On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi released a signed article entitled A Decade of FOCAC Fruitful Achievements and A New Chapter of China-Africa Relations, noting that FOCAC reflects the collective wisdom of China and Africa of jointly exploring a new path of common development, shows China’s diplomatic philosophy of building a harmonious world with enduring peace and common prosperity and demonstrates the strong dynamism and great potential of China-Africa friendly cooperative relations in the new era.
According to the article, out of the common aspiration of further strengthening the traditional friendship and promoting the mutually beneficial cooperation, China and African countries together initiated the establishment of FOCAC and held the first Ministerial Conference in Beijing in October 2000. The founding of FOCAC marks a new historical period of development of the traditional China-Africa friendly cooperative relations.
China is the biggest developing country in the world, while Africa is the continent having the largest number of developing countries. The population of FOCAC member states makes up more than one third of world total. As a creative move of developing countries to reinforce their solidarity and cooperation and join hands to cope with challenges under new circumstances, the establishment of FOCAC draws wide attention from the international community. Over a decade, FOCAC has held four ministerial conferences, developed multilateral levels of dialogue mechanisms, including the Ministerial Conference, the political consultation between Chinese and African foreign ministers at the General Assembly, the Senior Officials Meeting and the consultation of the Secretariat of the Chinese Follow-up Committee with African diplomatic envoys in China and built an all-faceted cooperation system covering politics, economy, society and culture.
Since the establishment of FOCAC, China-Africa relations have entered into a new phase of rapid, comprehensive and stable growth. Reviewing the past, we are glad to see that FOCAC, with the high attention and careful nurturing of both sides, has become an important platform of collective dialogue and effective mechanism of pragmatic cooperation between China and Africa and achieved major progress of lifting up China-Africa relations, increasing political mutual trust, boosting pragmatic cooperation, benefiting people of both sides and promoting the democratization of international relations.
FOCAC consolidates traditional friendship and enhances China-Africa relations. Based on the traditional friendship between China and Africa, FOCAC creatively establishes the cooperation mechanisms to confirm the consensuses between the two sides on the bilateral relations and the major international issues in the form of documents, which not only consolidates the outcomes of bilateral exchanges achieved over more than half a century but also consolidates the political foundation for the mutually beneficial China-Africa cooperation. Former President Jiang Zemin proposed that China and Africa establish a new type of partnership featuring long-term stability, equality and mutual benefit at the first Ministerial Conference and President Hu Jintao and African leaders unanimously agreed to establish and develop a new type of strategic partnership featuring political equality and mutual trust, win-win economic cooperation and cultural exchanges at the Beijing Summit. Under the framework of FOCAC, the status of China-Africa relations is being enhanced and the connotation of bilateral cooperation is being enriched continuously.
FOCAC increases strategic mutual trust and promotes political contacts at all levels. To strengthen China-Africa high-level contacts and strategic dialogue and enhance mutual understanding and trust are the important missions of FOCAC. Both Chinese leaders and leaders of part of African countries have attended all the ministerial conferences which serve as a long-term platform for China and Africa to conduct summit diplomacy and contribute greatly to promoting bilateral high-level contacts. In particular, the Beijing Summit held in November 2006 is the international conference hosted by China with the biggest scale, highest level and largest number of participating leaders since the founding of the People’s Republic of China and has become a landmark event in the development course of China-Africa relations. Through the political consultation between Chinese and African foreign ministers at the General Assembly, the two sides also exchange opinions regularly on the international and regional issues of common concern and coordinate their position in the international affairs. Under the framework of FOCAC, the bilateral exchanges between parliaments and political parties and at local levels are being deepened, well proving the important role of FOCAC of stimulating all levels of political contacts between China and Africa.
FOCAC steps up pragmatic cooperation and opens the phase of all-round cooperation. To step up China-Africa pragmatic cooperation is a major task of FOCAC. Successfully building the model of combining bilateral with multilateral cooperation, FOCAC effectively consolidates the Chinese and African resources and, with overall planning, comprehensive layout and step by step implementation, plays an all-round role of policy guidance, resource support and system guarantee for China-Africa pragmatic cooperation. The action plans launched after each of the ministerial conferences almost cover every aspect of China-Africa cooperation with ever increasing scale and expanding areas. Driven by FOCAC, the bilateral pragmatic cooperation with trade and economic cooperation as the major content goes deeper. It takes less than 8 years for China-Africa trade volume to increase from US$10 billion to US$100 billion. China’s investment in Africa grows sharply and Africa has become the fourth largest foreign destination of investment of China. The bilateral cooperation in various fields, such as science and technology, tourism, culture, health and education stride forward simultaneously and bilateral exchanges between women, youth, non-governmental organizations and academic communities grow more and more frequent, further consolidating the social foundation of China-Africa friendship.
