Chinese President Xi Jinping is hosting a major summit in Beijing this week, gathering African leaders to discuss cooperation in infrastructure, energy and education. Focac is the largest event in the city since the Covid pandemic, with China aiming to strengthen its already dominant trade and investment ties with Africa. RFI asked China-Africa expert Daniel Large what the forum means for Africa.
As Africa's biggest trading partner, China has tapped into the continent’s vast reserves of natural resources, including copper, gold, lithium and rare earth minerals.
At the same time, Beijing has loaned billions to African nations, helping to build critical infrastructure but also sometimes stoked controversy by saddling governments with huge debts.
Since the 2000s, China-Africa relations have become more structured with the launch of Focac, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. This week marks the ninth Focac summit.
So what can we expect from this latest event?
RFI put the question to China-Africa relations specialist Daniel Large, author of China and Africa: the New Era, who is affiliated with the Vienna-based Central European University.
Daniel Large: There are four high-level meetings around key themes that we’re going to watch closely at this Focac: state governance, industry and agriculture, peace and security, and the Belt and Road Initiative.
But overall, this Focac has attracted far less media and public attention across large parts of Africa than previous summits.
China’s large-scale financing for development has decreased in recent years due to domestic economic problems and global challenges facing African economies.
I think expectations are perhaps lower this time, in keeping with China’s efforts to scale back and recalibrate its investments on the continent.
RFI: The last Focac in 2021 issued the Dakar Action Plan, including Chinese imports worth $300 billion. What came of that plan, and how do you see it being followed up?
DL: It’s still difficult to measure the success of Focac commitments because of unreliable or non-existent data.
Focac is usually very good at making declaratory statements and setting ambitious goals, but it often struggles to provide concrete evidence of actual achievements. There’s often a gap between what’s promised and then what’s achieved.
Focac is very good at declaratory statements with often ambitious goals. It is less good at actually matching these with concrete evidence about actual achievements.
REMARKS: Daniel Large, specialist on China-Africa relations, Central European University
RFI: Focac was created in 2000 under then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin and his successor, Hu Jintao. What was the rationale behind its creation?
DL: The rationale was really proceeded on the back of a rekindling of China's Africa relations after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.
The economic ties between China and Africa really begin to take off over the 1990s, setting the scene for the creation of Focac in 2000.
Jiang Zemin also emphasised that China and Africa shared not only economic but also political interests.
RFI: One of the reasons for China’s involvement in Africa was to reduce the number of African countries that recognised Taiwan. In 2000, seven countries had ties with Taipei – now only one remains, Eswatini. Is this issue now off the agenda?
DL: Taiwan has effectively lost its diplomatic competition with China in Africa. Eswatini is the only African country that retains diplomatic links with Taipei. Somaliland also faced condemnation from Beijing when it set up a Taiwan office, but as Somaliland isn’t a fully recognised sovereign state, it doesn’t really count.
The unstated ghost at the Focac is probably America in the context of geopolitical competition. But there's no doubt that the issue of Taiwan is not entirely over, but perhaps it has been superseded by China's other foreign policy objectives instead.
RFI: Chinese loans and investments in Africa peaked in 2016, then scaled down. What caused this, and how has it affected African economies?
DL: There was a long economic boom, with expanding trade and investment between China and Africa. The Belt and Road Initiative, formally announced in 2013, became linked with large-scale, unsustainable infrastructure financing deals.
It will be interesting to see how China repositions the Belt and Road Initiative now, with less available funding but more pressing needs.
There’s definitely a learning curve as China integrates lessons from past experiences and pushes for a new development cooperation going forward in which the new language of sustainability as well as green development is very prominent.
RFI: Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, global politics have shifted significantly, with China backing Russia and the Wagner Group gaining influence in African countries like Mali and Niger. How does this impact the relationship between China, the US/EU, and Africa?
DL: There’s been a lot of talk about a new Cold War in Africa, involving not just China and the US, but other powers like Russia.
African leaders are very wary of becoming trapped in a new type of cold war scenario they just don't want that.
The key mantra has been not taking sides and there are good reasons why most African states don't want to take sides.
African states are increasingly trying to diversify their partnerships, aiming to do business with everyone while remaining independent from any single external power.
Instead they want to pursue their own more independent agenda.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
