（Chen-shen Yen, Adjunct Research Fellow of the Institute of International Relations, NCCU）
Since its establishment in 2000, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) has held ministerial-level meetings every three years, alternatingly hosted by Beijing and an African country. The theme of this year's summit was "Joining Hands to Advance Modernization and Build a High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future." The theme mentioned the modernization of Africa and a high-level community. In Xi Jinping's keynote address at the opening ceremony, he articulated these visions in six aspects (just and equitable, open and win-win, people first, diversity and inclusiveness, eco-friendly, peace and security), indicating that China will help Africa to reach a higher level of development.
Among the 54 countries in Africa, not counting Somaliland, where Taiwan has a representative office, and Western Sahara, which is still under Morocco rule, only Eswatini, Taiwan’s sole diplomatically on the continent, was not invited. Of the representatives from 53 African countries attending the summit, 37 were presidents. The chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council in Sudan has the same political status and power as a president. Ethiopia is a federal parliamentary republic. Morocco and Lesotho are constitutional monarchies. For these three countries, the prime minister is the head of government with real executive power. So delegations from more than forty countries at a minimum were led by their head of government.
Algeria and Angola only sent their foreign ministers to attend the summit. Algerian president was occupied with reelection as the summit overlapped with the country’s presidential election. Angola is China’s largest oil importer in Africa. Therefore, its President João Lourenço's failure to attend the FOCAC summit attracted attention from international media. Some even speculated whether their relationship was affected by problems related to railroad construction. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who met with Xi Jinping several times, did not attend the summit either. As a result, despite the presence of executive heads of government from more than forty countries, the nonappearance of these two African political heavyweights was a fly in the ointment.
The FOCAC has witnessed the establishment of new types of partnership, new types of strategic partnership or even comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between African countries and China since its launch. All of China's comprehensive strategic cooperative partners in Africa, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Senegal and Guinea, were represented by their presidents at the summit. Moreover, in regard to cooperation agreements in seven areas (security, energy, hard infrastructure, natural resources, public relations, soft infrastructure and trade), Nigeria signed agreements in all seven of them, Zimbabwe six and South Africa, Sudan and Congo five. Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo inked four. Other countries signed zero to three agreements. Countries clinched cooperation agreements in three areas included Rwanda, Burundi, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Benin, Gabon and Zambia.
Cooperation in these different areas aligns with the FOCAC's organizational development over the past quarter century. Starting from ministerial-level meetings and besides holding occasional summits, other related forums and dialogue mechanisms have been created, including the China-Africa Entrepreneurs Forum, China-Africa Young Leaders Forum, China-Africa Women's Forum, China-Africa Think Tank Forum, China-Africa People’s Forum, Forum on China-Africa Economic and Trade Cooperation, Forum on China-Africa Local Government Cooperation, Forum on China-Africa Media Cooperation, Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Agriculture, China-Africa Peace and Security Forum, China-Africa Private Economy Cooperation Forum and China-Africa Poverty Reduction and Development Conference. These forums and conference enable China to foster almost comprehensive interactions with Africa.
In his keynote speech, Xi first mentioned the common experience of China and Africa regarding their fight against colonialism. Xi pointed out that modernization is an inalienable right. But the Western approach has inflicted immense suffering to the Global South countries, said Xi. However, developing countries including China successively gained independence and have strived to correct historical injustices since World War II (China has never been colonized even as it was humiliated by foreign powers or that Japan occupied vast areas of Chinese territory. The founding of the communist regime in 1949 cannot be interpreted as becoming independent). Xi’s remarks and the aforementioned agreements with African countries demonstrate that China now focuses more on diplomatic, political, and security cooperation in its interactions with Africa.
Obviously, while Washington is holding high the banner of democracy and freedom and hosts the Summit for Democracy, Beijing is thinking about how to forge closer ties with Africa and third-world countries, lead the Global South to compete with the West in the international arena to ensure the autonomy and interests of developing countries. France’s experience offers a lesson for China to contemplate whether such a model of comprehensive cooperation will make Africans doubt if it is in their interests.
France has been interacting with African countries through the Conference of Heads of State of Africa and France since 1973. The platform was renamed the Africa-France Summit in 2021, and young people and NGO activists from the civil society in Africa became the main participants. The aim was to change the summit’s past image of only interacting with officials while ignoring the African people. Coups broke out in Mali, Chad and Guinea before the new summit and were followed by military coups in former French colonies. These coups were mainly because government leaders became clients of their patron France and only tried to cater to the latter's interests and disregarded public grievances. This resulted in street protests and then military coups. New leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger after the coups demanded the withdrawal of French forces.
As mentioned above, the FOCAC has established many forums for dialogues with the civil society. China has never colonized Africa and does not have the burden and negative image of colonialism. However, its comprehensive operation has often been criticized as creating debt traps, a kind of economic colonialism, in recent years. Beijing, of course, uses rhetoric to defend its actions. In particular, it has stressed from time to time that it is a member of the developing world and share the same interests with related countries. If China only focuses on building ties with those in power or the elites and helping other governments to purge opponents in the name of maintaining social order with surveillance systems, Beijing may be viewed as an accomplice supporting the corruption of their leaders due to its lack of connection with grassroots people. China must careful consider this potential scenario.
（Translated to English by Cindy Li）
