China on Tuesday promised to help African countries overcome COVID-19-related economic woes “without imposing its will,” faced with accusations that it often plays a coercive role on the continent.
Released at the close of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Senegal, a joint declaration committed Beijing to non-interference in African domestic affairs, and vice versa.
The text also included language on African governments upholding the principle that Taiwan is part of China.
Photo: Xinhua via AP
The summit between China and 53 African states — with an emphasis on trade and security, among other issues — was held in the city of Diamniadio near Senegal’s seaside capital, Dakar.
China invests heavily in Africa, and is the continent’s largest trading partner, with more than US$200 billion in direct trade in 2019, the Chinese embassy in Dakar said.
However, Beijing is often accused of using its creditor status to extract diplomatic and commercial concessions.
China rejects these charges, saying that it responds to the funding needs of poor African countries, while taking debt sustainability seriously.
Tuesday’s joint declaration said that China would not interfere in the “development path” set by African countries and that it would also refrain from “imposing its will on Africa.”
Some African leaders had hoped ahead of the summit that China would offer debt relief, or promise fresh rounds of investment, after the COVID-19 pandemic struck an economic blow to many already struggling countries on the continent.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Monday addressed attendees via video link, promising to donate 600 million vaccine doses to African countries.
He added that another 400 million doses would come from other sources, such as investments in production sites, which are sorely lacking across much of Africa.
African and Chinese officials also pledged to strengthen cooperation in “public health, investment, trade, industrialisation, infrastructure, agriculture and food security, climate change, peace and security,” the declaration said.
The summit took place against a backdrop of growing rivalry between Beijing and Washington, and a competition for influence on the continent.
It also followed a visit this month from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal, where he discussed boosting local vaccine-production sites.
The joint declaration warned against the “politicisation” of human rights and sporting activities, in an apparent reference to the possibility that the US would diplomatically boycott the Winter Olympics.
China and African countries “have a right to development,” the document said, referring to concerns that restrictions on fossil fuels would harm poor countries.
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
BACK TO BATTLE: North Korean soldiers have returned to the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region after earlier reports that Moscow had withdrawn them following heavy losses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals as part of a push to appeal to US President Donald Trump’s penchant for a deal. The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine’s war with Russia, on Monday said he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees
RSS