An Historic Moment: China-Africa — ‘A Shared Community of Interest for All Humanity’

The deliberations of the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit yesterday in Beijing mark an historic shift for humanity, for all time. The centuries-long colonialist era, under the British imperium or under whatever other disguises it has been perpetrated—is now over and done with. This was an implicit premise of President Xi Jinping in his keynote, and in the remarks of his fellow speakers—all institutional leaders: President Cyril Ramaphosa, of South Africa, in the BRICS; President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, current chair country of the African Union (AU); Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations; and Moussa Faki Mahamat, AU Commission Chairman. AU Commission Chairman Faki announced that the African Union will open a permanent representative office in Beijing, during his visit.

Even the dramatic visual setting of the Xi panel underscored the significance of the event. Seated on stage behind the speaker’s lectern, facing outward to the thousands in the audience, were the heads of state and government of 53 African nations. “The confidence of African leaders is now on the world stage,” observed Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche today. Collaborating with China, “Africa will be a powerhouse of the future.”

President Xi Jinping announced specific commitments and plans for joint work, and spoke in powerful images of the spirit involved. He said that China and Africa will “walk together towards prosperity.” We will “think with one mind, and work with one heart.”

Of special note, is that Xi also stressed that China is ready to work with others as international partners. He said that China and Africa will be setting an example, and “presenting a community of shared interest for all humanity.” He underscored this metaphorically, saying, “Anyone who isolates himself on an island has no future.” Also, “everyone has in himself a little bit of others.”

UN Secretary General Guterres called the FOCAC meeting an “historic moment.” He spoke emphatically about how the China-Africa collaboration, and the Belt and Road Initiative, are now inherently involved in the UN Agenda 2030 (the anti-poverty global objective), as well as in AU Agenda 2063 (the 50-year continental development perspective announced by the AU in 2013, and which marks the centennial of the OAU Charter in 1963).

Xi announced an eight-point action list of joint China-Africa activity, for 2019-2021 (three years is the FOCAC time cycle, since its founding in 2000). China is committed to $60 billion in funding over that period, for which Xi gave a breakdown in terms of how much will be in private investment, government grants and loans, etc.

More is now expected to come out about specific programs. For example, it is rumored that the Transaqua may be on the agenda for one of the FOCAC sessions. These FOCAC deliberations bring to life the panoply of projects in the Schiller Institute book released less than a year ago, “Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa,” by Hussein Askary and Jason Ross. This book is a must-have roadmap for what is underway in Africa; and the new Schiller Institute book, “A Shared Future for Humanity, Vol. II of the New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge” gives the world picture.

One nasty update, is that a specific lie has been repeated constantly in media and academic circles against China and the FOCAC development perspective, from Wall Street/City of London sources. The lie asserts that China is bullying vulnerable nations into debt traps. This fraud is demolished in a new paper, titled, “Why Accusations Against China for `Debtbook Diplomacy’ Are a Hoax,” by the same two authors, Askary and Ross. It is available on SchillerInstitute.com later this week; and will be published by EIR in the Sept. 7 issue.

Other events today, focused on Argentina, point up the urgency of acting on the principle embodied in FOCAC, to push for a world confab of major powers for a New Bretton Woods system to enable development, and get out of the breakdown-trap now happening to the expiring Wall Street/City of London monetary system. The President and finance minister of Argentina went on television to announce sudden, drastic cuts in government functions, pensions, pay and work conditions, in a futile display of compliance with IMF and Wall Street conditionalities, in hopes of aid as the country plunges into chaos.

This points up the real stakes in the U.S. mid-term elections, in the LaRouchePAC intervention with a “Campaign to Win the Future.”