The outgoing year of 2024 has been phenomenally significant in relations and cooperation between Africa and China and this is not because it has been less significant in the past but because in a particularly tense period in the world, it stayed stable and entered a new era of high-quality engagement and “elevated to an all-weather community with a shared future.”
President Xi Jinping pointed to its historic trajectory when he noted that “the friendship between China and Africa transcends time and space, surmounts mountains and oceans and passes down through generations.”
While scholars of international relations and world politics make claims to the tiresome theory that nations proceed from the cold calculus of strict national interest in interactions with others, giving scope to a zero-sum game in which one must lose for another to gain, China-Africa cooperation has significantly upended the audacity of such assumptions, giving concrete expression that international cooperation and partnerships have consequences for win-win outcomes and mutual benefits.
The outgoing year of 2024 witnessed an escalation of tensions in many parts of the world. The Russia/Ukraine conflict reached a dangerous level amidst nuclear threats with obvious ramifications for the rest of the world. The Israeli war in Gaza also threatened to spiral out of control and engulf the whole region with Iran being dragged into the mix and the US presidential election appeared more like a civil war than a political contest with a leading presidential candidate barely escaping two assassination attempts.
Despite that Mr Donald Trump won convincingly and decisively, the American “civil war” is far from over. Major European countries – Germany, France, and Netherlands – witnessed political upsets with ruling parties shaken to their roots.
The European Union bureaucracy having betted on the war-enabling US Joe Biden presidency and its surrogate, Mrs Kamala Harris look hopelessly hollowed out as Mr Trump looks forward to cutting a deal with Russian leader, Vladimir Putin to end Europe’s most fratricidal war since the 1940’s.
Amidst the turbulence, Africa and China strengthened their engagement which culminated in the summit of the heads of state and government of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) which was held in Beijing in September. More than 50 heads of state and government, including Nigeria’s President Tinubu showed up in Beijing, except for the tiny Estwani, former Swaziland, still struggling to come to terms with the African consensus that there is only one China in the world (People’s Republic of China) whose government in Beijing is the sole and legitimate representative of all the Chinese people including their 22 million compatriots in the Taiwan Island.
The summit as widely expected lived up to expectations. Nigeria’s President Ahmed Tinubu attending for the first time said that “the African spirit for FOCAC is based upon mutual respect and partnership that promote development, happiness, peace and stability”, adding that “we are in this journey together.” As it is usual with the tradition of the FOCAC process, the summit delivered a compelling practical outcome, setting the stage for follow-up engagements.
Before outlining the ten partnership action plans for the two sides, President Xi Jinping dropped the iconic words on marble that “China and Africa account for one-third of the world population. Without our modernization, there will be no global modernization”, describing modernization as “an inalienable right of all countries”. The 10-action plans to be implemented in the next three years covered areas of mutual learning among civilizations, trade prosperity, industrial chain cooperation, connectivity, health, agriculture and livelihoods, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, green development and common security. All these areas of cooperation were products of vigorous and extensive consultations resulting in consensus on the roadmap for implementations.
The year 2025 would be a pivotal year for the implementation of the outcomes of the summit and so far activities have demonstrated considerable commitments by relevant parties to dutifully carry out their responsibilities.
The Nigerian government whose leader, President Tinubu, participated both at the summit and also paid his first state visit to China on the invitation of President XI Jinping, established a special directorate and appointed a Director-General for Nigeria-China Strategic Partnership who “will lead day-to-day operations, engage continuously with the Chinese counterparts and ensure that all deliverables are met and synchronized with national development goals.”
In the strategic plan, the director-general who will report directly to the president thereby by-passing potential bureaucratic bottlenecks “will ensure the specific deliverables, timelines and key performance indicators for each area of cooperation which will include priority projects, projected investments and expected socio-economic outcomes”.
This is the first time in Nigeria’s international relations that a special directorate has been created to oversee the implementation of the outcomes of the country’s bilateral engagement and a specific multilateral forum. On the other hand, the Chinese Ambassador, Mr Yu Dunhai, who arrived at his post in Abuja just barely a month before the summit in Beijing, expressed his total commitment not only to ensure the implementation of the outcomes but also to its translation into concrete benefits for the two sides.
Given that the stage is set for China and Africa to walk the talk, the year 2025 will be a significant turning point for cooperation that has traditionally aimed to scale new heights and gain new impetus.
To infuse the African Continent Free Trade Area (ACFTA) with the type of vitality that it deserves, foreign direct investment flows, for which China is well known, are vastly needed. On average, China invests about $340 million across the world daily and a good slice of it will significantly impact Africa’s foreign investment drive.
Against the background of the mounting rhetoric of the U.S. president-elect, Mr Donald Trump who is ideologically addicted to trade tariff hikes, notwithstanding its economic backlash, Chinese enterprises will likely hedge their bets to a more welcoming and less politically volatile economic landscape that Africa can offer.
It means African countries should take advantage of the traditional political goodwill that exists with Beijing and create the enabling economic conditions with a significant focus on cutting red tape and offering concessional tax incentives for prospective Chinese enterprises.
With the right policy mix that combines with the demographic advantage and potential for green development, African active industrial and capacity production cooperation with China can help the region inherit the mantle of the “workshop of the world”, and inject the world economy with a fresh dynamism. Europe and America are currently engrossed in the disruptions of the global industrial value chain and obsessed with erecting trade barriers in an unending shadow fight to contain and constrain China, which has an obvious implication to distract and distort Africa’s growth trajectory for which China is making outstanding contributions.
The prospects of the year 2025 for China and Africa to raise the bar to new levels of their cooperation and engagement under the Belt and Road Initiative for which Africa is the region with the largest number of partnership countries is an important frontier to be further explored.
The milestone already reached in Belt and Road constructions which have provided enormous infrastructure connectivity projects spanning railways, highways, seaports, airports, and industrial parks in Africa naturally speaks to the new phase of investment and trade cooperation for which the infrastructure projects are and would be major enablers.
Without vigorous economic and social activities, infrastructure projects will translate to dead capital and over time become a liability. And with the Belt and Road Initiative now taking into account small but, people-centred and impactful projects, African policymakers desirous of dealing deadly blows to poverty in the region can engage policy instruments that leverage the cooperation with China in the new stage of the Belt and Road cooperation.
China’s key global initiatives on development, security and dialogue among civilizations are open and are viable domains for international partnership and cooperation and the year 2025 provides a vital opportunity for African countries to give policy context to these initiatives and instrumentalise them to address specific challenges. Beijing traditionally says what it means and means what it says and therefore the room for concrete outcomes in cooperation with China on these initiatives has high prospects.
The coming of the year 2025 will not hand prospects and benefits as Santa Claus or Father Christmas but rather every hazard that must be overcome or avoided and the benefits and progress, the new year will afford will be the outcome of a deliberate commitment and steadfast struggle and this is especially for China-Africa cooperation.
Onunaiju is the director of the Centre for China Studies, Abuja
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