African Leaders: China Is Not Colonizing, Like the West

The Xinhua coverage of Xi Jinping’s historic Africa tour this month includes some things left out of the Western coverage — namely, that in addition to being grateful for China’s $60 billion investment pledge over the next three years, African leaders emphasized that China, unlike the Western colonizers, is not piling conditions and political restraints on African nations, but is sincerely aiming at nation building.

Xi said in his keynote speech at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in South Africa last week: “China strongly believes that Africa belongs to the African people and that African affairs should be decided by the African people.”

Adji Ayassor, minister of state in the Togolese Ministry of Economy, Finance and Development Planning, told Xinhua on Friday that the Chinese president’s keynote speech told “the truth about the cooperation between China and Africa.” Contrary to what some claim in the West, China “is not colonizing Africa,” he said. “We believe that is the best way to develop Africa. … It (China) is taking a real path of Africa’s development. It is a real cooperation.”

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who also holds the rotating African Union (AU)  chair, in his speech at the opening ceremony, thanked China for its “unconditional support” for Africa, and slammed actions by the West that have derailed progress there. “China has never been our colonizer, and while some detractors allege that our cooperation with Beijing is commercially driven, the reality on the ground does not conform to such a distorted view,” Mugabe said.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta told reporters Dec. 5 that “the perception that China is the new colonizer is a complete misrepresentation of Beijing’s activities here in Africa…. Achievement of mutual benefits is the basis of Sino-Africa cooperation. I don’t think that a partner who is helping us fight poverty and other development challenges can be called a colonizer.” Kenyatta said that what China is doing in Africa is what the colonialists failed to do in the past, namely help Africa out of poverty. “China is ready to help us develop and meet our socio-economic objectives without imposing its agenda on us. This is the outstanding aspect of our cooperation with China.”