In a conversation with Russia publication Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Alexander Lukin, research director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, stated: “BRICS is important for China. It is positioning itself as a leader of the Global South. In this group, China is the strongest country from an economics point of view. That said, though, one cannot say that China is the leader, as there [within BRICS] each [member] country is preoccupied with its own prestige. As for China’s dialogue with African countries, this is above all about economic interests. China needs raw materials and Africa has a lot of them. China needs markets for its goods. It also needs investment projects, in particular for investing in infrastructure. China has a lot of companies building railroads, airports, seaports. In China itself, by now there is almost no room for such companies to use their expertise, but their capacities remain and should be applied somewhere, so now China is boosting construction of infrastructure facilities in Africa. At the same time, building port facilitates importing oil from Africa. This is a mutually beneficial process.”
One has to add what Lukin forgot to mention: China has been active as a supporter of African countries since at least the late 1950s, relations built since then providing a good platform for present-day China and African countries to expand cooperation.
