The meeting will also give a boost to bilateral people-to-people bonds, they added
ahead of the summit to be held on September 3 and 4, which is eagerly awaited by the
international community.

 

"The notion that China and Africa have always been a community of a shared future
proposed by President Xi Jinping well defines the history and future of China-Africa
relations," said An Huihou, China’s former Ambassador to Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt.

 

China is the world's largest developing country, and Africa is a continent with the
largest concentration of developing countries. The two sides have similar historic
conditions and realistic demands and share a common future and a common stake in
that future, he added. 

 

China always provides Africa with selfless assistance and support, An pointed out,
believing that China's reform and opening up has made tremendous development
achievements in the past 40 years, and African countries are more willing to learn
from China’s successful experience in development and national governance. 

 

Against the backdrop of mounting protectionism and unilateralism, China-Africa
cooperation will help the two sides cope with global challenges and achieve mutual
benefits and win-win results, An said, adding that the Beijing Summit will open up a
boarder space for building a closer China-Africa community of a shared future.

 

China has realized rapid economic development driven by reform and opening up,
and Africa has gained more support from China, said Li Xinfeng, Deputy Director of
the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

 

Li said that China and Africa have witnessed a comprehensive, stable, healthy and
rapidly developing relationship and registered fruitful results especially in the field of
infrastructure construction over the past 18 years since the establishment of the Forum
on China-Africa Cooperation.

 

China and Africa share similar historic backgrounds and development goals. The
FOCAC as an institutionalized platform for the development of China-Africa ties will
press ahead together with the Belt and Road Initiative and provide a broad platform
for China-Africa cooperation, Li said.

 

He also gave suggestions on the docking of the Belt and Road Initiative with the
development strategies of African countries, saying that in order to satisfy the needs
of different countries, the alignment should be differentiated according to the
characteristics and situations of involved nations.

 

In this way, the Belt and Road Initiative will provide more impetus for the
development of African countries, Li stressed. 

 

China-Africa cooperation represented by the ten cooperation plans covering various
fields has gone deeper in recent years, said Zeng Aiping, deputy executive director of
the China-Asian African Cooperation Center at the China Institute of International Studies.

 

The Beijing Summit will continue to focus on Africa's development in such fields as
infrastructure construction, investment and financing, power and energy,
and industrial park construction, said Zeng, adding that these cooperation priorities are
also areas that African countries need to improve.

 

China-Africa cooperation will help Africa break the bottleneck of development and
provide personnel and financial support for Africa, Zeng said, pointing out that the 
mutually beneficial China-Africa cooperation will be further deepened as a 2019-2021
action plan to be approved at the Beijing Summit covers various aspects including
peace and security, people-to-people exchanges and development.

 

China and African countries, both as developing countries, have many things in
common, said Zeng who is looking forward to closer exchanges in national
governance between the two sides.

 

He said that the successful experience of China's development can provide reference
for African countries, such as how to formulate and implement national development
plans, build efficient governments, make predictable policies, properly handle the
relationship between reform, development and stability, create a sound business
environment, and construct industrial parks.

 

 

 

 

 

​ ​

 

 

​