Opinion
The West’s baloney about Africa – China cooperation
“The Western nations only develop infrastructure in Africa that helped to ship Africa’s resources to the West,” said Dr. Gerishon Ikiara, lecturer of international economics with University of Nairobi, and ex-Permanent Secretary with Kenya’s Ministry of Transport and Communications.
“The West’s defamation will not eclipse China’s honesty and sincerity with African brothers.” In a vivid description of the vision of cooperation with Africa, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the phoenix will come if the nest is built and that teaching one to fish is better than giving him a fish.
By tackling infrastructure, Africa and China have chosen to root out a bottleneck that has long checked Africa’s economic growth, and clear the way for Africa to promote self-sustained development and accelerate industrialization.
As a Chinese saying goes, “wealth is not far away if roads are built”. China is willing to share with Africa the most valuable experience it has learned and has been practising over the past 30-odd years of reform and opening up and rapid economic growth.
Facts speak louder than words. China has been working with Africa in infrastructure development and have completed 1,046 projects, built railways with the total length of 2,233 kilometers (1,388 miles) and highways with the total length of 3,530 kilometers (2,193 miles) in Africa, making tangible contributions to the improvement of living and working conditions in Africa.
The acrimony and suspicion was obvious as certain Western media hyped up the so-called “concrete diplomacy” in an attempt to belittle China’s co-operation with Africa in defusing the bottleneck and improving infrastructure.
As the world’s second largest economy, China has become more sophisticated in dealing with such Western media hypes.
“Some say that China is conducting ‘concrete diplomacy’ by working with Africa with infrastructure development. I believe that is what badly needed by Africa in pursuing economic growth,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying told a recent press briefing.
Wang Xiangjiang is a writer with Chinese media house Xinhua
