Chinese leader Xi Jinping welcomed in cash-strapped Zimbabwe

While China is Africa’s biggest trading partner, with two- way flows exceeding $220 billion past year, the pace of investment has slowed.

The main investments, beyond some small Chinese dabbling in chrome and very small gold mining operations, include the US$355 million Kariba South power plant expansion, which will add 300 megawatts to the struggling national grid, the US$144 million Harare water rehabilitation project, the US$150 million Victoria Falls airport upgrade, and the Huawei digitisation project.

With mutually beneficial cooperation and mutual respects, significant results have been achieved in recent years. “Last year Zimbabwe and China agreed to be good friends and brothers on an equal footing”, he said.

Representatives from 120 media organizations in 47 African countries and some Chinese media participated in the summit, whose theme was “A new era of win-win media cooperation between China and Africa”.

“This is an historic event as it is the first time the summit has been held on African soil, and it represents an important platform for high-level dialogue and cooperation”. Trade between South Africa and China more than doubled in the four years to 2013 to 271 billion rand ($19 billion), the South African statistics office said.

“We will support Africa to remove two major bottlenecks, namely, backward infrastructure and inadequate professional and skilled personnel”.

Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, stands during a welcome ceremony at Union Building Pretoria, South Africa, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015. “What we are asking for is development and socioeconomic upliftment”, he said. The Chinese government is unrivalled in its willingness to fund big infrastructure projects in Africa, although American companies still provide the highest foreign direct investment to African countries, she said.

Focac is not only about economic relations, though.

“The idea of development-oriented peace is manifested in China’s increased involvement in peacekeeping, conflict resolution and humanitarian intervention in Africa”, notes Kagwanja.

Xi is expected to cast China’s security role in Africa as limited and within the framework of global organizations.

Xi was due to hold talks with South African President Jacob Zuma yesterday and is scheduled to attend the Forum on China-African Cooperation tomorrow.

Beijing has also been criticised for selling arms to the South Sudanese government, thereby implicitly taking sides in the civil war there.

“China is approaching Africa a little differently than it used to”, Shinn said.

The Republic of Congo, Angola and Mauritania are African nations most exposed to China’s slowdown because nearly half of their exports go to the Asian nation, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. Oil accounts for the bulk of exports from Congo and Angola, while iron ore makes up more than 40 percent of Mauritania’s exports. Wang’s proposal of cooperation among these powers in helping Africa should instead be actively taken up.