China-Africa community spirit built on bonds of friendship and cooperation: China Daily editorial

The Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which is being held in Beijing from Wednesday to Friday, provides the two sides with another opportunity to strengthen their strategic communication and deepen their practical cooperation.

The reason why the FOCAC has become so popular among African nations since it was founded in 2000 is that it is not a talk shop. The outcomes and cooperation projects that have been its fruits have brought tremendous benefits to African countries and the African people.

Over the past 24 years, the trade volume between China and Africa has increased from $10.5 billion in 2000 to $282.1 billion in 2023. And China's investment in Africa has accumulated from less than $500 million in 2000 to more than $40 billion at present. The nearly 100,000 kilometers of roads, more than 10,000 kilometers of railways, nearly 1,000 bridges, and nearly 100 ports that have been jointly constructed are tangible testimony to the cooperation between the two sides.

Promoting Sino-African cooperation is not a makeshift strategy of Beijing for short-term gains but a long-term commitment to friendly relations with the continent. It focuses on helping African countries develop endogenous driving forces for their development, and encourages them to firmly grasp the initiative of development in their own hands. While sharing China's development experience, technology and development opportunities with African countries, it respects their choice of development paths. And in so doing, China has helped them become more closely integrated into the global economy.

Africa is the continent with the highest concentration of developing countries and the region with the greatest development potential in the world. Its role in the global industry chains and supply chains will become increasingly important.

The next 10 years will be a critical decade for the world economy, as it transitions from old to new drivers of growth and experiences a profound reshaping of the global governance system.

Western countries often view China's engagement in Africa as a form of economic and strategic competition, particularly in terms of access to resources and influence. But by engaging with each other with sincerity and affinity and in good faith, China and Africa can make it clear that they seek to be pioneers and paragon practitioners of the three global initiatives that President Xi Jinping has proposed to address the four deficits that humanity is facing — namely the growing governance deficit, trust deficit, development deficit, and peace deficit — and establish their relationship as a cornerstone for a community with a shared future for mankind.

For that purpose, they should stand shoulder to shoulder as defenders of multilateralism and make greater efforts to promote the realization of a fairer international order and more effective global governance system. The two sides should work together to jointly defend multilateralism and the free trade system, should staunchly oppose protectionism, unilateralism, bullying and the harmful and erroneous theory of a clash of civilizations, and advance the democratization of international relations.

As President Xi has pledged, China will fulfill its commitments to Africa without fail, unswervingly support Africa's development, and make greater contributions to the continent's vitalization.

As part of these efforts, China is encouraging the international community to increase its investment in Africa and working with the United Nations and international partners to carry out trilateral cooperation in Africa.

As of Wednesday, the Chinese leader had held talks with over a dozen African counterparts in Beijing, ahead of the opening of the summit on Thursday, highlighting that China is deepening its engagement with Africa across the board.

As Xi wrote in a signed article on Sino-African relations, it has been 10 years since he put forth "sincerity, real results, amity and good faith" as the principles for China to develop its relations with Africa. The past decade has witnessed the forging of a strong and productive relationship that is now ready, willing and able to provide fresh impetus to global development and give greater stability to the world.