Department of Research, Strategic Studies and International Relations 02/09/2024

China Global South :

2024’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) takes place against the backdrop of two significant trends. First, the role of the Global South, and debate over whether China should be considered a part of it, has become a more prominent question amidst escalating U.S.-China tensions and an increasingly pronounced North-South split around issues like the conflict in Gaza.

Second, the continent is becoming increasingly cynical about so-called “Africa Plus One” summits. FOCAC wasn’t the first of these summits. France arguably coined the concept, and Japan’s Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), in many ways, set the template for FOCAC.

However, unlike its predecessors, FOCAC was not framed through a traditional lens of aid. Instead, it quickly evolved to operate at a higher level, with successive funding commitments and an expanding scope to respond to African demands. That, combined with eye-catching Chinese infrastructure projects and the other deals that marked the first decades of the early 21st century, established FOCAC as the most important of African summits. 

Ironically, FOCAC has become less unique, largely due to its success. Numerous countries have followed its lead in hosting African leaders en masse as part of their own “plus one” summits – from the United States to Russia, to India, and even lesser players like Italy.

The question for Africa becomes how much these summits achieve. Despite ongoing lip service to African complexity, they tend to fall into the “Africa is a country” trap. Their structure risks sidelining Africa’s regional development strategies, falling between the cracks of broad support for continental bodies like the African Union and the bilateral negotiations that still define much of China-Africa engagement.

In addition the sweeping announcements ,of “10 connectivity assistance projects” or “10 industrialization and employment promotion assistance projects” that have characterized past FOCACs make it harder to track the specifics of pledges and projects. Adding to this problem is that many of these announcements include old money dressed up as new and retroactively grouping existing projects with future commitments — some of which never come to fruition.

This is not to say that the China-Africa relationship has lost importance or even plateaued. Rather, it shows that FOCAC’s success has raised the stakes by drawing increased attention from legacy partners like the G7 and emerging powers like the Gulf Countries.

The main litmus test is whether African countries, whether collectively or individually, can overcome the velvet rope aspect of these summits to make their own deals, set their own terms, and throw their own parties. So far, they haven’t, and the Plus One summit is emblematic of the structural exclusion that the continent suffers under the current global order.

Until Africa takes control and reshapes the Africa Plus One summit to its own ends, FOCAC is likely the best it’ll get. The question is: how long will that be good enough, and which African ambitions will survive the wait?