On November 29 and November 30, Dakar, the capital of Senegal, will host the next Forum on Sino-African Cooperation. A summit to strengthen economic relations between Africa and China, which has indeed become the continent’s largest trading partner. Another important topic of this forum will be access to the vaccine against Covid-19.
For China, an economic but also a diplomatic outlet
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has confirmed it: Xi Jinping will participate in this strategic forum. The Chinese president will be present by video since he has not traveled abroad for nearly two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and he will deliver a speech during the opening ceremony on Monday, November 29. China’s interest in Africa is not recent, it was first economic before becoming diplomatic. Thus, in March 2013, five months after coming to power, Xi Jinping made his first official foreign visit to Africa. He has been there four times since, and Beijing even hosted a summit in 2018 with more than fifty leaders from the continent.
Africa is therefore a land of stakes for China, which worries the international community. Beijing rejects the term neocolonialism, but criticism is growing and international institutions like the IMF and the World Bank are concerned about the African continent’s economic dependence on China. It has not only been the continent’s largest trading partner for ten years, but also its largest creditor, especially since the pandemic, holding around 21% of Africa’s debt.
In a newspaper interview The world on November 19, the head of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian criticized Chinese policy on the African continent, provoking a strong reaction from the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, Zhao Lijian. “Africans are best placed to judge this cooperation, did he declare. Chinese companies have built and modernized more than 10,000 kilometers of railways and nearly 100,000 kilometers of roads on the mainland, creating more than 4.5 million jobs. Some countries should judge China-Africa cooperation objectively and impartially, listen to what Africans are saying, and do more positive and concrete things for Africa. “
For African countries, highly anticipated investments
The summit is eagerly awaited in Dakar because it should register China’s economic presence in the long term. The Middle Empire has already invested a lot in Africa, particularly in the exploitation of raw materials such as in Guinea with bauxite, in Gabon with iron, in South Africa with charcoal, copper and cobalt, in Democratic Republic of the Congo, or even in Niger with uranium.
But it is in the area of infrastructure that these investments are most visible. In twenty years, Chinese companies have changed the face of Africa. In Kenya for example, the capital Nairobi is now linked to Mombasa thanks to 440 kilometers of railways which have opened up the country. In Mozambique, Beijing has built the longest suspension bridge in Africa, 3 kilometers between Maputo, the capital, and Catembe. An extraordinary building totally financed and built by the Chinese. Beijing has become an essential economic partner, but this dependence comes at a price: that of debt. Western countries accuse China of leading the African continent into over-indebtedness, from which it was just beginning to emerge.
China has filled the void created by decolonization and increased loans and the construction of infrastructure in Africa. But in return, the countries benefiting from these loans undertake to conclude contracts with Chinese companies as a priority to carry out the financed projects, and these investments are often conditional on the delivery of raw materials. This economic dependence allows China to be able to count on the political support of African countries, especially during votes at the UN. In any case, this is what Beijing hopes for.
In Africa, leaders welcome this partnership because their countries are in dire need of infrastructure to relieve congestion in their cities. Africa currently has more than a billion inhabitants and will double that in thirty years. China wants to meet these needs, particularly in terms of urbanization, which is a major issue for the continent.