China-Global South Agenda at FOCAC 2024: Climate, Connectivity & Coalitions

Additional Reporting – China Global South Project.  Many assume that China’s relationship with Africa is mostly based on gaining access to natural resources. While that is true in a few cases (cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example), the importance of the China-Africa relationship is much broader than minerals. The continent lies at the heart of a growing network that Beijing is building throughout the developing world, one aimed at shoring up support at a time when China is facing growing pressure from the U.S. and its allies.

Africa’s 54 votes at the UN, its substantial youth demographic, and the way that Africa-China cooperation enhances China’s narrative that it is building a global community of developing countries highlight why China remains committed to Africa. These factors are pivotal in China’s efforts to make space for its global rise by shifting global systems away from Western dominance. The 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) gathering in Beijing will be ground zero for that community building.

This report focuses on China’s priorities for the upcoming FOCAC meeting on Tuesday, Sep 3, 2024 to Sunday, Sep 8, 2024 in Beijing, China.

FOCAC 2021-2024: Where Are We Now?

Climate

The 2021 FOCAC summit was notable for an expansion of the platform’s focus. The China-Africa Joint Declaration on Combating Climate Change was the most expansive joint statement on the climate crisis in the relationship to date and positioned climate cooperation as an important pillar within FOCAC.

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The 2021 Declaration emphasized each country finding its own unique path to industrialization, which feeds into an emerging theme in Chinese messaging: that China can support a unique development model for Africa. It also positioned China as a fellow developing country, placing it on the same side as Africa in calling for increased funding from the developed world for climate adaptation and mitigation in the Global South.

What to expect?: In 2021, China promised more investment in renewable energy. This provided a glimpse into the emerging centrality of green energy in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as seen in announcements at October 2023’s Belt and Road Forum. Look for a strong emphasis on green energy cooperation at FOCAC 2024.

Vaccines

The previous FOCAC meeting happened during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when many African countries were scrambling to obtain vaccines. Competitive “vaccine diplomacy” driven by China and the United States became a hallmark of this era.

At FOCAC in 2021, China committed to providing 1 billion additional doses of COVID vaccine to the continent. As the pandemic persisted, it became increasingly unclear whether this commitment would be fulfilled.

Delivery was complicated by a few nested factors. First, China’s zero-COVID policy interrupted many China-Africa exchange initiatives, including the deployment of medical teams. Second, the efficacy of Chinese COVID vaccines lagged behind their Western counterparts, leading some African countries to opt for Western alternatives. Third, while deliveries via Western aid programs were delayed by vaccine hoarding, their eventual availability displaced Chinese market-priced competitors, except in countries with particularly strong links to China.

What to expect?: The vaccine issue is likely to be downplayed in favor of joint medication production, as seen, for example, between China and Zimbabwe.

In a year of pervasive political uncertainty, FOCAC is likely to function as a space to emphasize and showcase the stability of China’s relationship with the developing world.

Trade

The 2021 Dakar meeting agreed to increase imports from Africa to $300 billion by 2024. These ambitions dovetail with China establishing large-scale new trade and logistics routes, expanding its links with different Global South regions beyond traditional shipping lanes. In this sense, increasing African trade dovetails with China’s broader goals of strengthening its global supply chains against possible pressure from outside powers.

While the $300 billion commitment reflected ambitions on both sides, it didn’t prove feasible by 2024. 2023 trade numbers showed a 1.5% increase in total trade, but Chinese imports of African goods actually shrank by 6.7% to around $109 billion. Factors include China’s economic slowdown and African producers’ inability to overcome China’s stringent phytosanitary laws.

What to expect?: Look out for renewed pledges to increase trade, with a focus on the agricultural sector, as well as additional measures to help African producers navigate Chinese regulation and markets. 

Development Plans 

The 2021 FOCAC meeting was notable for the launch of the China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035 plan. Unlike earlier FOCAC statements that made plans for the following three-year period, this document accounts for the next fourteen years. The China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035 plan represents a significant centering of the Africa-China relationship by directly linking it with Beijing’s own China Vision 2035 planning document, which sets a series of intermediary development goals in preparation for the centenary of the People’s Republic of China in 2049. The goals are designed to achieve broad-based development and a base level of national prosperity according to a plan set by Deng Xiaoping, a key architect of China’s economic rise.

