Ambassador Zhong Jianhua, China’s special representative on Africa Affairs, said after 30 years of rapid develop- ment China had entered a new stage.
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Xi proposed to lift China-Africa ties to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and vowed to provide $60 billion to support 10 major proposed projects across Africa in the next three years.
China did not dictate economic policy or strategy to African countries, and commodity-dominated trade was often a domestic strategy to accumulate capital for other development, said Mr Xi.
“China stands ready to take an active part in Africa’s effort in capacity building for maintaining and strengthening peace and support Africa and its endeavours to speed up development, eradicate poverty and realise durable peace”, said Jinping.
“China-Africa relations have today reached a stage of growth unmatched in history”, Xi said Friday. The two countries had “steadily enhanced political trust, deepened practical collaboration in all areas and engaged in dynamic people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and carried out interestingly close global co-operation”.
President Zuma also thanked the Asian country, South Africa’s biggest trade partner, by waiving visa requirements for Chinese diplomats entering the country.
The two-day FOCAC meeting is the second time China has brought together African leaders since the forum was launched in Beijing in 2000.
More than half was in the following countries: South Africa (22%), Zambia and Nigeria (9% each), and Algeria, Angola and Sudan (6% each).
“We will implement the 10-point plan with Africa in the next three years”, President Xi said during the Johannesburg FOCAC summit which he is co-chairing with South African President Jacob Zuma.
The president disclosed this at the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation Summit (FOCAC) in Jo’burg.
“It was only natural that Africa has developed a win-win partnership for development and progress with China over the years”, he said.
China is Africa’s top trade partner, with some US$222 billion of goods and services changing hands in 2014.
In peacekeeping, China has dispatched the largest number of peacekeepers to African hotspots to maintain peace and stability, and it will provide a total of 60 million USA dollars in free aid to the African Union (AU) to improve Africa’s peacekeeping ability, Xi announced Friday.
“Here is a man representing our continent; what he is doing for us is what the people that colonized us yesterday should have done”.
South Africa has been the recipient of the largest share of Chinese investment in Africa, seeing US$9.17 billion over the past decade.
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The Chinese president also expressed his willingness to promote win-win cooperation and common development with African countries during separate meetings with his counterparts of Angola, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Mali and Mozambique. China’s Foreign Ministry works with many African countries in worldwide affairs to defend their common interests.
