How China actively participates in economic liberation of African states

CHINA: IT is an undeniable fact that China has been participating and has continued to participate fully in contributing to the overall development of Africa and to each individual country.

During independence struggle, China went shoulder to shoulder with African nations and has helped them in many aspects from political, military and development levels.

Since 1950, China has been supporting African countries in various programmes and has continued to do so in various sectors, all of which aim to assist those countries to grow their economy and achieve sustainable development.

The support extended has been touching areas of infrastructure construction, trade, education, health, tourism, agriculture, cultural, security etc.

Despite gaining their independence in the early 50s and 60s, those countries remained poor and unable to achieve sustainable development due to the lack of developmental infrastructures such as transport, education, health, energy, water, communication, etc.

Lack of capital and reliable markets, shortage of professionals and skilled personnel, high construction costs, high commodity price are among the challenges that contributed to the deterioration of Africa’s development. It should be noted that even after attaining independence, African countries continued to rely on aid and loans from Western donors.

However, these Western loans and aid have been accompanied by strict conditions, thus making African countries unable to fulfil those conditions. The situation caused African countries to continue to be poor and with no alternative means to help them solve their economic challenges.

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It is also important to note that Western aid has promoted economic dependence in Africa, while the political, economic, and ideological hegemony of the West has reduced Africa’s policy space and autonomy.

From neo-liberal structural adjustment programmes to reform strategies aimed at improving the business and investment environment, Western prescriptions have not assisted African development. Under this model, a significant amount of African developmental policies have been formulated outside the continent, without the input and leadership of indigenous African developmental thought.

On matters of economic development and industrialisation, the dominant positions in the intellectual landscape are held by politicians and scholars based in colonial countries. Independent African thinking and analysis has been marginalised, and African countries have been discouraged from formulating development strategies based on their national conditions.

Despite Western countries identifying themselves as close partners and true friends of African countries, these countries were not fully committed to solve the challenges that were hindering development in Africa.

Their failure to solve the problems of African countries made African countries unable to develop and liberate themselves economically and thus, continued to depend on western aids.

It is arguably important to note that the economic situation in African countries began to improve after Chinese companies emerged and started investing massively in Africa, and after the Chinese Government increased the pace of financing the construction of developmental infrastructures.

China’s large investments have contributed to the creation of millions of jobs for Africans and increased the skills of local labour force. But also, it has stimulated economic growth and improved industrialisation in the continent.

Apart from Chinese investments, all infrastructures built with Chinese financing have made outstanding contributions to enhancing independent development capacity in Africa. it is worth noting that, before China emerged as a major development and economic partner with African countries, these countries were heavily dependent on everything from western countries, starting with markets, investments, trade, construction companies, construction equipment, medical equipment, agricultural equipment etc.

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This situation made African countries unable to grow economically and achieve sustainable development due to uncontrollable reasons such as; high construction costs and commodity price monopolies that were being set by western companies. These monopolies caused African countries to suffer huge losses and make them unable to carry out other social projects.

However, due to the low price of materials and low construction costs charged by Chinese companies, many African governments have been able to save billions of taxpayers’ money and direct that money to other social projects. It should be noted that through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) China has been bringing many new initiatives which have helped remove all obstacles that were hindering Africa’s development.

One of the China’s initiatives is to facilitate access to capital for increased investment, financing of social development projects, access to cheap and low interests loans for the construction of developmental infrastructure, opening up new markets for African products, debts cancellation programme for the least poor countries as well as zero tariffs treatment.

All this is aimed at accelerating the achievement of economic development and sustainable development in Africa. Due to the uncertainty of the markets, African countries failed to increase production due to lack of markets. In addition to that, even the products that were being produced, were being sold at a low price due to the scarcity of the markets and commodity price monopoly.

However, after China opened up its new markets and the introduction of tariff-free treatment on African products, African countries have increased production and exports to China.

According to the China-Africa Trade Index, published for the first time in 2023, the value of China’s imports from and exports to Africa increased from less than 100 billion yuan (about 14 billion U.S. dollars) in 2000 to 1.88 trillion yuan (about 263 billion dollars) in 2022, a cumulative increase of about 20 times. In 2023, the China-Africa trade volume reached a record high of 282.1 billion dollars, an annual increase of 1.5 per cent.

China’s imports of nuts, vegetables, flowers and fruits from Africa increased by 130 per cent, 32 per cent, 14 per cent, and 7 per cent, respectively, year on year.

China’s zero tariffs cancellation has helped African countries increase their export volume and ensure steady growth in ChinaAfrica agricultural trade. Also, the opening up of new Chinese markets for African products, has increased exports of various products from African countries and brought in foreign currency to their countries.

Along with China’s efforts to helping African countries increase their production capacity, but also, China has been relieving the outstanding debts in the form of interest-free loans incurred by the heavily indebted and poor countries and the least developed countries in Africa.

According to John Hopkins University, since 2000 to 2019, China wrote off at least $3.4 billion of debt to African countries. As of 2022, China has forgiven 23 interest-free loans in 17 countries.

China’s debt relief programme has significantly alleviated African countries’ financial burden. One of china’s biggest advantages in the continent is its engagements and cooperation with African countries in the field of trade and investments.

Due to its large investments, the expansion of the commercial scope with African countries, its aids and financing for social and developmental infrastructures, have forced many countries in the world including the West to increase the pace of investment and trade in Africa.

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The action of Western countries to increase the scope of trade and investment in Africa, is based on the fact that, these countries are afraid of being outpaced by China and to lose their influence that’s why they have increased the provision of aid and investment to compete with China. Apart from trade, investment and aid, some western nations have expanded the scope of lending and financing for the construction of developmental infrastructures in Africa.

All this is after China has invested heavily and built strategic infrastructures which are contributing to economic development in Africa. Under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), China has committed to working with Africa to break through the developmental bottlenecks, such as the infrastructure gap, training skilled workers and funding shortfalls.

FOCAC initiatives have consistently focused on cooperation related to industrial capacity, including the ‘ten major China-Africa cooperation plans’ proposed at the Johannesburg Summit of 2015, the ‘eight major initiatives in collaboration with Africa’ proposed at the Beijing Summit of 2018 and 10 point action plan and six action plan for modernisation in Africa proposed at the last Beijing Summit 2024.

China’s contributions to African development can be organised into three main areas: infrastructure construction; offering new developmental options by sharing its own experiences and changing the paradigm of international cooperation and improving Africa’s global position through China-Africa cooperation.

(The writer is a Dar es Salaam-based analyst on international politics and foreign relations. Email: cleophacegeorge@gmail.com)