The expanded timeframe of the China-Africa Cooperation Vision and the link to the symbolically important national goals highlighted in the China Vision plan indicate the importance of the Africa-China relationship. The China-Africa Cooperation Vision plan lays out eight areas of cooperation:

• Shared development;
• Trade, investment and financing
• Industrial cooperation
• Green cooperation
• Health
• People-to-People exchange
• Peace and security
• Cooperation on global governance 

The document backs that up with concrete goals: to increase cumulative Chinese investment in the continent to $60 billion and to increase two-way trade to $300 million per year.

What to expect?: Now that their respective long-term development roadmaps have been harmonized, this year’s FOCAC will likely emphasize China’s uniqueness as a model of modernization and development for Africa.

China’s Priorities for FOCAC 2024

Green Energy 

Africa-China cooperation on infrastructure used to be dominated by the mega-budgets of the 2010s, which tended to support large-scale infrastructure projects undertaken by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This had two knock-on effects: first, the electricity projects characteristic of this phase of the BRI tended to focus on conventional thermal power stations, partly led by the expertise of China’s SOEs. In turn, these led to large debt loads for recipient countries.

This year’s FOCAC summit will be the first in the era of the reformulated Belt and Road Initiative, built around the slogan of “small is beautiful.” This reformulation was displayed particularly prominently during the Belt and Road Forum of October 2023 and is expected to shape this year’s FOCAC commitments too. The “small” refers to more contained projects with smaller budgets and shorter repayment windows. The “beautiful” aspect relates to projects having both small environmental and social impacts, and large developmental benefits.

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Supply: The shift to “small and beautiful” was largely interpreted as a response to the debt impacts of the BRI, both in the form of debt distress among recipient countries and a growing debt crisis within China. However, it was also inspired by the awareness within China of the growing role of renewable electricity as a driver of Chinese growth. Thanks to heavy investment, China’s solar component sector now represents 80% of the world supply. China invested ten times more than Europe did into its renewables sector, which currently makes up 7% of China’s total trade deficit with the rest of the world.

Political tensions with China’s traditional trading partners are now putting this sector under stress, with growing trade measures in Europe and the U.S. against Chinese solar panels, batteries, and other technologies. The emphasis on green energy as a key axis of the newly reformulated BRI points to an awareness within China of limited growth capacity in the EU and the U.S., in contrast to almost unlimited growth potential in the Global South.

Demand: Africa’s shortage of dependable and sustainable electricity lies at the heart of many of its challenges. It holds back education initiatives, keeps women and youth locked in unproductive subsistence cycles, and fatally hampers national and regional industrialization plans. China’s globally unique advantage in renewable energy could make it a game-changer on the continent, both for urban and rural electrification. This doesn’t only imply building sustainable electricity generation capacity in the form of solar and wind farms. Chinese companies are also leaders in smart grid and electricity storage technology, which opens the possibility of a much broader impact.

Barriers: However, this will depend on a closer alignment between the Chinese green energy sector and state funders. The latter have traditionally been closer aligned to SOEs that focused on conventional power rather than the private companies running the renewables sector. Green energy would have to be integrated more fundamentally into African development and industrialization plans. This would include overcoming entrenched knowledge deficits that make African policymakers wary of newer technology compared to the familiar certainties of coal, as well as entrenched hydrocarbon bias among policymakers with an interest in the mining sector.

Global Connectivity

Since its coining in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative has focused on boosting connectivity between China and the rest of the world. Originally, this led to a concentration on physical infrastructure and building links between China and major markets (for example, between China and Europe via Central Asia). While this remains a core BRI objective, the initiative has expanded to include numerous other forms of connectivity, including via trade and regulatory integration and using training and people-to-people exchange to build closer connections between China and the rest of the Belt and Road. While FOCAC predates the BRI itself, it has emerged as a key platform for BRI engagement, one that shapes China’s interaction with the wider Global South.

