FOCAC

II. International

FOCAC: China’s Massive Role in Transforming Africa

by William Jones and EIR Staff

 

Dec. 9—While most of the world is doing whatever it can to self-isolate from the countries of southern Africa due to the report of a new and possibly more virulent variant of the COVID virus, China is revving up to increase its support for the beleaguered conti- nent.

The two-day meeting in Senegal of the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation

(FOCAC) on November 29 and 30  was attended by all 55 members (53 African countries plus the African Union and China). Chinese President Xi Jinping presented the keynote by video. While the FOCAC meetings in the past focused primarily on Chinese cooperation in the building of major infrastructure projects as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in this year of the pandemic, with the advanced western nations largely hoarding their vaccines from the African nations, China has emphasized the “Health Silk Road.”

In his speech, President Xi’s

reported:

tries and send 1,500 medical personnel and public health experts to Africa.

Justin Yifu Lin, the former chief economist at the World Bank, in a Dec. 6 commentary posted on Project Syndicate’s website, co-authored by Dr. Yan Wang of Boston University,  took note of President  Xi’s focus

To help the AU [African Union]

achieve its goal of vaccinating 60% of the Afri- can population by 2022, I announce that China will provide another one billion doses of vac- cines to Africa, including 600 million doses as a donation and 400 million doses to be provided through such means as joint production by Chi- nese companies and relevant African coun- tries…. In addition, China will undertake 10 medical and health projects for African coun-

 

on the vaccines and health care as the most urgent necessity in Africa. The authors added that

[M]any low- and lower-middle-income countries continue to suffer more fundamental deficien- cies, such as a lack of health-care personnel and resources, from hospital beds to ventilators. For some, it is the inability to deliver clean water, electricity, and sanitation that is choking the 

Almost all African members of FOCAC have joined the big family of Belt and Road cooperation. All these have in- jected strong impetus into the China- Africa comprehensive strategic and co- operative partnership.

Dr. Lin, now the Dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics and Dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development at Peking University, quantified this development in the Project Syndicate article:

China financed, constructed, and com- pleted thousands of hard and soft infra- structure projects in Africa in the first two decades of this century [since the first ministerial conference of FOCAC

 

economy. After 70 years of development aid and cooperation, how is it possible that many coun- tries remain stuck in low- or lower-middle-in- come traps without sufficient capacity to meet their citizens’ basic needs? Both market and gov- ernment failures—rooted not least in the long- standing neoliberal orthodoxy—can be blamed.

Lin continued:

A core problem is that all that aid did not adequately address infrastructure bottle- necks. This partly explains why African countries have often welcomed Chinese in- vestment.

Xi Jinping on the Belt and Road 

In his address at the FOCAC

 

in Beijing in 2000]. This includes over 6,000 ki- lometers (3,728 miles) of railways in Africa, and roads covering roughly the same distance. China has also constructed nearly 20 ports, over 80 large-scale power plants, more than 130 medical facilities, 45 stadiums, and 170 schools.

In preparation for the 2021 FOCAC, China released a White Paper Nov. 26 on “China and Africa in the New

Era: A Partnership of Equals”:

Over the past 58 years, China has sent a total of 23,000 medical team members to Africa, who have treated 230 million patients. At present, there are nearly 1,000 Chi- nese medical workers in 45 African countries.… Chinese medical teams carried out 34 free clinical programs under

 

forum, Xi said,

Over the past three years and more, China and Africa have worked together to fully im-

the Brightness Action initia- tive, restoring the eyesight of almost 10,000 African cata- ract patients.

 

plement the eight major initiatives and other out- comes of the Beijing Summit [FOCAC 2018], and completed a large number of priority coop- eration projects. China-Africa trade and China’s investment in Africa have been on a steady rise.

 

China was also the first country to insist on the export of vaccines to the African countries and took the lead in exporting its own vaccines. By November 2021, China had provided 1.7 billion doses of COVID vaccine to more than 110 countries and organizations,