PROSPECT OF THE 2018 FOCAC SUMMIT:ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES

LI ANSHAN

Director and Professor of the Center for African Studies, Peking University

The upcoming 2018 FOCAC (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation) Summit brings about new prospects to all. What kind of opportunities will it offer to China in the New Era and to Africa with rapid development? Under new circumstances, what kind of challenges may be posed to China-Africa cooperation and how to handle them?This article is going to focus on these two questions.

CHINA’S ADVANTAGES IN AFRICA

At present, there are four commonly accepted facts with regard to China-Africa relations. Firstly, the rapidly developing China-Africa relations have become a focus of global attention. Secondly, China has offered a new set of alternatives to Africa, namely alternative development partners and development patterns. Thirdly, China’s contributions to Africa, especially infrastructure construction, are beneficial to all stakeholders in the region. For instance, the railways, highways and bridges built by China have provided convenience to both local and foreign people. Fourthly,generally African people hold positive views toward China. African opinions of China will directly affect China-Africa cooperation, so they work as the most direct indicator of China-Africa relations.

Each year, the Pew Research Center would conduct public opinion polling among randomly selected candidates across the world on topics such as“Opinion of China”. Usually, China would get most positive views in African countries. The 2015 Global Attitudes Project shows that most of Africans held favorable attitude toward China.Among the surveyed African countries,China received the highest ratings in Ghana (80%), and then Ethiopia (75%)and Burkina Faso (75%). The last one on the list was South Africa, whose number of favorable attitudes still accounted for more than half (52%). Such positive views come as a result not only from Chinese enterprises’ contributions to African people, but also from Chinese immigrants’ contributions to local society.

Another research center Afrobarometer issued a report on Oct.24th in 2016,showing the survey results of 50 thousand people’s views toward China in 36 African countries, among which an average of 63% of respondents saw China positively. It is shown that China was most welcome in Mali (92%). According to another report issued by the IPSOS in April 2018, as a partner, China was seen most positively by Kenyans and 34% of respon Ship dents considered Kenya-China relations ship as the most important bilateral relations. Kenya newspaper The Star made an analysis on the survey result by explaining that China had done and offered a lot over the years to Kenya and finally won wide recognition. Such good impressions of China have laid a solid foundation for the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa and the development of China-Africa cooperation.

The FOCAC has brought about many opportunities and surprises to the international community in the past 18 years.Different from the previous summits between Africa and the former colonial powers, the FOCAC was initiated by African (Madagascar’s former Foreign Minister Lila Ratsifandrihamanana).China and Africa jointly negotiated and agreed on the agenda and implemented the action plan. Since its creation in 2000, the conference has been held each three years. China and Africa would take turns to hold the forum. Such a model became a good example for other countries to follow. For instance, the ROK, South American countries, India,Turkey and Iran have organized similar forums with Africa following the FOCAC form. The most typical one is the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) started in 1993. The TICAD had been organized each five years in Tokyo until the fifth conference, when Japan decided to change the way to hold the meeting each three years (following China). In 2016, the sixth Conference was organized in Nairobi, Kenya.

Globally there are many summits and forums focusing on African affairs,regularly or irregularly. Major powers such as the UK, France and the US have their own summit framework.The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is a biennial summit of governmental leaders from all Commonwealth nations. Every two years the meeting is held in a different member state. The former British colonies in Africa are all member states. The Franco-African Summit (FAS) started from 1973.Its mechanism is more flexible. Originally, the member states were Frenchspeaking African nations. Later, they were enlarged to include English-speaking, Portuguese-speaking and Spanishspeaking African nations. Sometimes,it would integrate all African countries,such as the summit in 1996. In 1998,the FAS resumed the mechanism of biennial meeting. France and African countries would take turns to hold the conference. In the years without holding the meetings, France and Africa would organize Foreign Minister Consultation. Such a series of meetings are conducive to promoting France-Africa relations. Although the US-Africa Leadership Summit was not held until 2014,the US had maintained contact with African countries via different ways over the years. For above major powers, they have four aspects of advantages in keeping contact with African countries. The first is the historical relations between them. As former colonies and suzerains,they have maintained contact in almost all aspects. The second aspect is that there are numerous African immigrants in the UK, France and the US. Around 12% of American population is African American. Such a bond has brought them closer to some extent. Third, they share the same or similar language and religion. For many African nations, generally they have inherited official language from the former colonial power,which becomes a natural bridge for communication. Christianity is influential in Africa as well. The fourth aspect is the same political system with the former suzerains. Above four aspects became the foundation for the relations between the UK, France, the US and Africa.