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ICT: Data network provision has emerged at the core of China’s broader ambition to promote connectivity. Chinese companies like Huawei provide robust, low-cost network solutions at all levels of the tech stack, from undersea cables to handset sales. This, in turn, has put Huawei in the crosshairs of Western lawmakers anxious about Chinese surveillance and the possible control of Chinese entities over Global North utility networks. The resulting political pressure has led Chinese companies to seek out markets in the Global South, where demand for cheap data networks is driven by large youth populations. In addition, Chinese companies are increasingly combining data and electricity provision, increasing their appeal to recipient governments in Africa and other developing regions.

Alternative systems: The close engagement between China’s ICT sector and African countries forms part of a wider drive: to carve out spaces for Chinese companies and systems in the rest of the world. For example, China is promoting the use of its BeiDou satellite navigation system over the U.S.-driven GPS system. The similar pursuit of alternative norms and cooperation platforms is partially driving China’s coining of the “space silk road,” which underlies its cooperation with African countries like Nigeria on satellite technology, as well as a drive to reshape global norms to reflect Chinese technical specifications in a host of fields. These are likely to feature at this year’s FOCAC summit.

Amplifying China’s say: ICT regulation is a key example of this expansion of influence. In contrast to the U.S.’s promotion of a universally open internet led by large corporations and a global monitoring body, China is promoting the idea of internet sovereignty. This emphasizes local data storage and a strong overseeing role for national governments, which in turn raises concerns about government intervention to crack down on local dissent. Several African governments have indicated their support for this approach. China’s campaigns around these issues have the larger aim of making the global system more amenable to Chinese actors and regulations. Africa plays an important role in this process because many such systems are being built from the ground up, which offers both Chinese companies and regulators a unique opportunity to increase their influence.

Political Alliance 

This year’s FOCAC comes at a moment when China is facing growing opposition from a U.S.-centric alliance that includes the EU, Australia and important East Asian economies like Japan and South Korea. In response, building ties with the Global South as both a set of emerging markets and an emerging global political community is emerging as an important Chinese counter-strategy. China’s instrumental role in forming and enlarging the BRICS (originally Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) group is one example among many of how China is building alternative institutions and platforms for engaging with Global South powers in different regions.

FOCAC was one of the oldest of these platforms and influenced the formation of others. It remains key in harmonizing China’s international messaging with the priorities of the Global South. In a year of pervasive political uncertainty, FOCAC is likely to function as a space to emphasize and showcase the stability of China’s relationship with the developing world.

South-South connections: Fundamental to this outreach is China positioning itself as a developing country and an inalienable member of the Global South. While China’s developing country status is coming under increasing attack from Western policymakers because of its status as the world’s second-largest economy, parts of the country still face systemic underdevelopment on par with other parts of the Global South. Beijing is bolstering its status as an emerging Global South superpower by politically aligning itself with a vocal Global South coalition around issues like the war in Israel and the need to reform global governance institutions like the UN Security Council and the International Monetary Fund.

Modernization outreach: While China sells itself as a developing country, it also emphasizes its outlier status. In other words, China is promoting its unique record of extremely rapid and broad-based development success as an alternative model of modernization to those offered by Western countries. This year’s FOCAC will likely provide a prominent space for the promotion of China’s Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative as forms of alternative modernity that avoids Western modernity’s roots in colonial exploitation. This, in turn, bolsters China’s drive to establish alternative global governance structures more in line with its own priorities and less centered around Western power. Africa’s moral weight as the heart of the Global South and its 54 votes at the UN make it an important partner in this quest.

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U.S. election: The international pressures facing China are particularly intense in 2024 because of the key role it plays in the U.S. elections. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have pursued aggressive anti-China legislation, and hostility towards China’s rise is one of the few issues Democrats and Republicans can agree on. For that reason, China threat narratives and performative anti-China announcements are likely to feature prominently, which will also pile pressure on Beijing in other regions of the world.

However, growing global concerns about a possible second Trump presidency – especially in Africa, which was targeted during his first term – are likely to strengthen connections between the continent and China. This is despite the efforts from the Biden administration to reshape the U.S.-Africa relationship via expansive new infrastructure plans. Despite the goodwill bought by infrastructure initiatives like the Lobito corridor, many African policymakers will arguably be focused on shoring up ties with China as a hedge against U.S. unpredictability. Additional Reporting – China Global South Project.

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