To a common beat

As China forges new diplomacy, Africa is at the forefront

As a more confident and assertive China has laid the foundations for a fresh approach to diplomacy over the past year, it and its partners in Africa have been keen to pursue goals for their relationships that President Xi Jinping set out in 2013.

They see China and Africa as sharing a common destiny, and the focus is now on improving bilateral relations, observers say.

"There are very close economic links and a huge amount of collaboration between the two, but a lot of the progress has been built on the back of growth that has been frenetic and disorderly," says Liu Guijin, China's former special representative on African affairs.

"The negative aspects of this will be accentuated as Chinese private enterprises flock to the continent. The traditional approach of low-end trading of raw materials and industrial products needs to yield to a green and sustainable model, and that means the quality of collaboration must be improved."

A visit by Premier Li Keqiang to Kazakhstan, Serbia and Thailand last month drew to a close a year that Foreign Minister Wang Yi says was one of "harvesting for Chinese diplomacy".

The main elements in the fresh approach China is taking to its diplomacy are stabilizing its neighborhood, promoting global economic growth and building a network of partners, analysts say.

China has been Africa's largest trading partner since 2009, with bilateral trade during the first 10 months last year surpassing $180 billion, a 4.5 percent increase compared with the corresponding period in 2013.

Lin Songtian, director-general of the Department of African Affairs with the Chinese Foreign Ministry, says Africa has been and will remain the most reliable strategic partner for China as the country pursues its sovereign, security and development interests.

"Historic opportunities will emerge when Africa's industrialization meets with China's economic transformation and industrial upgrade," Lin said recently.

"China's capital, industrial capacity and new technology will be revitalized in new destinations and will help spur local growth."

Li visited Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola and Kenya in May and, in a speech at African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, proposed a "4-6-1" framework for transforming collaboration.

Efforts will be directed toward six primary areas: industry, finance, poverty reduction, ecological protection, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security based on principles of equality, trust, inclusiveness and innovation. Both sides will also want to turn the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation into a higher-level mechanism to make the most of its possibilities.

Analysts say collaboration in finance and industry will be the highlight of the framework, as China aims to help boost Africa's manufacturing by improving the continent's infrastructure.

An agreement in November to build a 1,402 km coastal railway in Nigeria is China's single largest overseas project. Construction of the Mombasa-Nairobi railway in Kenya and the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway in East Africa continues.

Tang Xiaoyang, a researcher on developing countries at Tsinghua University in Beijing, says China-Africa economic dealings are likely to help lead marketization of local economies and remove impediments to development.

"China's domestic reforms and its experience in working within the rules of a market economy can turn both sides' complementary advantages into joint development," Tang says.

However, the China-Africa relationship goes far beyond economics. The two sides worked closely together on areas such as security and the Ebola crisis last year.

Last month Beijing sent a 700-strong infantry battalion to South Sudan for a peacekeeping mission, including an infantry squad of 13 female soldiers, the first of its kind China has assigned to carry out peacekeeping tasks overseas.

Since the Ebola crisis broke out in western Africa in April, China has dispatched about 1,000 medical workers to the region and provided relief material worth more than $120 million.

"The rapidity and effectiveness of China's initiatives demonstrate to its African friends that it can be depended on, especially in adversity," says Liu, the former diplomat. "It's a sign of China's growing soft power in the continent."

But China naturally has priorities elsewhere, too. Last year Europe appeared most frequently on Chinese leaders' overseas travel itineraries. In March, President Xi paid a historic visit to the Netherlands, France, Germany and Belgium to forge what he called a "partnership of civilizations" with the European Union that centers on peace, growth and change.

Duncan Freeman, research fellow at the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies, hails Xi's visit to Brussels as a major event in EU-China ties. It defused some of the issues over which the two had been at loggerheads and pointed the way to a more positive relationship, he says.

