AFRICA DIARY
Since then, China has emerged as a power of concern and
promise. “What our ancestors could never have predicted,”
explains the rather pessimistic note from the Pan African
Alliance, “was the rise of China as a new colonial threat.”
September saw a version of this response in fi nessed form,
urgent given the emergence of various threats to the PRC.
The Chinese economy, for one, is slowing. The quarterly
growth GDP growth of 6.5 percent, while still impressive,
is the weakest since the shocks of the global fi nancial crisis
between 2008-9. The United States has been pressing what
has been regarded as a trade war, though the public response to
this is reserved. Chinese offi cials have attempted to disabuse
notions that the recent impositions of tariff s by the Trump
administration are signifi cant. “The psychological impact,”
explained Vice-premier Liu He this month to China Central
Television, the People’s Daily and Xinhua news, “is greater
than the actual impact.” 2
Whatever softening statements might be stemming from
Beijing, September presented Premier Xi Jinping with a
chance to adumbrate a sharper PRC policy towards African
states. China, explained Xi, had adopted a “fi ve-nos” approach
The September FOCAC gathering was a suitable reminder
about how the PRC involvement in African has developed. In
1980, Sino-African trade was a mere $1 billion. Two decades
later, it reached $10 billion. By 2011, it had reached $166.3
billion, a year which saw an giddy increase of 33 percent
from the previous year. The African complement for China
lay in petroleum, agricultural products, and mineral ores; the
Chinese return was a staggering $93 billion worth, mostly
consisting of manufactured goods. 1
But China’s engagement with Africa can, to a large extent,
be laid at the door of the Three Worlds Theory that emerged
as a crucial development in PRC foreign policy: China
would provide leadership for the Third World in opposition
to the First, supplying the stewardship for formerly exploited
colonial states against the First World capitalist states made
up of former colonial powers. In time, this opposition
would also be against a rival hegemon, the Soviet Union.
China’s historical suff erings supplied the ideal credentials
for understanding the predicament. They had their own
aspirations, but also understood the depredations of their
enemy.
China’s view on development is seen as
singular, an “all-weather” friend, if one
accepts the views of such analysts as
Hoze Riruako of the University of Namibia.
Preconditions are not present; caveats and
qualifi ers are distinctly absent.
to Africa: that there would be no interference in the pursuit
of development paths by African states that fi t their specifi c
national conditions; that no interference would be had in the
internal aff airs of those states; no imposition of China’s will
upon them would be forthcoming; nor would there be an
attachment of political conditions to the granting of assistance,
and no pursuit of selfi sh political gains in fi nancing and
investment cooperation.
The FOCAC Beijing Action Plan (2019-2021) was duly
adopted at the summit centred on furthering eight initiatives:
industrial promotion, infrastructure connectivity, trade
facilitation, green development, capacity building, health
1
The Pan-African Alliance, “How China is Colonising Africa Using Trade, Aid and Debt-Trap Diplomacy,” Jun 21, 2018, https://www.panafricanalliance.com/
china-africa-colonialism/
2
Tom Mitchell and Sherry Fei Ju, “Chinese vice-premier makes plea for calm as growth slows,” Financial Times, Oct 19, 2018.
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 6 • Issue 10 • Oct-Nov 2018, Noida • 57