In China - BRICS Policy Center

China-Africa Relations: Past, Present and Future Dr. HE Wenping Professor, Director of African Studies Section Institute of West Asian & African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

1. Historical Heritage and Three Development Periods

2. Current Economic Cooperation 3. FOCAC and Its Impact 4. Opportunities, Trends and Challenges Ahead

1. China-African relations: Historical Heritage and Three Development Periods —— Long history: can trace back to Han Dynasty 2 BC, then Tang Dynasty. Wan Dayuan(汪大渊) in Yuan Dynasty travelled to 12 countries in North and East Africa; and Ibn Battuta (伊本·白图泰)(1304－1377）from Morocco also travelled to China for two years. —— Zheng He （1371-1435）: Great navigator in Ming Dynasty. Led a fleet of ships (the most advanced one at that time) and visited more than 30 countries in South East Asia and the countries along Indian Ocean for 7 times since 1405. He visited East Africa (eg. Kenya and Tanzania) 4 times as well. ——Peace and good will visit (no slave taken, no land occupied)

• Ming Dynasty • Great Navigator Zheng He（1371-1435）

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First period (from the 1950s to the end of the 1970s): rich ideology and reinforcement of political benefits Background: — Diplomatic isolation — “Three worlds divided” theory Manifestation: —China support the African countries’ just struggle for national independence and against imperialism and colonialism — China has actively helped the African countries develop their economies and consolidate independence (such as TaZara Railway) — African countries supported China’s reunification cause and resumption of China’s legitimate seat at the United Nations

Chairman Mao with Friends from Asia, Latin America and Africa in 1959

The biggest Chinese aid project to Africa, the Tan-Zam Railway, began to be built in mid 1960’s and completed in 1975

Second period (whole decade of 1980s): weakening ideology and valuing economic benefits • Background: –the changes of China’s domestic situation: focus on modernization and economic development –the changes of China’s diplomatic strategy: from ideological idealism to pragmatic realism, from the unconditional internationalism to the priority of the national interest

• Manifestation: • — Sino-African economic and trade relations have developed from the singular pattern of official aid between governments in the past into a mutually beneficial cooperation of diversified forms.

Third period (after the end of the cold war up to now): attaching importance to both political and economic benefits and developing bilateral relations in an all-round way – Politically, China has always regarded Africa as its most reliable ally in the international stage. (voting power and strategic support for China’s peaceful rising. frequent high level visits, former President Hu had visited Africa 6 times, President Xi just visited Africa in March) – Economically, to develop Sino-African relations is the requirement for China’s economy to carry out sustainable development. (resources, market, investment)

2. Current Economic Cooperation • Trade: improved rapidly. China is now the biggest trade partner of Africa, surpass US since 2009 — trade volume has been increased from $10billion in 2000 up to $126.9 billion (2010), $160 billion (2011) , over $ 200 billion (2012), 30-35% annual growth rate in 10 years. — strong complementary with each other: Chinese manufacture products meet African demand and Africa’s resources meet China’s huge demand for economic sustainable growth — trade partners are quite concentrated among a few countries: SA, Angola, Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, Congo(B)

China’s trade with Africa in total (＄billion)

• New trend: Trade structure has been gradually changed — The share of high tech. products is increasing, account for more than half of China’s export to Africa now, such as home appliances, mobile phones, autos, aircrafts, even satellites, etc. — More African products are also seen in Chinese market and be fond by Chinese consumers, such as marble from Egypt, coffee from Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda, auto parts from South Africa, electronic products from Tunisia, tobacco from Zimbabwe, peanut oil from Senegal, cotton from Mali and cassava from Nigeria. —However, resources products are still taking the lead in the trade at the moment. Africa is now the second largest crude oil resources to China.

• Investment: — started from 1980, fast developed since 2001; —Signed mutual investment protect agreements with 28 African countries, and refrain from dual taxes-levy treaties with 8 African countries — grow from $50 million 2001 to nearly $1 billion annually in recent years ($15 bn in total), Africa is now China's second largest overseas labor and project contracting market and fourth largest destination for outward investment. 2000 Chinese enterprises based in Africa —Investments focus on agriculture, manufacture, communication, and mainly infrastracture areas such as irrigation, road/bridge, railway construction, hydropower station, etc. —Sudan, Algeria, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia are the main investment destination countries.

• labour-contracted projects: — largely developed since 1979, accounting for $39.44 billion by the end of 2008, 10 times that of 2000, and accounted for 31% of whole labour-contrated projects in the whole world. Africa is becoming the second largest market for China in this regard (1 to 2 million Chinese there) — So far, Chinese companies have contracted in building more than 6000 km roads, 3400 km railways, and 8 hydropower stations.

