to map out development strategies and cooperation plans.
Under this framework, the Chinese zoomed in on connecting Africa. The roads they built in Africa, a staggering 100,000 km, are more than twice that of Earth’s waistline. The railways, over 10,000 km in combined length, can take one from Ras ben Sakka in Tunisia, Africa’s most northerly point, to its southernmost Cape Agulhas in South Africa.
Besides asphalt and tracks, the Chinese have worked hard to nurture local industries. For a long time, African countries have been kept at the lower end of the value chain. Their economic structures are highly similar. Seeing the untapped manufacturing potential, China set out to build factories and industrial parks. “Industrial capacity cooperation” is a dominant topic in Chinese engagement with Africa. As China-Africa partnerships mushroom in this sector, African countries are now selling glass fibers to their neighbors and buying TV sets made in the region.
On a deeper level, China constantly encourages the strengthening of an African awareness. Ask any Chinese leader how Africa may apply China’s approach, and the answer invariably is: Think in terms of your own reality.
A few days ago, African leaders gathered with their Chinese friends for the fourth Forum on FOCAC summit. There, China’s approach of promoting African synergy to unlock its potential is again on full display.
According to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s newly proposed “ten partnership actions,” China will implement another 30 infrastructure connectivity projects in Africa, foster industry cooperation growth clusters, develop a China-Africa network featuring land-sea links and coordinated development, assist the development of the African Continental Free Trade Area, and provide more support in logistics and finance for the benefit of “trans-regional development in Africa.”
Once these plans are actualized, as the Chinese always do with meticulous follow-up actions and progress checks, Africa is sure to be more interconnected and integrated. Hence, the new-found meaning of the FOCAC acronym — Friendship, Opportunity, Cooperation, Action, and Community.
Strength comes from unity, not alienation. This is an underlying belief that informs China’s diplomacy around the world. In China-U.S. relations, you see China push for mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation. Globally, China’s central message has been: Humanity is one community with a shared future.
Africa is on an irreversible course toward modernization. To empower this process, partners who see potential, not problems in it would go a long way.

Editor’s note: Yi Xin is a Beijing-based observer of international affairs.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.