"Beijing increasingly asserts the importance of the relationship it has with the EU. In China's multipolar worldview the EU is, or at least should be, a pole in the global order. China is not just an economic giant but also an important global actor that the EU cannot ignore."

Li visited Europe three times last year, advancing collaboration with major EU members such as Germany. But as important as Africa and Europe are to China, its efforts to forge a new diplomacy stretch much more broadly. Last year, Xi and Li conducted a total of 12 overseas visits to 30 countries.

China has built partnerships with 67 countries and five regional organizations, illustrating the "major-country style" in a non-aligned but partner-style approach.

Over the past year Chinese leaders advocated new economic and security concepts at multilateral conferences such as the Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands, the sixth BRICS Summit in Brazil and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Tajikistan.

At the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs in Beijing in November, Xi highlighted China's pursuit of a "major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics" based on continuity and consistency of the country's foreign policy.

Observers say the remarks signaled a shift from China's traditional approach of keeping a low profile to striving for accomplishments, in keeping with its status as an economic giant.

In 2013, Xi enunciated in a work conference China's neighborhood diplomacy featuring the principles of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness that analysts say set the tone for the country's diplomatic priorities in coming years.

When Xi was in Brussels last year, China and the EU reaffirmed their determination to sign an investment treaty and eventually a China-EU free trade agreement.

"Among the aims of a China-EU free trade agreement would be to counterbalance other regional trading blocs such as the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership," says Feng Zhongping, vice-president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

David Fouquet, president of the European Institute of Asian Studies in Brussels, says: "Officials and stakeholders will seek to make progress on political, economic, cultural and other fronts. EU-China relations are fundamentally sound and heading in a positive direction."

Gao Fei, a professor of diplomacy studies at China Foreign Affairs University, says issues that China chooses to focus on are often critical enough to impact certain regions.

"For example, the Chinese leader showed up, in the face of the Western boycott of Russia (over the issue of Ukraine) in Sochi to show strong support for the Winter Olympics Russia was hosting. His visit to Seoul also exerted strong strategic and security influence on Tokyo and Pyongyang."

During his visit to the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator, Xi invited countries in the region to "take a ride" on China's development express, and he pointed to opportunities for common growth.

"This approach aims to dispel neighboring countries' suspicion about China's rise by promoting collaboration and addressing common concerns," Gao says.

In the first half of last year the dispute between Beijing and Tokyo in the East China Sea continued to simmer following Japan's accelerated military buildup around the illegally nationalized Diaoyu Islands and China's enforcement of its air defense identification zone.

Territorial disputes and development projects in overlapping exclusive economic zones erupted in the South China Sea between China's maritime patrol forces and their counterparts in Vietnam and the Philippines in the middle of the year. News reports of the dispute gave rise to deadly anti-China protests in Vietnamese cities.

An article in The Economist last month said China is not a pushover when its interests are threatened, even if it has pledged to deal with such issues peacefully.

"Peace and development remain the underlying trend of our times," it quoted Xi as telling the foreign affairs meeting in Beijing in November.

Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University, says that despite clashes, China has effectively controlled security and safeguarded its core interests.

"The way that China tries to resolve disputes through peaceful dialogue yet never flinches from defending sovereign rights when it is deemed necessary avoided the escalation of crises in the South and East China Seas (last year)."

At the beginning of the year, Foreign Minister Wang Yi suggested that China's successfully hosting two major multilateral events would be centerpieces of its diplomatic missions for the year.

"As host, we will make full use of home-ground advantage by promoting Chinese propositions and garnering Asian wisdom to give new impetus to these mechanisms."

In May, the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia convened in Shanghai, and China proposed a new concept of Asian security, calling for "Asians to be responsible for Asian affairs".

Wu Xinbo, executive dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said the new security concept, which focuses on building regional collaboration and sustainability, is likely to lead Asian countries to pursue a "shared destiny".

"To make it practical, China should transform forums such as the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia into a regular security mechanism that clears up suspicions and addresses sub-regional challenges."

