However, many African leaders don’t want to weaken ties as they benefit greatly from links to the West.
JOHANNESBURG—China’s leader Xi Jinping has upped the ante in his efforts to enlist the Global South in his anti-West “New World Order.”
Xi is promising almost $51 billion in financing to African countries over the next three years, and pledging to put them at the forefront of a global “renewable energy revolution.”
His administration used this week’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, attended by 50 African leaders and which the Chinese foreign ministry labeled “the largest diplomatic event China has hosted in recent years,” to strengthen trade and military ties with African countries.
The Chinese leader also promised to help “create at least 1 million jobs for Africa” and $141 million in grants for military assistance, saying Beijing would “provide training for 6,000 military personnel and 1,000 police and law enforcement officers from Africa.”
But, in between all the pledges and promises, in Xi’s private meetings with several African leaders, he stressed the importance of Africa allying with China against “Western hegemony.”
In a joint statement, Xi and African leaders including Cyril Ramaphosa, president of the continent’s largest economy, South Africa, agreed to “work together to build an equal and orderly multipolar world and universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.”
Michael Schuman, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, told The Epoch Times this is “diplomatic code for saying the world’s unequal and disorderly because of Western dominance and it’s time for Chinese-led alternatives.”
Using its global development program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has showered Africa for more than a decade with multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects, which have also left many nations heavily indebted to Beijing.
According to data released by Boston University, China has loaned $182 billion to 49 African governments since 2000.
But China’s economy has slowed in recent years, with Beijing scaling down on financing megaprojects while simultaneously demanding loan repayments that often result in African countries cutting spending on vital public services such as health care.
Kenya, East Africa’s biggest economy, alone owes China $8 billion.
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