The year 2013 has been a year of steady progress linking the past with the future for China-Africa relations. It was also a year of deepening and expanding China-Africa relations. After the fifth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in July 2012 and President Xi Jinping’s visit to Africa last March, China-Africa relations have gained a more consolidated and extensive foundation for political mutual trust and economic cooperation and expanded into areas of cultural exchanges, people-to-people contacts, healthcare and peace and security. Interest intersections between China and the US in medical care and security have also built a sound basis for the two countries’ cooperation in Africa.
“Cultural exchanges and mutual learning” was for the first time listed as equally important as “political equality and mutual trust” and “economic win-win cooperation” in the “new type of strategic partnership” between China and Africa at the Beijing Summit of the 2006 FOCAC. In 2013, the Chinese and African Cultures in Focus program, which was initiated in 2008, launched a cultural partnership plan with an objective of facilitating establishment of long-term cooperation between 100 cultural institutions on the two sides within three years.
“State-to-state relations thrive when there is friendship between the peoples. And such friendship grows out of close interactions.” It has been an important common understanding in China-Africa cooperation to consolidate the public opinions for joint development through public diplomacy and people-to-people cooperation. In recent years, exchanges between Chinese and African scholars and think tanks have grown in both quantity and quality, resulting in deepened exchanges and understanding. Since the launch of a joint research and exchange program in March 2012, it has supported 64 projects undertaken by over 30 academic institutes on both sides and facilitated academic exchanges between over 600 people, greatly adding mutual trust among the people. Three successful Think Tanks Forums have been held between China and Africa. China-Africa Think Tanks 10+10 Partnership Plan was also successfully launched in Beijing last October.
In the area of medical cooperation, it has been over fifty years since China dispatched the first medical assistance team to Algeria in 1953. China has in the past half century sent more than 18,000 health workers to Africa and helped 250 million local patients, contributing to the development of health undertakings in Africa and the growth of the China-Africa relationship. At the 2006 FOCAC Beijing Summit, the Chinese government pledged to assist 30 hospitals in African countries and grant 300 million yuan to provide anti-malarial medication and to build 30 malaria centers over the course of three years. In August 2013, FOCAC Ministerial Conference on Health Cooperation and Development was held in Beijing with delegates from 48 African countries, WHO, UNAIDS, UNFPA and the GAVI Alliance. The joint declaration issued at the conference called for ensuring the priority position of health in the post-2015 global development agenda, developing the African healthcare workforce, increasing international cooperation through development partners and exploring and piloting public health cooperation projects encompassing schistosomiasis, malaria, productive healthcare for all as well as the prevention, care, and treatment of AIDS and tuberculosis.
At the fifth FOCAC in July 2012, the Chinese government initiated a China-Africa Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Security, in which it committed to providing financial and technical support to African Union’s peacekeeping operations, construction of peace and security framework in Africa, personnel exchanges and training, conflict prevention, management and resolution as well as post-conflict reconstruction and development. China-Africa economic cooperation and trade have registered rapid growth in the past decade. However, development without peace or security will be short-lived and fragile. The Libyan civil war in 2011 forced 35,000 Chinese workers to evacuate. Chinese workers were kidnapped or even killed in the Sudanese conflict. The painful lesson gained with blood is that African security bears on not only development of that continent but also the future of Chinese businesses and their employees in Africa. To help Africa create a peaceful and secure environment will benefit not only Africa but also China and the whole world. In 2013, China dispatched security forces for the first time in history for a peacekeeping mission in Mali. This has expanded the types of forces sent to UN peacekeeping operations and further demonstrated the determination of the Chinese military to participate in such missions.
The expansion of China-Africa cooperation creates new interest intersections between China and the US. Public health was an important area of concern for George W. Bush’s Millennium Challenge Account and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It is also an important agenda item of the Obama Administration in advancing poverty alleviation and sustainable development. The promotion of African security and stability and eliminating terrorist threats is also a shared interest. The US government and think tanks tend to believe that China and the US have different interest in Africa, with China focusing on the energy market and the US focusing on democracy, security and poverty reduction. As China and the US seem to be running on two different tracks, it would seem there is little for them to consult with each other. But actually, there will more convergence and intersection of interests in Africa between China and the US as China-Africa cooperation deepens and expands.
He Wenping, Senior Researcher, The Charhar Institute; Researcher, Institute of West Asian and African Studies, CASS.