China increases assistance to Africa and helps African countries with capacity building. China focuses on increasing Africa’s self-development and sustainable growth capacity. It formulated measures of assistance to Africa at each of the FOCAC ministerial conferences in response to the real needs of African countries with ever broader size and richer items. China does not pay lip service. We faithfully fulfill our promises, implement multiple measures at the same time, such as project assistance, material donation, personnel training, preferential loans and debt and duty exemption, give priority to helping African countries increase agricultural productivity, improve medical and sanitary conditions, accelerate infrastructure construction, develop processing and manufacturing industries and promote local economic and social progress. China has made important contributions to maintaining and promoting peace and development in Africa.
FOCAC cements solidarity and mutual help and sets up a showcase of cooperation with Africa. FOCAC holds together more than 2 billion of Chinese and African population, enriches the connotation of South-South cooperation and increases the strength of developing countries. FOCAC is a multilateral arena where China and Africa conduct consultations, reach consensus, coordinate position and enhance cooperation. Under the FOCAC framework, both sides hold regular dialogues, express identical views on the international situation, strengthen solidarity and cooperation in international affairs and work hard to safeguard the common interest of developing countries, which is of great significance to promoting the democratization of international relations and building a new international political and economic order. Furthermore, the huge demonstration effect of FOCAC pushes the international community to pay greater attention to Africa and increase input in the continent. Following the establishment of FOCAC, some countries have built or lifted up their cooperation mechanisms with Africa.
Yang pointed out in the article that the 10-year development of FOCAC witnessed the profound changes in international situation and deep readjustments of international pattern. The fact that FOCAC always maintains the momentum of dynamic development reflects the profound historical accumulation and more importantly the solid foundation of China-Africa cooperation. FOCAC abides by the principles of sincere friendship, equal treatment, mutual support and common development all along, which is the key to surmounting geographical barriers, bypassing the differences of political system and culture, maintaining a vigorous life and achieving fruitful results as well as the basic guarantee and driving force for the bilateral friendly cooperative relations to remain prosperous forever.
A decade of development of FOCAC not only lays down a solid foundation for the new type of strategic partnership between China and Africa but also raises new historical tasks. It has become a consensus between both sides to join hands to lift China-Africa relations to a new level. How to seize the emerging favorable development opportunities, tackle serious challenges under new circumstances and continue to maintain the dynamic life are the major tasks of future development to be addressed by FOCAC.
Concerning the future tasks, the article said that first of all the two sides should consolidate the achievements of the past ten years and strengthen system innovation. China and Africa will continue to cultivate and develop FOCAC in the principles of friendship, peace, cooperation and development, keep the features of friendly consultation and being pragmatic and efficient and cement and expand the material and spiritual basis developed over the past decade. They should push forward the system building of FOCAC, upgrade its development philosophy and cooperation approaches, seek and increase new convergences of interest between China and Africa, give full play to the initiative of African countries and jointly explore new channels and methods of pushing forward FOCAC’s development.
Second, tap cooperation potential and expand cooperation fields. The two sides should tangibly implement the eight new measures on cooperation with Africa announced by Premier Wen at the fourth Ministerial Conference last year, try to cultivate new growth points of China-Africa trade and economic cooperation, maintain the rapid rising momentum and push forward the development of bilateral economic cooperation with priority to trade, investment, technology and project contract; strengthen cultural and educational exchanges and communications and create a benign cultural atmosphere. Meanwhile, China and Africa should explore new cooperation approaches in new fields and boost the all-round development of pragmatic cooperation in the fields of economy, society, culture, science and technology, education and health with economic cooperation as the forerunner and cultural and educational exchanges as the impetus.
Third, stimulate open cooperation and raise international influence. On the basis of keeping current mechanisms and operational model, FOCAC will pay greater attention to the important role of the African Union and the sub-regional organizations in Africa of maintaining peace and stability and promoting solidarity and development in Africa and strengthening cooperation with them in handling FOCAC affairs. Under the precondition of fully respecting the will of Africa, FOCAC will actively cooperate with the international community, become opener, expand its international development space and realize sustainable development.
The article pointed out that FOCAC, as a banner of leading China-Africa relations under new circumstances, reflects the collective wisdom of China and Africa of jointly exploring a new path of common development, shows China’s diplomatic philosophy of building a harmonious world with enduring peace and common prosperity and demonstrates the strong dynamism and great potential of China-Africa friendly cooperative relations in the new era. This year marks the 10th anniversary of FOCAC. Standing at the new historical starting point, we believe that China-Africa relations, driven by FOCAC, will compose a more brilliant chapter in the new epoch.