A feature by Tong Defa
Accra, Aug 28, GNA – The 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), scheduled for September 4- 6, will again bring to Beijing Chinese and African leaders to draw a blueprint for strengthening the friendship between the two sides and promoting their future development.
Enhancing solidarity and cooperation with African countries has been the cornerstone of China’s foreign policy, as well as a firm and longstanding strategy.
China is committed to advancing solidarity and cooperation with Africa under the principles of sincerity, real results, affinity, and good faith while pursuing the greater good and shared interests.
China stands together with the African people to pursue a common development agenda on the basis of mutual respect.
From the “Ten Major Cooperation Plans” and “Eight Major Initiatives” to the “Nine Programmes” under the framework of FOCAC, Chinese President Xi Jinping has drawn a blueprint for China-Africa cooperation and led their relations to a new level.
Under the top-level designs of Chinese and African leaders, the two sides have continuously deepened cooperation on platforms such as the Belt and Road Initiative and FOCAC, benefiting their people.
Firstly, political mutual trust between China and Africa continues to deepen.
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China and Africa have always been good friends who stand together through prosperity and adversity, good partners who share weal and woe, and good brothers who fully trust each other in a changing international landscape.
China and Africa continue to support each other in international affairs, jointly oppose hegemony and power politics, and promote the establishment of a new international political and economic order that is just and reasonable.
China values the African Union’s (AU) leading role in advancing African integration and building a stronger African continent through unity, while supporting its dominant role in safeguarding peace and security.
China also supports the AU in playing a bigger role in regional and international affairs and speaks up for Africa at the United Nations and on other multilateral occasions.
Secondly, the economic cooperation between China and Africa continues to flourish.
China has been Africa’s largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years.
In 2023, China-Africa trade volume reached $282.1 billion, setting a new historical peak for the second consecutive year.
By the end of 2023, China’s direct investment stock in Africa exceeded $40 billion, making her one of the largest sources of foreign investment in Africa.
In the past three years, Chinese companies have created more than 1.1 million jobs in Africa.
Over the past 10 years, these companies have signed contracting projects worth more than $700 billion in Africa, making the continent China’s second largest overseas contracting market.
China-Africa cooperation in emerging fields such as aerospace and e-commerce are also gaining strong momentum.
Thirdly, cultural and people-to-people exchanges have yielded fruitful results.
In the field of health care, by the end of 2023, China has dispatched 25,000 medical experts to Africa, covering 48 countries and 230 million patients.
The China-aided Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been completed and handed over to the African side in 2023.
In poverty reduction and farmers empowerment, China has sent dozens of teams of agricultural experts to Africa, and the Chinese hybrid rice has been introduced in more than 20 African countries.
China has built 24 agricultural model centers on the continent, implemented more than 300 advanced agricultural technologies, and increased the average local crop yields by 30 per cent to 60 per cent, benefiting more than one million African farmers.
In the field of education and training, China has set up scholarship programmes to support outstanding African youth to study in China, established a trust fund at UNESCO and trained more than 10,000 teachers in African countries and built 17 “Luban Workshops” for Africa’s vocational education development and innovation.
China is the largest developing country, and Africa is the continent with the largest number of developing countries.
The world today is undergoing major changes unseen in a century.
China and Africa need to stay united more than ever.
The upcoming China-Africa Cooperation Summit will paint a bright future for growth.
Under the joint leadership of Chinese and African leaders, the two sides will continue to move forward hand in hand, write a new chapter in the construction of a China-Africa community with a shared future, and continue to create a better future for stronger relations.
Tong Defa is the Ambassador of China to Ghana
GNA