Yearender: China reaches out to LatAm, Africa for new-era cooperation

President Xi Jinping delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Johannesburg, South Africa, Dec 4, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]

China-Africa parternership

At the FOCAC Johannesburg summit, China and African countries agreed to lift their relations to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and join hands to usher in a new era of win-win cooperation and common development.

In order to turn the proposal into tangible results, Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the summit, called for concerted efforts to strengthen "five major pillars" and announced 10 major plans to boost bilateral cooperation covering the areas of industrialization, agricultural modernization, infrastructure, financial services, green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty reduction and public welfare, public health, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security.

Xi announced that China will offer 60 billion US dollars of funding support to ensure smooth implementation of the initiatives.

"We have been very impressed by the speech of President Xi, because it is a very concrete proposal and a roadmap for the cooperation between China and Africa," Kadre Desire Ouedraogo, president of the Commission of the Economic Community of West Africa States, told Xinhua.

Puedraogo said the 10 areas of cooperation correspond to the priority of Africa, adding that "we believe that is a starting point of a very successful cooperation between China and Africa."

The historic meeting, which approved a declaration and an action plan for cooperation in the coming three years, has strengthened solidarity and cooperation and will guide the future of relations between China and Africa, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Paradigm for South-South cooperation

The relations China has developed with both Latin America and Africa have become a paradigm for South-South cooperation based on mutual respect and mutual benefits.

First, China, Latin American and African countries see each other as equal partners.

"Each CELAC country, both rich and poor, is equal under the framework of the forum," Xi said at the opening ceremony of the first China-CELAC forum ministerial meeting in January.

China has shown its disposition to establish ties founded on mutual respect, Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said.

"It has shown that in the way it cooperates with Latin American countries. It's not conditional, it's always (marked) by respect," Patino added.