Throughout the year, China also hosted a series of meetings for the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which culminated in Beijing in November with leaders of the 21 member economies agreeing to study the possibility of an Asia-Pacific free trade area as well as working more closely together.

During the APEC meeting, apart from the multilateral arrangements aimed at reinvigorating regional economic collaboration, Beijing used its home-ground advantage to advance relationships with its neighbors and with world powers.

In Beijing, Xi and his US counterpart Barack Obama signed agreements on visas and climate change. China and Russia increased their collaboration on energy by opening a west route for supplying Russian natural gas to China.

Even relations between Beijing and governments with whom relations have been frosty, to say the least, such as Manila and Tokyo, showed signs of thawing through leaders' meetings and pledges to get along better.

"In Chinese diplomatic history it has been rare for the country to use home-ground events effectively to promote its propositions," says Jia Xiudong, a research fellow with the China Institute of International Studies.

"Discussion at home over initiatives such as the Silk Road and the Asia-Pacific free trade agreement, which will be two major pillars for China's global strategy over coming years, will reap maximum consensus from our partners."

In addition to the two big-name diplomatic events in China last year, the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province attracted politicians, business people and scholars from more than 50 countries.

More than 1,800 Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs attended the Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin. Together, they further illustrated and supplemented China's keen interest in setting the agenda regarding global peace and development.

"Through deeper engagement within such multilateral mechanisms, China has become more confident in presenting itself as a leader and a rule setter in global affairs," Jia says.

Last year, as China's economy continued to steer into a new normal featuring innovation and quality growth, its economic diplomacy became groundbreaking and transformative, observers says.

The fledging mega plan to revitalize the ancient Silk Road routes, first proposed in 2013, advanced substantially, and there was a positive response from more than 50 countries along the route, following China's worldwide campaign.

In October, Beijing and 20 other governments announced the establishment of an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, with expected initial subscribed capital of $50 billion. One month later, a $40 billion Silk Road fund aimed at the construction of infrastructure linking Asian markets was announced.

Fouquet, of the European Institute of Asian Studies in Brussels, says that at the moment China seems to be the only major power with the wherewithal to undertake the land and maritime Silk Road proposals.

"It has the potential to transform economic, social and perhaps political relations between the numerous states on the Euro-Asian continent and across the oceans and seas from Asia to the Mediterranean," he says.

Jin Canrong, deputy dean at the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China, says a huge shortfall of funds for infrastructure development in Asia calls for a cash infusion from new regional financial institutions. The continent needs $730 billion a year for infrastructure development before 2020, the Asian Investment Bank says.

Apart from a big capital injection to strengthen the institutional foundation of the land and maritime Silk Roads, China is also seeking to strengthen its connections with the rest of the world through high-speed rail.

Last month China and Thailand cemented a long-awaited railway deal under which China will design and build a 734-km high-speed line connecting Bangkok and Nong Khai province.

The project is just one of China's many exports of its high-speed rail to the rest of the world, including Africa and Latin America. China is now deeply involved in railway projects in more than 15 countries.

Su Hao, a professor of Asia-Pacific studies at China Foreign Affairs University, says low-cost Chinese high-speed rail has become a new image card for "Made-in-China".

"Through collaboration on high-speed rail, China has improved its connections with other countries, especially developing ones, that are in dire need of improving infrastructure."

In July, in another effort to further ties with developing countries, China, with its fellow BRICS members Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, pushed on with a new development bank with initial authorized capital of $100 billion, as well as a $100-billion contingent reserve arrangement. The bank's headquarters will be in Shanghai.

Jin of Renmin University of China, says the bank will lay a financial foundation for economic growth and collaboration among emerging powers.

"China has been at the forefront during the years of hard work to bring the bank to fruition, and it will give China a bigger voice in the global financial system and help China safeguard its interests."

Liu Jia in Brussels contributed to the story.

puzhendong@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/09/2015 page6)