China-Africa cooperation is more than just a silver lining, it is the blue
By George Musiime
In an interview with CGTN last year, Mr. Wu Peng, director general of the department of African affairs in the Chinese foreign affairs ministry summed up the Chinese government’s view of its interactions with Africa in a single memorable statement in which he noted that “Africa is a big stage for international cooperation, not an arena for major power rivalry.” Such is the spirit that directs Chinese foreign policy towards Africa that is based on the five principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence. It is this overriding principle that has not only made China such a significant development partner for Africa over the past few decades, but also why it will continue to play a key role on the continent.
Towards the end of the first half of the last century, Africa witnessed a wave of awakening that swept across the continent in the form of decolonization struggles, yet soon after the attainment of independence, these flames seemed to have fizzled out. Nevertheless, the cooperation between China and Africa still stayed albeit being with a measured scale of involvement. The turning point however came at the turn of the new millennium when, the then President of the Peoples Republic of China Jiang Zemin, announced China’s “going out strategy” in March 2000 followed by the first Forum on China-African Cooperation (FoCAC) Summit. Following these two events, China’s involvement in Africa began to increase and has continuously been on the raise ever since.
The African continent being home to majority of the world’s developing countries was suffering from a multitude of challenges and bottlenecks that impeded economic progress across the continent ranging from disease burden, peace and security, infrastructure deficits and food security among many others. At the same time, the continent was striving to disentangle itself from this array of development bottlenecks. Meanwhile, the developed world mainly viewed Africa as a problem-riddled continent that only required interventions which would come in the form of development aid. At the same time, China showed up with a very different perception of the continent. Following the announcement of the going out strategy in 2000, china saw Africa as an opportunity other than a problem needing solving. This was followed by more Chinese companies getting involved in Africa. As a result, the continent saw increasing Chinese investment in infrastructure including highways, railways, power generation plants, industry and manufacturing, agriculture and production etcetera. These investments revitalized the continent’s development efforts, setting Africa on a path to modernization-something that had eluded most of the continent since independence.
Confining myself to the Ugandan context, the fruits of Chinese cooperation with Uganda are far reaching spreading across such areas as infrastructure development, peace and security, food security, trade and general improvement of livelihoods of ordinary Ugandans. In fact, government of Uganda has been able to complete several infrastructure projects under the flagship of the Belt and Road Initiative BRI cooperation including the 183MW Isimba dam and 600MW Karuma power plants adding almost 800MW of clean power sources to the nation’s power generation capacity. Furthermore, there has been several completed road projects in partnership with China including but not limited to the Entebbe Express High way, which has significantly eased travel to and from the Entebbe International Airport, also completed are the Hoima-Kyenjojo, Kakumiro Kyenjojo roads. These roads made transportation of both personnel and equipment to the oil rich Albertine region much easier hence facilitating all manner of ongoing development work being carried out in the region. These and similar projects are responsible for pushing the length of paved roads in Uganda up by 1334Km from 4257.00m in 2016/17 financial year to 5591Km in the 2020/21 financial year. However, one other significant development has happened in the agricultural sector under the South-South Cooperation working with the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). The south-south cooperation, aimed at improving agricultural production capacity through the tri-factor of knowledge, skills and technology transfer and building the capacity of local farmers in Uganda. This project went from demonstration farms in 2012 to the establishment of hubs with the primary focus of increasing agricultural production and value addition. The south-south cooperation has been instrumental in increasing production, ensuring food security, creating more jobs along the agricultural value chain and improving the livelihoods of individual farmers in Uganda.
Therefore, China’s cooperation with Africa has been immensely beneficial to the continent in as far as addressing the different development challenges previously faced by the continent. In fact China has been directly involved in projects aimed at not only addressing the national development goals of the host countries but also helping African Countries in their quest to attain their targets with regards to the UN’s agenda 2030 whether it be poverty eradication or zero hunger, affordable clean energy or climate action, industry, innovation and infrastructure or sustainable cities etcetera. It does not matter whether one is looking at BRI related road or power projects in Uganda, Wind and solar farms in Ethiopia or South Africa, Railway projects in Kenya or Ethiopia, Housing projects in Tanzania or Angola, it is growing increasingly hard to miss the Chinese hallmark on the current trend of economic growth across the continent.
George Musiime is a research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.
georgemusiime@dwcug.org
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