The 2024 summit meeting of the Forum on China-Africa cooperation, a triennial event, concluded this week in Beijing. The gathering, which assembled top leaders from 50 nations, took up its work on charting a course for common development. China attaches great importance to the summit and to relations with the nations of Africa.
President of China Xi Jinping, who has made ten trips to Africa during his political career, welcomed the attendees with a toast. “Since the mid-20th century,” he said, “we have been fighting shoulder to shoulder [against] imperialism, colonialism, and hegemonies, and advancing hand in hand along the path of development, revitalization, and modernization.”
“Together we have made the voice of the Global South stronger,” he declared.
In his keynote address, Xi emphasized that “Modernization is an inalienable right of all countries. But the Western approach to it has inflicted immense sufferings on developing countries.” The African Union’s Agenda 2063 points the way toward specific modernization goals in Africa.