China, West Can Be Partners, Not Rivals in Africa’s Development

It’s noteworthy that the recent four-nation tour of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has practically overlapped those of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.

Coincidentally, Ethiopia and Angola, two legs of Li’s Africa tour, were also part of Kerry’s itinerary.

That coincidence may lead to a rash assumption that the world’s economic heavyweights are engaged in a fierce race to grab their share of the most promising continent.

Certain biased commentators in the West tend to see China, a latecomer to Africa, as a rising contender, and smear it as the new colonist that snatches natural resources to fit its own development agenda just as Western powers did centuries ago.

Such misconceptions only attest to the West’s poor knowledge about the real story of China-Africa cooperation.

The unremitting and ever-robust China-Africa partnership originates in shared aspirations to common development and improvement of people’s livelihood.

That effort, as defined by Li and African leaders in a joint statement on May 7, welcomes diversification of Africa’s cooperative partners, or “a third party” in Africa “on the basis of its need, consent and participation.”

The openness and inclusiveness of such cooperation is also manifest in expanding joint ventures on the continent financed by China and other countries. It is distinct from the old Western approach of snatching the spear of influence and stopping the entry of outsiders.

Furthermore, politicizing China’s normal business cooperation with Africa is doomed to failure, as enhancing people’s livelihood is pursued by two sides whose economies are highly complementary and impossible to alienate.

The strategic partnership of China and Africa, with an eye to benefiting both their own peoples and the globe at large, is thus one that features greater tenacity and longer duration.

Promoting economic ties with Africa is by no means a zero-sum game for China and the West. The vast continent, full of commercial potential and business opportunities, is large enough to accommodate competent companies from all countries on an equal footing.

Source: Xinhua

Construction starts on April 27, 2014 of the electric railway between Ethiopia and Djibouti by the China Railway Construction Corporation, incorporating for the first time the full set of Chinese technical standards from design and construction to signaling and electrification.