To that end, Xi said, China stands ready to play a constructive role in promoting political settlement of Africa’s hot-spot issues, beef up cooperation with African countries on peace-keeping capability, and share its experience on reform, opening-up and economic boom with them. The Chinese president said the upgrade would also inject fresh impetus into the development of ties.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the plenary meeting of the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Johannesburg, South Africa, Dec. 5, 2015.
He added: “The strategic partnership between Africa and China is vital to achieve development goals”.
South African President Jacob Zuma, who co-chaired the summit with Xi, said in his closing remarks that the principles underlying the FOCAC partnership are “sincerity, mutual trust, equality, win-win cooperation, and mutual benefit”.
With China’s recent economic woes, the Washington DC-based economist was expecting a more modest fund.
The Johannesburg summit, the second of its kind in the 15-year history of the FOCAC, has drawn leaders and representatives from China, 50 African countries and the Commission of the African Union here to find a way for stronger China-Africa relationship. “Originally, we were comrades in arms in the quest for liberation and freedom, at the height of colonialism and apartheid”, he said. Chinese Ambassador to South Africa, Tian Xuejun, was recently quoted in the media saying, the summit will further synergise China and Africa’s respective development strategies.
The big package announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping covers the areas of industrialization, agricultural modernization, infrastructure, financial services, green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty reduction and public welfare, public health, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security.
This amount is three times the aid package which China presented to Africa at the last Focac conference in 2012 in Beijing.
Ambassador Tian said China is the largest contributor of peacekeepers in Africa among all the permanent members of the UN Security Council.
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The trip will be welcome after the economic downturn forced China to slash investment in Africa by more than 40 percent earlier this year. “Priorities will be given to address two major bottlenecks constraining Africa’s development, namely the backward infrastructure and the lack of professionals”, he said. China also actively engages in the global counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somali coast.
