African leaders applaud Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, after his speech at the opening ceremony of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday (September 5, 2024) pledged over $50 billion in financing for Africa over the next three years, promising to deepen cooperation in infrastructure and trade with the continent as he addressed Beijing’s biggest summit since the pandemic.

More than 50 African leaders and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres are attending this week’s China-Africa forum, according to state media.

African leaders already secured a plethora of deals this week for greater cooperation in infrastructure, agriculture, mining, trade and energy.

Addressing the leaders at the forum’s opening ceremony in Beijing’s ornate Great Hall of the People on Thursday, Mr. Xi hailed ties with the continent as in their “best period in history”.

“China is ready to deepen cooperation with African countries in industry, agriculture, infrastructure, trade and investment,” he said.

“Over the next three years, the Chinese government is willing to provide financial support amounting to 360 billion yuan ($50.7 billion),” Mr. Xi said.

Over half of that will be in credit, he said, with $11 billion “in various types of assistance” as well as $10 billion through encouraging Chinese firms to invest.

He also promised to help “create at least one million jobs for Africa”.

The Chinese leader pledged $141 million in grants for military assistance to the continent as well.

Beijing would “provide training for 6,000 military personnel and 1,000 police and law enforcement officers from Africa”, Mr. Xi said.

Also addressing the meeting, UN chief Guterres told African leaders that growing ties between China and the continent could “drive the renewable energy revolution”.

“China’s remarkable record of development — including on eradicating poverty — provides a wealth of experience and expertise,” he said.

Deals and pledges

China, the world’s number two economy, is Africa’s largest trading partner and has sought to tap the continent’s vast troves of natural resources including copper, gold, lithium and rare earth minerals.

It has also furnished African countries with billions in loans that have helped build much-needed infrastructure but sometimes stoked controversy by saddling governments with huge debts.

Analysts say that Beijing’s largesse towards Africa is being recalibrated in the face of economic trouble at home and that geopolitical concerns over a growing tussle with the United States may increasingly be driving policy.

But bilateral meetings held on the sidelines of the summit delivered a slew of pledges on greater cooperation in projects from railway to solar panels to avocados.

Following meetings on Wednesday, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema said he had overseen a deal between the country’s state-owned power company ZESCO and Beijing’s PowerChina to expand the use of rooftop solar panels in his country.

Nigeria — one of Beijing’s biggest debtors on the continent — and China inked a joint statement agreeing to “deepen cooperation” in infrastructure, including “transportation, ports and free trade zones”.

Expanding transport links

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, in turn, obtained a commitment from Mr. Xi to push for new progress on a long-stalled railway connecting his country to neighbouring Zambia.

That project — which Zambian media has said Beijing has pledged $1 billion towards — is aimed at expanding transport links in the resource-rich eastern part of the continent.

Zimbabwe also won promises from Beijing for deeper cooperation in “agriculture, mining, environmentally friendly traditional and new energy [and] transportation infrastructure”, according to a joint statement by the two countries.

The southern African nation and Beijing also agreed to sign a deal that would allow the export of fresh Zimbabwean avocados to China, the joint statement said.

And Kenyan leader William Ruto said Mr. Xi had promised to open up China’s markets to agricultural products from his country.

The two sides agreed to work together on the expansion of the country’s Standard Gauge Railway — built with finance from Exim Bank of China — which connects the capital Nairobi with the port city of Mombasa.

And Mr. Ruto also secured a pledge for greater cooperation with China on the Rironi-Mau Summit-Malaba motorway, which Kenyan media has said is expected to cost $1.2 billion.

Mr. Ruto last year asked China for a $1 billion loan and the restructuring of existing debt to complete other stalled construction projects. The country now owes China more than $8 billion.

Beijing:

Chinese President Xi Jinping today pledged to step up China’s support across the debt-distressed African continent with funding of nearly $51 billion, backing for more infrastructure initiatives and a promise to create at least 1 million jobs.

The commitments were made at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit in Beijing.

Beijing, the world’s biggest two-way lender, also promised to carry out three times as many infrastructure projects across resource-rich Africa, despite Xi’s new preference for “small and beautiful” schemes based around selling advanced and green technologies in which Chinese firms have invested heavily.

“China is ready to deepen cooperation with Africa in industry, agriculture, infrastructure, trade and investment,” Xi told delegates from more than 50 African nations gathered in Beijing for the ninth meeting of the three yearly forum.

After the opening ceremony, delegates adopted the Beijing Declaration to build an “all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era,” as well as the Beijing Action Plan for 2025-2027, China’s state media said.

Xi also called for “a China-Africa network featuring land-sea links and co-ordinated development,” as he told Chinese contractors to return to the one-billion-strong continent, after the lifting of COVID-19 curbs that disrupted its projects.

“China and Africa account for one-third of the world population. Without our modernisation, there will be no global modernisation,” Xi told the summit.

The Chinese leader committed 360 billion yuan ($50.70 billion) in financial assistance, but specified that 210 billion would be disbursed through credit lines and at least 70 billion in fresh investment by Chinese companies, with smaller amounts provided through military aid and other projects.

At the 2021 China-Africa summit in Dakar, China promised at least $10 billion in investment and the same again in credit lines. This time, the financial assistance would be in yuan, in an apparent push to further internationalise the Chinese yuan.

Xi did not mention debt in his speech, despite Beijing being many African states’ biggest bilateral lender, but the Action Plan for 2024-2027 included terms for repayment postponements and called for the establishment of an African rating agency to bring about “a new rating culture”.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the summit African countries’ inadequate access to debt relief and scarce resources was a recipe for social unrest, while proposing fresh reforms to the international financial architecture.

SHARED FUTURE OR DEBT DIPLOMACY?

The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit chalks out a three-year programme for China and every African state bar Eswatini, which retains ties to Taiwan.

In addition to 30 infrastructure connectivity projects, Xi said, “China is ready to launch 30 clean energy projects in Africa,” offering to co-operate on nuclear technology and tackle a power deficit that has delayed industrialisation efforts.

But the Chinese leader did not reiterate his pledge at the 2021 forum in Dakar for the Asian giant to buy $300 billion worth of African goods, pledging only to unilaterally expand market access.

Analysts say Beijing’s phytosanitary rules for market access are too strict, making China unable to meet that promise.

But Africa continues to receive more Chinese financing instead. Last year, China approved loans worth $4.61 billion to Africa, in the first annual increase since 2016.

“I’m here to see how best we can foster our relationship with China,” Princess Dugba, Sierra Leone’s fisheries and marine resources minister, said to the summit’s sidelines.

“China is getting us a fish harbour, which is one of the first of its kind,” she added.

Xi Jinping also said China was “ready to assist in the development of the African Continental Free Trade Area, and deepen logistics and financial co-operation for the benefit of trans-regional development in Africa.”

China has been accused of having “hidden agendas” in its “debt diplomacy”. Nations dealing with China have often faced the dangers of unaffordable debt via unsustainable financing, which, as highlighted by India at the United Nations, leads to a “vicious cycle of debt traps”.

($1=7.0976 Chinese yuan renminbi)