To some extent, above aspects are disadvantages for China, relatively speaking, to develop relations with Africa.However, China and Africa enjoy some natural bonds as well. First, they have similar historical process of development. They both once enjoyed brilliant ancient civilizations, modern history of humiliation and experience of fighting for national independence. Second, they share similarities in the culture. Besides,they are both developing countries.They have stood by each other all the way from seeking national independence to the following development course. Since the 21st century, under the framework of the FOCAC, China-Africa cooperation has been enlarged to cover more aspects, especially in the recent years, from Six Key Projects (infrastructure, finance, poverty reduction,ecological and environmental protection, people-to-people exchanges, peace and security) to Three Major Networks,and then Five Pillars (integrating political, economic, cultural, security and international affairs) raised during the FOCAC Johannesburg Summit. In fact that there is already solid foundation for China-Africa cooperation and they have possessed unique advantages of their own, which are not accessible for other major nations to develop relations with Africa.

Different from these countries who tend to impose their own standards on others,China pays respect to other countries’sovereignty, regarding assistance as a part of international cooperation.

China gained such advantages on the basis of four principles. First, China values equality. Second, China advocates for mutual support. After African countries’ getting independent, China and Africa have given mutual support on issues involving politics and then economics. Now, they have developed mutual support in a comprehensive way. Third, China supports African independent choices of ways to develop. China sticks to the principle of offering assistance with no political strings attached, which was blamed by Western countries. Different from these countries who tend to impose their own standards on others, China pays respect to other countries’ sovereignty,regarding assistance as a part of international cooperation. They believes that such cooperation shall be conducted while respecting others’ independent development. The fourth principle is to seek common development. China believes that the goal for China-Africa cooperation is to achieve common development. Only by assuring common progress can China and Africa realize sustainable development, which is a reflection of the democratization of the international relations. In conclusion,since the inception of the FOCAC, China-Africa relations have seen rapid development because head-of-state diplomacy has served as the basis for China-Africa relations; equality stayed at the core of China-Africa relations; China-Africa relations are mutually beneficial in nature; standardized mechanism ensured the sustainable development.

In the past 18 years since the inception of the FOCAC, China has achieved a lot in terms of China-Africa cooperation and African development, which can be perceived by African people as well. China has become more active to speak for itself on issues such as African employment. In 2017, the McKinsey found in the surveys that, in 1073 Chinese enterprises across African eight main countries, 89% of employees were from Africa and 44% of managers were Africans.

CHALLENGES FACING CHINA-AFRICA RELATIONS AND THE WAYS OUT

Under new circumstances, China,on the one hand, enjoys advantages in Africa that other countries cannot compare. On the other hand, China-Africa relations are faced with some possible challenges which cannot be neglected.China and Africa shall make joint efforts to cope with the challenges, in order to achieve sustainable development.

The FOCAC mechanism has been proved to be effective by time. A series of new approaches and methods have been raised during the conference.However, since some concepts proposed by China are strategic and instructive in the long run, it is not a sustainable way to raise new methods at every each forum. For instance, the 2015 Summit adopted the Johannesburg Declaration and the Johannesburg Action Plan (2016-2018), which put forward the“Five Major Pillars”, including equality and mutual trust in politics, win-win cooperation in the economy, mutually enriching cultural exchanges, mutual assistance in security and solidarity,and coordination in international affairs, and decided to carry out practical cooperation in “Ten Major Fields”, including industrialization, agricultural modernization, infrastructure, finance,green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty reduction and people’s welfare, public health, peopleto-people exchanges, as well as peace and security. It is a strategic and holistic map to cover the above items, which is hard to be realized within three years.Under such circumstances, China and Africa shall take steps to follow and inspect the implementation of these action plans.