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3. FOCAC and Its Impact (FOCAC: Forum of China-Africa Cooperation)

• Background and significance of the Forum – Proposed by some African countries and echoed by Chinese government – The needs of strengthening consultation and cooperation in the new situation – A new platform and a mechanism for regular bilateral exchanges and closer Sino-African cooperation – The first of its kind in the history of Sino-African relations and in the 50 years of the People’s Republic of China’s diplomacy history

• The first Forum: Beijing 2000 Ministerial Conference – Two documents issued: the Beijing Declaration and the Programme of Cooperation on Economic and Social Development – RMB 10 billion debts write-off to African countries within the set period of 2 years; set up special foundations for encouraging Chinese enterprises to invest in Africa, and for helping training all kinds of African professional personnel. – Mechanism design: once every 3 years, rotation taking in China and Africa, avoid empty talk, detail measures in Action Plan based on mutual discussion, mainly demand-driven

• The second Forum: Addis Ababa 2003 Ministerial Conference – Addis Ababa Action Plan (2004-2006) had been passed – Major concrete measures including: 1) increase the aids to Africa; 2) further open Chinese market to African products and grant duty-free for some commodities produced by the least developed African countries; 3) Increase 33％ input for the African Human Resources Development Fund and training nearly 10 thousand African talent in the next 3 years; 4) Add 8 new African countries in the list of travel destination for Chinese tourists, etc.

• The Third Forum: Beijing 2006 Summit Eight measures have been announced: ——Double assistance by 2009 ——Provide loans and credits totaling US$ 5 billion ——Set-up a Development Fund which will reach US$ 5 billion to encourage Chinese Companies’ investment ——Build a conference centre for the AU (hand over in early 2012) ——Debt Cancel ——Further Open up China’s Market to African commodities (from previous 190 to 440 items) ——Establish 3-5 Trade & Economic Cooperation Zones（ NigeriaGuang Dong Cooperation Zone（China-Zambia Cooperation

Zone，Raiki Free Trade Zone in Nigeria，Suez Cooperation Zone in Egypt，Oriental Industrial Park in Ethiopia， Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone in Mauritius ）

• ——Train 15,ooo African Professionals, build 100 rural schools, dispatch 100 agriculture experts and 300 youth volunteers, build 30 hospitals and 30 malaria treatment centres, increase scholarships for African students from 2000 to 4000 per year,etc

The 2006 FOCAC Summit Opening Ceremony

• The Fourth Forum: 2009 SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt Ministerial Conference • New Eight measures have been announced: ——Establish a China-Africa partnership in addressing climate change, to build 100 clean energy projects for Africa covering solar power, bio-gas and small hydro-power . —— Enhance cooperation with Africa in science and technology, will carry out 100 joint demonstration projects with Africa on scientific and technological research and receive 100 African postdoctoral fellows to conduct scientific research in China ——Help Africa build up financing capacity. China would provide 10 billion U.S. dollars in concessional loans to African countries, and setting up a special loan of 1 billion dollars for small- and medium-sized African businesses, cancel African countries’ debts due to mature by the end of 2009

——Further open up China’s market to African products. phase in zero-tariff treatment to 95 percent of the products from the least developed African countries, starting with 60 percent of the products within 2010.

——Enhance cooperation with Africa in agriculture. increase the number of agricultural technology demonstration centers in Africa to 20, send 50 agricultural technology teams to Africa and train 2,000 African agricultural technology personnel. ——Deepen cooperation in medical care and health. provide medical equipment and anti-malaria materials worth RMB 500 million ($ 73.2 million) to the 30 hospitals and 30 malaria prevention and treatment centers built by China and train 3,000 doctors and nurses for Africa.

