Allawi Ssemanda
This week, from the 4th to the 6th of September, China will be hosting the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing. This will be the 4th FOCAC to be held as a summit where heads of states from Africa and China meet. Some experts have described the 2024 summit as a key means to deepen cooperation between China and African countries further. The summit will be held under the theme; “Joining Hands to Advance Modernization and Build a High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future.”
The summit comes when the world is faced with unprecedented challenges such as great power politics, block formation, wars, unilateralism against multilateralism, and low economic recovery, especially in the global south due to some countries’ protectionist policies, hegemony and coercion.
On a positive note, despite the said challenges the world is facing, the summit comes at a time when China has earnestly and religiously shown willingness to work with African countries, the Global South and the entire world to forge together ways to address global challenges, advance common development and build a community of a shared future for mankind. Indeed, while promoting China’s Global Development Initiative (GDI), President Xi Jinping emphasized the value of working together, stressing that “we need to jointly build international consensus on promoting development.” Xi stressed the importance of unity thus; “It is important that we put development in front and at the center of the international agenda, deliver on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and build political consensus to ensure everyone values development and all countries pursue cooperation together.”
It is therefore not a surprise that in the last 24 years of FOCAC, guided by the principles of sincerity, real result, amity, and shared interests, China has been clear in supporting the development agendas of African countries with Beijing’s foreign policy banner towards African countries being win-win cooperation.
During the 2021 FOCAC’s 8th ministerial conference, in his opening remarks President Xi explained that the two sides jointly prepared China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035 in which under this plan, China promised to work with African countries to fully implement the nine programs the two sides identified.
The nine programs are; supporting African countries’ medical programs with a focus on the continent’s public health, supporting African countries’ poverty reduction and agricultural development programs, supporting and African countries’ digital innovations, supporting the continent’s green development program, and supporting Africa’s peace and security programs. Others were; China supporting cultural and people-to-people exchange programs between the two sides, capacity building, investment promotion programs and supporting and promoting trade between the two sides.
Taking examples of the promotion of trade between the two sides, investment promotion, and supporting African countries’ poverty reduction programs, one can confidently conclude that China fulfilled its previous promises. These promises have been fully implemented with visible results today. For example, at the end of 2023, the trade volume between China and Africa reached 282.1 billion USD. Also, important to note is that China has been Africa’s largest trading partner for the last 15 years in a row.
To further support African countries’ agriculture and boost the trade between the two sides, in 2022, China announced preferential Tariff Treatment for several African countries. As of June 2024, China granted zero tariffs on 98% of tariff items from at least 27 African countries including Uganda. Also, Beijing signed bilateral investment promotion and protection agreements with at least 34 African countries. All these measures are meant to support and facilitate trade between the two sides. Under similar arrangements, today, many African countries have access to China’s “green channel” allowing more African products access to Chinese markets.
Regarding capacity building which is point number 7 under FOCAC’s nine pragmas, China promised to support Africa’s human capital by supporting the education sector. As of today, in Uganda, at the end of 2021, China has provided over 5,000 short-term training opportunities for Ugandans in fields such as; agriculture, medical care, public administration, computer science and infrastructure. This is on top of offering over 500 scholarship opportunities ranging from bachelors to PhDs to Ugandans.
Broadly, under FOCAC programs, more African scholars have benefited. For example, during the 2015 FOCAC summit, China offered 30,000 scholarships to African students to pursue higher education in Chinese universities. This was followed by another 50,000 scholarship offers announced by President Xi during the 2018 FOCAC Summit held in Beijing.
As observed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2024 economic growth forecast, China’s contribution to global growth is paramount. “The very fact that China is also bigger, means it has a bigger footprint in the rest of the world. An increase in the trade surplus might be small from the Chinese perspective, but it could be big from the perspective of the rest of the world,” noted IMF’s Division Chief researcher, Jean-Marc.
Looking at the fruits coming from the last 24 years of FOCAC, one can conclude that FOCAC is a sure way of jointly building a high level of China-Africa Community of Shared Future.
Allawi Ssemanda, PhD, is to a Senior Research Fellow at the Development Watch Center.