A group of senior Chinese envoys have expressed concerns about the negative campaign about its interventions and trade ties with Africa, saying the misconceptions are utterly misplaced.
The envoys led by Counsellor Wang Ke, termed the negative voices “very strange”, adding that “most of them are not from China but western countries”.
She told journalists in a forum at the CIPCC media exchange programme in Beijing that the misconceptions were being peddled, yet China has elevated Africa in a big way economically.
“Western media monopolises public views to some extent. This is one of the major challenges,” Wang said.
The envoy, whose last posting was in Tanzania, urged Chinese and African media, the people and the governments to make their voices loud.
“We need to know and tell the people the truth,” she said.
“We have to refute those false and ill-intentioned campaigns. Let people — particularly African and Chinese people — know what is correct and what is wrong.”
The meeting brought together senior diplomats in African affairs, including Wang Bangfu, Wang Liang (formerly of Madagascar), Fu Changhua (who has been envoy of Sao Tome and Principe and is now counsellor at the China’s department of African Affairs) and Xing Yuchun (whose last tour of duty was in Rwanda).
The envoys held that the negative perceptions about China were borne of “jealousy of our [China’s] success”.
“It is personal but maybe there are two reasons; first of all, they are jealous because of our successes,” Changhua said.
“The theme of development aid for Africa is their area of attack. This because even in the 1970s, when China was poor, we still helped Africa as much as we could.”
He argued that the “so-called rich countries”, after the 2008 financial crisis, got broken, yet China relaunched steep cooperation with Africa after that.
“At that time, China relaunched the Focac [Forum on Africa-China Cooperation] and the cooperation between China and Africa got closer and more successful,” Changhua said.
“Besides the concrete projects, the attention given by China to Africa is an asset for African countries because other countries have to pay attention to Africa as well.”
The envoy said this was evident in the huge number of other economies and development summits – such as Japan-Africa Summit, EU-Africa Summit, and US-Africa Summit.
“We are trying to do more. They should, however, understand that Africa needs more partners and, thus, they should also do more,” the consular said.
According to a recently released report detailing Chinese investment in Africa, titled “China-Africa Cooperation from a Supply Chain perspective”, China states that its Africa investments have grown from $10 billion to $30 billion in 20 years.
It further details that Chinese companies in Africa have grown to 3,700, with investments and installations worth $50 billion.
These include more than 10,000km of railway lines, 100,000km of roads, 1,000 bridges and 100 ports.
China also prides itself in working with various African nations to build hundreds of schools, hospitals and universities, creating 4.5 million jobs, and training more than 160,000 Africans in various institutions of advanced learning.
The envoys said China wouldn’t be deterred by the negative campaign, saying it would live by the declarations in the last Focac meeting in Dakar, Senegal, which listed nine deliverables of the continent’s socioeconomic development.
The themes include medical and health; poverty reduction and agricultural development; trade promotion; investment promotion; digital innovation; green development; capacity building; cultural and people-to-people exchange; and peace and security.
“Our support will come with no political strings attached, unlike Western powers, which impose western standards and intervene in domestic politics,” Wang said.
The diplomats added that China would continue with its zero-custom policy for agricultural products from the 21 least developed countries.
They urged Africa to take note of the underserved Chinese market in dire need of its supplies of coffee, tea and pepper, taking advantage of the e-commerce platforms like Alibaba.
“Africa should be ready because the market is huge. The low volumes are still a problem,” Wang said.
“The continent needs to set up value chains that would sustain the supplies and also take up value-addition seriously.”
