By: December 3, 2021
The triannual Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC, 中非合作论坛, Zhongfei hezuo luntan) convened in Dakar, Senegal this week (Xinhua, November 29). This year’s meeting was held at the ministerial level, a departure from the last two fora, which were leader-level summits. More African heads of state, 50, attended the 2018 FOCAC meeting in Beijing than the UN General Assembly that year.
The summit was a particularly successful moment for President Xi Jinping’s foreign policy as he welcomed three new participants — Gambia, Burkina Faso and Sao Tome and Principe that had recently switched their diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) leaving Taiwan with only one diplomatic partner in Africa, Eswatini (Xinhua, September 3, 2018; FOCAC 2018). This year’s meeting occurs at a more difficult juncture for China and many African states with countries in Southern Africa facing fresh travel bans following the emergence of the Omicron variant, and China limiting its foreign investment as it focuses on economic challenges, including ballooning debt, at home............
The PRC uses FOCAC to institutionalize and provide a strategic framework for its engagement with Africa. At the 2018 summit, Xi launched eight major initiatives: industrial promotion, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, green development, capacity building, health care, people-to-people exchange, and security (Xinhua, September 3, 2018). Some of these efforts have weathered the impact of COVID-19. For example, China-Africa trade volumes are at their highest level in history amounting to $185.2 billion over the first three quarters of 2021 (Xinhua, November 17). China has also pushed through with the establishment of ten Luban Workshops, which seek to boost local African capacity through technical and vocational education training programs (China Brief, November 5)...........To Read More....
My Take - In other words, the boot of all this is China's going to do what failed in the past, and spend a lot of money they don't have? Did I get that right?
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