China’s $60billion Christmas gift to people of Africa

Chinese President Xi Jinping told African leaders on Friday his country would pump $60billion (£40billion) into development projects, cancel some debt and boost agriculture under a three-year plan that will extend Beijing’s influence in the continent.

Addressing African leaders at the end of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC), President Xi said China would not interfere in African countries’ internal affairs, a stance that drew applause from leaders such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe who have faced Western criticism of their human rights record. Mugabe, whose government signed 10 economic accords with China when Xi visited Harare earlier this week, including a deal on expanding Zimbabwe’s largest thermal power plant, praised Beijing’s role in Africa. “Here is a man (Xi) representing a country once called poor. A country which never was our colonizer … He is doing to us what we expected those who colonized us yesterday to do,” said Mugabe, who is also chairman of the African Union, to loud applause by the delegates.

Sticking to that Chinese tradition of non-interference in local politics, Xi said: “China strongly believes Africa belongs to the African people and African problems should be handled by the African people.” But China too has irked some Africans in the past for using Chinese firms and labour to build state-funded roads and railways in Africa while buying up commodities and leaving little for local economies, an image Xi is keen to change during the two-day conference in South Africa that ended at the weekend.