Taking full use of African and especially China’s governmental resources is one of the FOCAC’s advantages,which can cover all aspects of society.However, one of the shortcomings is that we still have to do more to stimulate folk initiative and to integrate civil society into China-African cooperation framework. The UK, France and the US have their own advantages and conventional framework, while Japan and Germany are good at utilizing International and regional organizations.For instance, the UN was involved as a partner ever since the beginning of the TICAD, and the UN’s influence was widely used to attract and mobilize people to join in. Besides, Japanese program of “one village, one product”has been carried out for a long time and been influential. Germany tries explore the G20 as a platform to develop relations with Africa. The T20 African Standing Group (T20 ASG) initiated by German Development Institute(DIE) was founded in 2017, consisting of Global governance states, G20 states and African countries. In April 2018, the T20 ASG held the first annual meeting in Addis Ababa. Supported by the Germany government, the DIE,together with other foreign research institutes particularly the South Africa Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), has tried to lead the international cooperation with Africa under the framework of G20. Therefore, we shall explore to fully mobilize International organizations and civil society to promote China-Africa cooperation.

Since the 21st century, under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa cooperation, the cooperation between the two sides has covered many aspects. Congo (Brazzaville) is one of the pilot demonstration countries for China-Africa production capacity cooperation. In recent years, China has implemented many projects such as the China-Congo friendship hospital, sports center and the cable-stayed bridge along the river road through close cooperation with Congo, including intergovernmental cooperation, as well as loans provided by China and fi nancing by Congo. The picture shows the cable-stayed bridge along the river in Brazzaville, capital of Congo(Brazzaville), taken on June 10, 2018.The Brazzaville cable-stayed bridge along the river road was built by CRBC and closed on September 16, 2015.

Recently, most strides we have made are in the economic and trade fields.Although we have brought the topic of cultural exchanges upon the general agenda and carried out activities in terms of leading public opinion, media operation, cultural interaction and people-to-people exchanges, these is space for further development. China-Africa cooperation cannot be flourishing without cultural communication and mutual understanding as the basis. The cultural exchange, in nature,is neither a way of propaganda nor promoting soft power. Instead, it is a process of learning from each other.Only through mutual learning can we strengthen mutual understanding. It is an equal process to exchange with each other. We may invite experts to be counselors on cultural affairs under the FOCAC framework and organize lectures and free discussions regularly to promote mutual understanding.Cultural exchanges cannot be replaced by usual propaganda; otherwise things may be counterproductive.

China’s comprehensive national strength has been improved and has conducted wider international exchanges. Therefore, China now needs to assume more responsibilities in international affairs. If we continued to think of diplomacy as an approach to economic development, our vision would be restricted. That mentality will impact China’s image of a responsible and pragmatic country. Now we cannot focus only on the economic interests.Instead, we shall make effort to promote morality and ethnics and deepen political cooperation. The African Union has served as the legitimate speaker for African overall interests. However,there is still no seat for African countries in the UN Security Council, the important international organization representing the common interests of mankind. This does not make sense.In recent years, African countries have strongly appealed to have a permanent seat of the UN Security Council. Such an appeal is reasonable and rightful,and is necessary to head for a fair and rational new international political system. Hence, China shall hold high the moral banner and show understanding and support to Africa.

The FOCAC shall make effort to provid convenient public service for China-Africa cooperation. China shall provide necessary material for concrete cooperation timely and effectively, develop material searching platform, and regularly issue the report of cooperation outcomes and evaluation, so that Chinese, African and international scholars,public, media and NGOs can develop a better understanding about the Forum.This is conductive to enhancing mutual trust and clarifying any misunderstanding. It will be advantageous to design some supporting projects and entrepreneurial programs aiming at assisting certain social groups, such as women and youth. These programs will become useful platforms to enhance people-topeople exchanges.

Chinese government has done a lot on issues related to scholarship for African students in China. These international students have warm affection for China and are willing to contribute to China-Africa relation development,thus becoming important sources of energy in promoting China-Africa cooperation. It will be beneficial to make clear the number, nation, major,scholarship project, employment and exchange program of these students.

Another issue worth attention is to discuss the immigrant policy with African countries under the FOCAC framework. The increasing trade volume and rapid development of business cooperation cannot be achieved without immigrants’ hard work. The deepening China-Africa cooperation, in turn, has encouraged a larger number of immigrants to both China and Africa. However, things are equally tough for both sides in the migrant issues, including overstaying visas, cross-cultural communication, illegal overstaying and involvement in illegal activities. Both sides shall thus seriously take immigrant issues into consideration, making it a positive energy to China-Africa cooperation. How to protect the migrants and to provide convenience for their business shall become a topic within the FOCAC framework.