The architect of China’s “New Era”, benevolent towards his people like a modern emperor, presented himself with great pomp to African governments as the leader of countries, with very different histories and interests, that Beijing groups together as the “Global South”. This is how last weekend Xi Jinping received in the Great Hall of the People the heads of state and government of 53 states of the Black Continent (only the small eSwatini was missing, because it officially recognizes Taiwan) in what was for China the main diplomatic event of 2024, the IX Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the most important since its establishment in 2000.
For the promises and proposals put on the table by the second economy on the planet towards Africa, which with its 1.4 billion inhabitants, mostly young, still represents only 2.7 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP); and because, after the one in 2021 (in the midst of the pandemic), it was the first FOCAC to take place in the new geopolitical context of declared opposition between Beijing and Washington.
In his opening speech at the Forum, Xi promised Africa $50 billion over the next three years: credit lines, investments by Chinese companies, and other forms of aid. This is less than what was put in place after the announcement (in 2013) of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): in 2015 and 2018, Beijing had mobilized $60 billion. But it is a clear increase compared to 2021 – when Beijing had allocated $40 billion – especially considering the slowdown in the growth of the national economy.
In short, Africa has a highly strategic value for China, which Xi has claimed before the continental political leaders and the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, arguing that the relationship between China and Africa is “at the highest point in history and that “the joint pursuit of modernization by China and Africa will start a wave of modernization in the Global South”.
The debt remains
As in previous FOCACs, Beijing has renounced the repayment of interest-free debts, this time in favor of 33 states. These are loans issued by the government agency in charge of foreign aid, which however represent only a small portion (about 5 percent) of the total loans granted by China to Africa, most of which are managed by China Exim Bank and China Development Bank. Definitely not enough for a continent that should repay 163 billion dollars this year alone, and with a foreign debt of 1.15 trillion dollars.
To criticism of the so-called “debt trap”, Beijing responds that the burden weighing on the development of African countries requires a common solution, which must be found in concert with other creditors. China has certainly become Africa’s leading bilateral lender – towards which it boasts about 80 billion dollars in credit – and it is also up to Beijing, as well as the World Bank, to find solutions that substantially alleviate this unsustainable burden for the countries of the continent.
Among the measures announced are the dispatch of 2,000 doctors, 500 agronomists and the reception in Beijing of a thousand officials of African parties who (as we reported in Domani) will be trained in the principles of Chinese governance, that mix of authoritarianism and technocracy that should favor political “stability” in a continent constantly shaken by coups. In addition, all 33 of Africa’s least developed countries (LDCs) will be able to benefit from the exemption from tariffs on trade with China that until now has been reserved for 27 states.
Industria green
Africa has an infrastructure deficit estimated at 100 billion dollars a year and needs efficient transport networks to make the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) established in 2018 under the aegis of the African Union work. To this end, Beijing has put about thirty new infrastructure investments on the table, which will serve above all to improve trade. Such as, for example, the line (one of many) that the state company China Railway Construction Corporation is building in the Algerian Sahara up to the Moroccan border, to connect the largest iron mines in the world, those of Gara Djebilet (3.5 billion tons of estimated reserves), to the railway network.
But the continent’s traditional large investments in infrastructure and raw materials (especially essential minerals in high-tech manufacturing and oil) will now be accompanied by greater attention to industrial development and clean energy. Including nuclear, with the offer to Niger – which has traditionally been a reservoir of uranium for France – to build nuclear power plants to produce electricity in West Africa. But also renewable energy, wind and solar, sectors in which China is a global leader. According to Goolam Ballim, head of research at Standard Bank of South Africa, “the results of the Focac summit signal a momentum for green projects and in particular for renewable energy plants”.
The other novelty is the declared attempt to contribute to the industrialization of a young continent, with so much unexpressed potential. In this direction, Xi has promised that China will create at least 1 million jobs, starting cooperation projects in clean energy and digital technology and launching a “program to strengthen African small and medium-sized enterprises”. The 2025-2027 action plan published at the end of FOCAC has designated 2026 as the year of exchanges between China and Africa people: for the occasion, Beijing will begin to send STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) teachers to Africa to teach in model schools and to train local teachers. Winston Mok, a former McKinsey consultant, has hypothesized that China could launch “a program of much greater scope and impact than the US Peace Corps started by President John F. Kennedy in 1961”.
Beijing consensus
Certainly some promises will remain unfulfilled, however it should be noted that FOCAC, which meets every three years (in China or in an African country), has become another important piece of the mosaic that is undermining the old global order under the pressure of the Chinese advance: like the BRICS group of countries, the New Silk Road (BRI), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the new international financial institutions led by Beijing.
It is in the new international and internal context of China that the new posture of the Asian giant in the Black Continent must be evaluated. No longer, as in the recent past, simply guided by the need to grab raw materials needed to keep the Chinese industrial machine going, accompanied by the alliance with local elites (regardless of their political color), as per post-Maoist tradition.
In the context of the new confrontation with a West that has partially closed its doors to it, Africa (as well as Latin America, the Middle East and Russia) is becoming increasingly important both for trade (173 billion in exports and 109 billion in imports in 2023) and for investments, as well as for China’s political relations with countries that are tired or openly contesting the Washington consensus and ready to marry the Beijing consensus.
China is not Santa Claus, the Beijing government pushes its state-owned companies abroad in search of profits and to make them become corporations capable of competing on international markets with those of the most advanced countries.
Yet compared to the former colonial countries it is moving differently, in a way that is proving to be more effective: without tying its aid to political “conditionality”, so far without armies, and selling its rhetoric as best it can “win-win”.