Chinese President Xi Jinping chaired the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Johannesburg after paying a state visit to Zimbabwe and South Africa from Dec. 1 to Dec. 5, which wrapped up his diplomacy trips for 2015. The visit came late this year, but did not diminish its significance.
Upgrade China-Africa Cooperation
The FOCAC on Dec. 4, another summit after the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2006, is a highlight of President Xi’s visit to Africa. New developments and issues have emerged after nearly a decade, requiring China and African countries to plan for the future and enhance their cooperation. This year’s summit is appropriately timed. Due to falling commodity prices since 2013, the economic growth rate of Africa this year is expected to slow to 3.8% from 5% in 2014, even lower than the growth rate of 4.1% in 2009 when Africa was affected by the global financial crisis. Under such circumstances, the attitude and actions of China, Africa’s largest trading partner, attracted more attention.
At the Johannesburg Summit, President Xi elevated the time-honored win-win partnership between the world’s largest developing country and the continent to a higher level by upgrading the relationship to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. Xi put forward 10 major plans to boost cooperation with Africa in the coming three years along with a $60-billion aid package. The width and scale of the cooperation between China and Africa are unprecedented, demonstrating Xi’s active style of conducting diplomacy. It has been an enormously updated version from China’s previous African policy. Plus, it has surpassed the economic cooperation of the other major and emerging countries with the continent after the U.S. pledged to invest $33 billion in Africa during last year’s first U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit and India Prime Minister Modi announced a credit of $10 billion to Africa during the India-Africa Forum Summit this October.
Every part of the 10 major plans responds to Africa’s needs and particularly fits into the new situation and the whole picture of the China-Africa relations. There are two main goals behind the plans. One is to facilitate the transformation and upgrade of economic and trade cooperation between China and Africa in the areas of industrialization, agricultural modernization, infrastructure, financial services, etc. The other is to invest more into the field of non-traditional security issues and enhance China’s influence. For instance, in the peace and security cooperation plan, China will continue to participate in UN peacekeeping missions in Africa and support African countries’ capacity building in such areas as defense, counter-terrorism, riot prevention, customs and immigration control. Those areas are related to certain sensitive departments of African countries and thus the cooperation could be deemed as a breakthrough of China’s African policy.
A Possible Arena for China-U.S. Competition?
The continent has already been a stage for rivalries among different countries in recent years. When the U.S., Europe, Japan and India formulate their policy towards Africa, most of them take China into consideration. After the Johannesburg Summit and China’s strengthened cooperation with Africa, the competitive aspect of China and U.S. activities in the continent may become conspicuous.
On the economic and trade front, with the accelerated upgrade of China-Africa economic and trade cooperation, China-U.S. competition in this regard will tend to be more fierce. The reason is that Chinese enterprises will shift from the low end of value chain to the high end, which is traditionally dominated by the U.S. and Europe, potentially leading to conflicts of interest. Since Chinese companies like ZTE and Huawei are gaining ground in the African market at the expense of U.S. and European companies, those countries are naturally worried about other Chinese enterprises emerging in various sectors. They have started to take counter-measures by resorting to their influence to make new rules and standards. For example, the U.S. and European countries have pushed forward the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and Kimberley Process, which play similar roles as TPP in the Asia-Pacific region, to exert pressure on China.
Recently, China has made great strides in African peace and security areas, and this breakthrough in Chinese foreign policy has aroused widespread concern in U.S. strategic circles that China will make its first breakthrough upturning U.S. global hegemony in Africa, the weakest link of America’s global strategy. In September this year, President Xi announced at the UN Summit that China is to join the UN capability readiness system, and set up a permanent peacekeeping force of 8,000 troops, and Africa will be an important place where the force is deployed. China would provide $100 million in military assistance to the African Union in the next five years to support the establishment of an African standby force and to boost its capacity for crisis response. In late November, Chinese Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry acknowledged that they “are consulting with each other on the building of logistical facilities in Djibouti”.
Compared with economic and trade concerns, U.S. officials are more sensitive to military and security issues. The U.S. has expressed resentment towards Djibouti’s strengthening cooperation with China. One official from the U.S. Department of Defense commented that China’s increasing trade and military activities in Djibouti would endanger the intelligence-gathering work of the U.S. and would pressure U.S. to move its military base. In May this year, Republican congressman Chris Smith, chairman of the House of Representatives Africa subcommittee, wrote to U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, saying China’s increased economic and military presence in Djibouti would threaten U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. Some U.S. officials put blame on Djibouti’s political system and President Omar Guelleh, and put pressure on Djibouti for “violating human-rights”, “having an undemocratic system”, saying now it is time for a “systematic change”.
But how to perceive changes in China and the U.S.’s respective influence in Africa and China-U.S. relations’ impact on Africa? Concerning the first question, China understands the limits of its influence in Africa. China has surpassed the U.S. as Africa’s biggest trading partner since 2009, and China is in an advantageous position in volume, width and depth in trading with Africa. However, U.S. hasn’t lost all its advantages. China is lagging far behind U.S. in investment in Africa, and the U.S. dollar is still the major reserve currency in Africa. In security fields, the U.S. has clear advantages. It has a formal military base in Djibouti and has drone bases and other activity space in East Africa and West Africa. In addition to the U.S. AFRICOM set up in 2007, the U.S. has established a close security net in Africa, and the main characteristics are small–sized and flexible.
Concerning the second question, it should be noted that in certain sensitive and vital fields, the competition between China and the U.S. is unavoidable and could even intensify, but both sides should be sensible, exercise restraint and prevent competition from going to extremes, as competition is quite normal between major countries. The two countries could make use of their strategic dialogue mechanism to enhance communication on African issues, manage disputes and reduce risks.
There are other fields where U.S. and China share common interests and could strengthen cooperation, such as preserving peace and security in Africa (in conflict settlement in south Sudan and Central African Republic and in counter-terrorism), developing the African market and building their respective global leadership roles. In these fields where China-U.S. cooperation is both possible and needed, the two sides could build up trust, alleviate suspicion and create a spillover effect from low-level fields to important political fields. Therefore, Africa should be the arena where China and the U.S. can make use of cooperation to strengthen their strategic buffering rather than fierce rivalry.
