Africa Needs China in the same way that China Needs Africa

Abdelati Habek, Executive President of the Diplomatic Foundation, Morocco

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Africa Needs China in the same way that China Needs Africa

Abdelati Habek, Executive President of the Diplomatic Foundation, Morocco

?Let China sleep, for when China wakes, the entire world will tremble”. This prophecy, which is attributed to Napoleon in 1816, and quoted by the former French minister Alain Peyrefitte in a book written in 1973, “When China wakes up, the world will tremble”, is for me nothing more than a cliché which is the expression of the doubtful, constantly renewed apprehension of Western consumers.

For us Africans, the Middle Kingdom has never been resting on its laurels, it has always been a fighter, with a civilization that is a thousand-year strong, which cannot be moved away from its place, choosing to build its own path away from the beaten tracks of the European and American models.

For us, China is not a nightmare for the world, neither is it a nightmare for Africa which continues to benefit greatly on a daily basis from its largesse, investments, cooperation and its partnership which is based on the win-win ideal.

This cooperation and partnership have reflected in all political, economic, security and military areas, as illustrated by the presence, in Africa, of the Chinese telecommunications giant “Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd” - a supplier of device, network and cloud-based solutions for operators, companies and consumers, as well as Norinco, an arms manufacturer which has more employees than the entire military-industrial complex of the United States of America.

Ladies and gentlemen, honorable assembly,

In becoming the third State that is capable of sending men into orbit, China has joined the ranks of great space powers. It is also the country with the largest gold and foreign currency reserves, which are very far in excess of that held by Japan, the United States and the Gulf countries.

Africa, which has for a long time been subservient to colonial masters, needs China in the same way that China needs Africa. “China-Africa” competes strongly with “France-Africa” and a part of the Commonwealth, and this is a fair game.

However, contrary to “France-Africa”, even though it has become the foremost global economic power and the second political and military power, China has refused to interfere in the internal affairs of African countries.

Ladies and gentlemen, honorable assembly,

It is for all these reasons that China enjoys the esteem of Africa which has opened its borders to China with humility. It is for all these reasons that China is attractive to us and all the economic indices agree that this is potentially the biggest global market.

It is also for these reasons that China today has a moral right to maintain peace and security in an Africa that has been scarred by several decades of blind violence and abject terrorism, whose only remedies are socio-economic and cultural development, reforms of the educational and health sectors, launching of vast structural projects as well as the development of small family businesses and microcredit, the fight against corruption, correlation between responsibility and accountability, and the reconstruction of war-torn countries like Libya, South-Sudan, Mali, etc. It is a long list …

Ladies and gentlemen, honorable assembly,

Certainly, the security of a territory does not depend only on development, because, from time immemorial, there have always been lunatics who invade their neighbours and anarchists who threaten the peace of the citizenry. It is against this deadly backdrop – there is nothing like zero risk – that China-Africa cooperation in the area of security for the defense and promotion of peace has been marked in recent years by a tangible evolution, particularly in the training of officers.

It is no secret that military cooperation is one of the factors responsible for the closer ties we share with the Middle Kingdom, which has now become the main supplier of arms in Sub-Saharan Africa, before Ukraine and Russia, with sales of transport vehicles, armored carriers and particularly light and small caliber arms.

With some of its African partners, its sales have also included fighter jets or transport planes, helicopters, surveillance ships, tanks and artillery. China has also provided support for the construction of factories that manufacture ammunitions and light arms.

Ladies and gentlemen, honorable assembly,

I dare to hope that our relations will get stronger on a daily basis and remain based on mutual understanding and respect. We have a lot to learn from China, just as China has a lot to learn from us. For this, we need to understand each other better in order to have greater appreciation for each other, and it is only through this kind of forum, as well as regular meetings and exchanges that we will be able to build strong bridges between us and that “the Belt and Road Initiative”, a project which is dear to President Xi Jinping, will be full of meaning.

I dare to hope that this new Silk Road will lead someday to the creation of a China-Africa Economic Union. After all, are the most daunting challenges not made to be overcome? Do the most fleeting dreams not exist to be achieved?

To conclude, I would like to quote these words of President Xi Jinping, from a speech he gave during the Beijing Summit: “we have no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, exporting our own social system or model of development. We do not intend to impose our will on others. We want to build partnerships based on dialogue and friendship, rather than on confrontation and alliances.”

I thank you.