——Enhance cooperation in human resources development and education. China would build 50 schools and train 1,500 school principals and teachers for African countries. By 2012, China would increase the number of Chinese government scholarships to Africa to 5,500, and would also train 20,000 professionals for Africa over the next three years. ——Expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges. China proposes to launch a ChinaAfrica joint research and exchange program to increase exchanges and cooperation, share development experience, and provide intellectual support for formulating better cooperation policies by the two sides

• The Fifth Forum: 2012 Beijing Ministerial Conference in July

• Five priority areas announced by then Chinese President Hu Jintao at the opening meeting —— the financing ( $20 billion credit loans) —— development assistance (highly related with people’s livelihood, human resources training) —— African’s integration (transnational infrastructure projects) —— people to people relations (NGOs interactions) —— peace and security (train African peacekeeper, support African stand-by forces, etc.）

• The Impact of FOCAC —— Bilaterally, an New Impulse for Promoting Sino-African Relations • (mechanism for collective dialogue, Africa is high in China’s foreign agenda, e.g. White paper on “China’s Africa Policy” issued in early 2006) ——Internationally, the appearance of “Africa fever” , Africa

is now back to the centre of world stage (Korea-Africa Summit , EU-Africa Summit , India-Africa Summit, Turkey-Africa Summit, etc). ——In Africa, heated debate about forming African strategy

towards China builds on, ownership building process

4. Future: Opportunities, Trends & Challenges

• Opportunities and Trends • Developed countries are still struggling with economic and debt crisis (stagnation has replaced growth) , their investment and aid in Africa is decreasing • South-South cooperation is getting new momentum (from BRIC to BRICS, shared development between emerging economies and Africa). By SA Standard Bank Report (2013/2), BRICS-Africa trade has grown faster than its trade with any other region. Its total trade with Africa reached $340 billion in 2012, tenfold increase over the decade. BRICS-Africa trade will surpass $500 billion by 2015, roughly 60% will be China-Africa trade

• Africa’s Rising (the last frontier: better off in governance and stability, economic growth, middle class expanding…..) • “Looking East” strategy in Africa (Ethiopia、South Africa、 Rwanda, etc.)

• China’s Africa Policy: moving forward with the time (many new focuses: NGO contact and soft power building, etc.) • As China shifts from exporter to investor, China’s presence in Africa will refocus from trade to investment

Challenges Ahead In general, need to address several “changes”: ——from “quantity expansion ” to “quality priority ” ——from “hardware” to “software”: mutual understanding, research capacity buliding; ——from “trade” to “investment”: tech. transfer and local employment ——from “bilateral” to “multilateral”: African regional integration (AU now is member of FOCAC) ——from “government-government” to “peoplepeople”

• Challenges in economic cooperation:

1)Localization and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issue: employment of local labor and communicate with each other (language hurdle) 2) technical transfer: from give fish to teach fishing (training centre) 3) maintain and sustainable development of the infrastructure projects (handover or joint-management)

• Challenges in people-people exchanges (esp. NGO exchanges) • Strong demand: • — Bilateral relations are not only determined by State, government, military, Party and elite, NGOs are rising

— NGOs can help to clear up or build up those misunderstandings between China and Africa (neo-colonialism, resources-plunder, African discrimination, etc)

• —Situation changes both in Africa and China In Africa: NGOs develop quickly and play an increasing important role in the society (postCold War democracy development, civil society, media) In China: Government has begun to attach importance to NGOs as well. (the number of NGOs is growing dramatically, the areas NGOs have involved in is expanding greatly as well)

—Some differences: In Africa: NGOs develops much earlier, have joined political movement (anti-apartheid and anti-authoritarian regime) for long time and also involved in international affairs.

In China: NGOs are still in early development stage, more works have still been engaged in social (such as environmental protection) and economic fields. Few activities are related with international issues.

• China now is catching up: • Institutional building : —Chinese NGO Network for International Exchanges was established in 2005. (sponsored for writing a book titled “The African NGOs and Sino-African Relations” and hosted a conference in late 2009) —International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC) was established in late 2004. (DACChina study group: anti-poverty experience sharing and several workshops, publications,) —China-Africa Business Council: established in 2005, promoting Chinese private companies investing in Africa

• more activities: —Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries: long history,established in 1954 (mutual visiting and training) — Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD),established in 1985 (held a conference titled “China-Africa Civil Society Forum on Peace and Development” in early June 2010 in Beijing) — Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is in action as well. (Chinese Africanists delegation visited Africa, “Chinese-African Civil Society Dialogue” held in Kenya in 2008) —Youth volunteers dispatching: about 300

Finally, Challenges in Security risk (killing and kidnapping) Only in 2012, several cases happening • — In Sudan: 29 Chinese workers kidnapped, one died • — Egypt: Sinai Peninsula and Cairo • — Republic of Congo (munitions depot blast: 6 died, 31 wounded) • Before, in Ethiopia, 2007, rebel attack in the evening, 9 killed, 7 kidnapped • South Africa: criminal rate high, 1 killed on 10th March,2012 Key: how to balance“non-interference policy” and play active role in security issue?

Thank you for your attention!!!