Africa -China Review Africa -China Cooperation and Transformation
Published: January 28,2022
By staff writer
China and Africa have maintained close relations over decades, through frequent exchanges of high level visits. Mutual understanding and trust have been enhanced, and friendly cooperation has yielded abundant fruits. The successive leaders of China have all attached great importance to the development of friendly relations between China and African countries. They and the leaders from Africa have exchanged friendly visits, treated each other with sincerity, cemented profound friendship between them, and made positive contributions to the promotion of Sino-African friendly relations and cooperation.
From Chairman Mao Zedong, Premier Zhou Enlai and Mr. Deng Xiaoping all regarded Africa as of great importance to China. In 1960, when Chairman Mao Zedong met with the delegation of 12 African countries, he said that hundreds of millions of Chinese people wish to express absolute sympathy and support to the African people for their brave struggle against imperialism and colonialism. In his virtual statement in November during FOCAC 2021, that took place in Dakar-Senegal, President Xi Jinping, said that, “No matter how the international landscape may evolve, China shall never waver in its determination to pursue greater solidarity and cooperation with Africa.”
In 1974, Chairman Mao Zedong put forward the theory of the “three worlds” in his meeting with the then Zambian President Kaunda. In the 1960s, late Premier Zhou Enlai visited Africa three times. His first visit to Africa at the end of 1963 and the beginning of 1964 was applauded as a trip “seeking friendship, peace and knowledge.”
His delegation were accorded with warm welcome and hospitality everywhere they went, leaving with us pictures of so many moving moments. During that visit, Premier Zhou Enlai elaborated on the five principles of China in developing its relations with African and Arab countries, and put forward the eight principles in foreign aid of the Chinese government. These principles later became the guiding principles for China in handling its relations with African countries, offering economic assistance, and carrying out economic and technological cooperation.
Deng Xiaoping devoted a great deal of attention to the development and progress of African countries and other developing countries. During his meetings with late President Nyerere, President Mugabe, President Chissano, President Dos Santos, and President Museveni and other African leaders and delegations from Africa, Mr. Deng shared with them both the positive and the negative experiences of China in its revolution movements and nation building. He encouraged African countries to search for their own political system and path of development suited to their own respective national conditions and to avoid blind copying of other countries’ models.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Africa four times, during which he made a number of important comments and suggestions on issues such as how to strengthen Sino-African relations in the new era. President Hu Jintao visited Africa twice when he was Vice President.
President Xi Jinping has been to Africa on two occasions. In 2013, when he became the president of China, his maiden foreign visit included a trip to the Congo Brazzaville and South Africa. In 2018, Xi Jinping made a four-nation tour of Africa, taking him to Senegal, Rwanda, South Africa, where he attended the BRICS Summit and then Mauritius.
Xi Jinping has made it a priority for him and other top state officials to visit African countries as a way to solidify and build upon ever growing Sino-Africa relations. China has held a tradition for over 3 decades where Chinese foreign ministers visit Africa as their first overseas trip in the new calendar year or before the end of the lunar New Year. China-Africa friendship and cooperation is undoubtedly ‘higher than mountains.’
