China President Xi Jinping says FOCAC summit was a success

But until now, China has sought to rely on its soft power in relations with Africa-persuasion and attraction as opposed to the coercion of hard power.

As China pushes its economy toward a model that prioritizes domestic consumption over the resource-intensive construction and manufacturing that buoyed African resource producers, officials here will have to work harder to hold Beijing’s interest, Mr. Xue warned. But this time China stunned the Africans by tripling its support, exceeding the $50-billion that some analysts had predicted.

President Zuma paid tribute to President Xi for the new measures and also acknowledged, “the tangible contribution of the People’s Republic of China’s with regard to peacekeeping in Africa”.

The summit comes on the 15th anniversary of the FOCAC, adhering to the theme “Africa-China Progressing Together: Win-Win Cooperation for Common Development”.

She thanked President Xi for announcing a new financing tranche to help implement ambitious development programs in Africa.

Xi said that despite the $60 billion in aid money, China would continue to stay out of local politics on the continent.

“China is still very active in Africa”, Deborah Brautigan of the US-based China Africa Research Institute, said.

“If Africa because of low mineral prices and unreliable host governments becomes unappealing, there are other places for these funds to be diverted to”, Mr Xue said.

“We welcome China’s support for our determination to transform our countries’ economies, through an industrialisation strategy which is driven by beneficiation and value addition of our natural resources and agricultural products”, said President Mugabe.

Prominent celebrities who graced the roundtable at Kruger National park are members of China-Africa wildlife conservation council that has injected fresh impetus in the campaigns to promote the protection of iconic wildlife species in the African continent.

At previous China-Africa summits, Beijing has doubled its financial support for Africa every three years: from $5-billion in 2006 to $10-billion in 2009 and then to $20-billion in 2012. “We also put up regional vocational centres to boost capacity building”, President Xi said.

Mohammed al-Bairi, Foreign Minister of strife-torn Libya welcomed China’s expanding role in Africa from just economic and infrastructure to peace and security.

Xi reaches to shake Mugabe’s hand during the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation in Sandton, Johannesburg. “This period therefore calls for innovation and resilience to make our economies survive the global meltdown”, he said.

Somalia is willing to deepen its cooperation with China, engage in cooperation under the Beijing-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, and actively fulfill the consensus made in the Johannesburg summit, the Somali president said.