During the 9th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), projected as China’s biggest diplomatic event in years, the visiting African leaders signed a host of agreements with Beijing.
The summit, the first to be held after the coronavirus pandemic, kicked off on September 4 and is scheduled to conclude on September 6. It comes at a time of economic distress and accruing debt in several African countries.
While the precise details of the agenda and agreements remain undisclosed, reports indicate that China is poised to enter into space agreements and enhance its cooperation with African nations. Beijing has positioned the promotion of African countries’ space programs as a significant aspect of its strategy to foster closer ties with the region for a few years now.
Ahead of the summit, the state-owned CTGN, the English-language news channel of the state-run China Global Television Network, released an in-depth report highlighting China’s collaborative efforts in space with African nations and emphasized the advantages this partnership brings to individuals throughout the continent.
The report started with Egypt’s space growth. It noted that the Egyptian satellite MISRSAT-2, a high-resolution optical remote-sensing satellite that has been orbiting more than 600 kilometers above the earth, provides North Africa with services like resource surveys, monitoring and assessment of environmental disasters, urban planning, and crop growth evaluation for agriculture and forestry.
“The collaboration between China and Egypt highlights the success of China-Africa space cooperation, leading to notable advancements in satellite exports as well as resource sharing, space technology exchange, and infrastructure development in the field of space,” the report noted.
The report also highlighted that Chinese space engineers have created and launched multiple satellites for African nations, such as the two communication satellites for Nigeria that China launched in 2007 and 2011, the communication satellite for Algeria in 2017, the cube satellite for Ethiopia in 2019, the scientific experimental satellite for Sudan in 2019, and MISRSAT-2 for Egypt in 2023.
The report also emphasized that the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Dakar Action Plan (2022–2024), which was approved by the FOCAC’s 8th Ministerial Conference in Dakar, Senegal, in November 2021, states that China and Africa would actively seek to create a sub-forum for space cooperation under the FOCAC umbrella.
It noted that to propel the growth of the space sector in African nations, both parties would concentrate on supporting projects involving communications and remote sensing satellites. The observation could be significant as Beijing is currently developing an action plan for the years 2024 to 2027 while also evaluating the Dakar Action Plan.
China has been making concerted efforts to expand space assistance or collaboration with African states as a means to expand its influence over the continent. In Africa, for instance, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) is extensively used for agriculture, urban planning, infrastructure development, and traffic services.
Besides constructing satellites and assisting the African states in launching them, China is supporting the infrastructure construction of ground stations in Africa.
For instance, China helped Egypt build facilities for satellite integration, testing, and assembly, making Egypt the first country in Africa with complete satellite development capabilities. China also assisted Ethiopia build two ground stations, one of which was a multi-satellite receiving station, to improve the nation’s use of data and services provided from space.
Africa has also demonstrated a readiness to welcome China’s enthusiasm for furthering space cooperation. The South African Ambassador to China, Siyabonga Cyprian Cwele, earlier said in an exclusive interview with the Global Times that space cooperation with China “is part of what our leaders said about taking our relations to new heights” and that it can help people monitor and comprehend what has occurred on other planets.
With China dithering on investing in big-ticket infrastructure projects and instead swinging towards smaller projects, space may appear an appealing category for injecting money.
FOCAC 2024
FOCAC, which meets every three years, kicked off on September 4 with a formal welcome dinner for more than two dozen attendees representing 50 African states and concludes on September 6. During this period, participants will engage in discussions aimed at shaping cooperation protocols that will outline the course of China-Africa relations through 2027.
On the first day of the summit, African leaders managed to negotiate significant agreements on funding for infrastructure, green energy, space collaboration, and trade expansion with China, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
Kenya obtained funding totaling 2 billion yuan, or US$281 million, to build rural roads that will cater to 70% of the country’s population. This initiative is a component of Beijing’s redesigned Belt and Road Initiative, which emphasizes “small and beautiful” projects.
Leaders from Tanzania and Zambia concurred on a proposal to repair the Tazara railway, which links the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam with Zambia’s copper belt region. The US$1-billion initiative to renovate the railway comes amid competition between world powers for control of vital transport routes for minerals.
Amidst the global rush to transition to green energy, China also promised to support Chinese enterprises investing in the development of key minerals in many African countries and to increase its imports of agricultural products from the continent.
At a meeting with Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, Xi declared that China would continue to push for the growth of the energy, mineral, and infrastructure sectors and for collaboration in fields like new energy and the digital economy.
In addition, China has committed to assisting Zimbabwe with its industrial upgrading and expanding its mineral processing capacities as the nation positions itself as a major producer of lithium, a component needed for electric vehicles.
China has been a major contributor to the construction of power plants, railroads, and highways throughout Africa in recent decades. Although the assistance has increased China’s political clout and filled funding shortfalls, it has also drawn criticism for burdening other nations with unmanageable debt.
Analysts predict that Chinese President Xi Jinping and his colleagues will probably respond differently to these worries and China’s own economic downturn.
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