By Anagha Jayakumar* – The Indian Express
The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation comes at a crucial time when China, amid an economic slowdown, would seek to streamline its presence in Africa.
Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $51 billion of funding to African countries on Thursday (September 5) at the ninth edition of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing. China will support 30 infrastructure projects across the continent, with 360 billion yuan ($50.7 billion) to be offered as financial assistance.
The move comes as China tries to scale down its big-ticket infrastructure investments amid pressures on its own economy in recent years. Why is FOCAC significant and how have China’s relations with Africa evolved? We explain.
What is the FOCAC?
The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was established in 2000 to formalise the strategic partnership between China and African nations. A summit is conducted every three years, with the host alternating between China and an African member.
The FOCAC counts 53 African nations as its members – the entire continent except Eswatini, which has diplomatic ties with Taiwan against Beijing’s “One China” Policy. The African Union Commission, the continental bloc tasked with ensuring cooperation and economic integration across its member countries, is also a member.
African leaders will engage in bilateral talks with China on political and economic cooperation over three days. The theme this year is “Joining Hands to Advance Modernization and Build a High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future.”
According to Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong, FOCAC will be the largest diplomatic event China has hosted in recent years and have UN Secretary-General António Guterres as a special guest.
The last FOCAC summit was held virtually in Beijing and Dakar, Senegal in 2021, owing to Covid-19 restrictions. Commitments to continued economic and political cooperation were made. The current summit is expected to address state governance, industrialisation, agricultural upgradation, and improved cooperation over China’s infrastructure financing via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
A key outcome would be establishing consensus and an action plan for improving China-Africa cooperation over the next three years.
How have China’s relations with Africa evolved?
As a Communist nation, China stood for the decolonisation of multiple African countries in the 1950s by supporting their liberation movements and establishing bilateral trade relations. These efforts paid off in the 1970s, as China rallied the support of these nations to displace Taiwan as the official representative of China in global forums like the UN Security Council.
The transnational Tanzania-Zambia railway, completed in 1976, was China’s first infrastructure project in Africa. China amped up its investments in Africa in the 1990s and the 2000s to become Africa’s largest bilateral trading partner since 2009. Africa-China trade amounted to $282 billion in 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
China gets 20% of the region’s exports, mainly primary commodities like metals, mineral products and fuel, and is responsible for about 16% of African imports, chiefly Chinese manufactured goods, electronics and machinery.
Africa is also an integral partner in the BRI, which intends to establish cross-border economic, political and cultural relations akin to the erstwhile Silk Road through land and maritime routes. China has reportedly invested over $120 billion in supporting infrastructure for the BRI over the past decade.
A big draw for African nations seeking Chinese funds has been the absence of constraints linked to environmental or human rights protections, characteristic of loans from the IMF and the World Bank. China and Nigeria released a joint statement recently, stating, “Both sides… oppose the politicisation of human rights issues, i.e. the interference in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of human rights.” The US investments in Africa have also not kept pace with China in recent years.
However, China has been accused of using the BRI to foster ‘debt trap diplomacy’. Geostrategist Brahma Chellaney described this as a situation where the Chinese government extends huge loans to support infrastructure projects in strategically located developing countries, leaving the borrowing country in a debt trap and vulnerable to China’s influence.
This argument has been used to explain China’s association with the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, which it helped built. But when Sri Lanka failed to pay the debt, a majority stake in the port was sold to a Chinese firm on a 99-year lease.
Another view attributes the defaults to domestic mismanagement by the borrowing country, arguing that China’s financing policy is too fragmented and vast to pursue a concerted debt-financing strategy. China has also rejected this accusation.
Why is the 2024 FOCAC significant?
The summit comes at a time when China is experiencing a prolonged economic slowdown post-pandemic, with Bloomberg reporting that China’s growth target for the year looks increasingly out of reach as its manufacturers battle deflationary pressures and unemployment challenges.
There are also concerns about loan defaults — in 2020, Zambia defaulted on its loan (valued at $3.5 billion this March), while Ghana defaulted on most of its $30 billion external debt in 2022.
It may partly explain China’s approach to the current FOCAC. A Reuters report notes that President Xi Jinping wishes to narrow the country’s investment portfolio away from big-ticket infrastructure to “small and beautiful projects.” It also hopes to sell advanced, green technologies which Chinese firms have heavily invested in.
African partners, however, are expected to seek more lending. Boston University’s Global Development Policy Centre noted that Chinese lending plummeted from its peak of about $28 billion in 2016 to around $1 billion in 2022 and $4.6 billion in 2023.
According to BBC Africa, Kenya is seeking funding for multiple infrastructure projects including the completion of the transnational Standard Gauge Railway to Uganda, which China discontinued in 2020. This comes despite its massive debt to China, which triggered countrywide protests. Another concern from countries like South Africa is the balance of trade being in China’s favour.
China’s messaging through the inaugural events – including a red carpet welcome for the delegates – has been notable. BBC also noted that care was taken to reiterate China’s status as a “developing country” and its bond with Africa as “victims of Western imperialism,” a message welcomed by the visitors.
*Anagha Jayakumar is a trainee journalist at the Explained desk of The Indian Express. They graduated from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai in 2024, after a prolonged academic stint in the areas of Economics and Management. You can contact them on LinkedIn or follow Anagha on X @inanaghaswords