The following is a speech delivered by Professor Paul Zilungisele TEMBE, Founder and Director at the SELE Encounters Cross-Civilization Communication Strategies and Analytics at the 6th Forum on China-Africa media Cooperation & Africa Think Tank High-Level Dialogue.
The era of globalization has given an impetus to new forms of relations across the world. However, globalization by itself achieved little in changing perceived hierarchies and the status quo between the global north and south, or between developed and developing countries.
Although there were several benefits that arose to the fore of global events and in the manner that world did politics, trade and cross-cultural communication. The notion and an understanding of regarding one another be it among groups of people, communities, group of people, community, nation regard one another tended for the greater deal to say the same.
It was not until the first decade of the 21st Century that developments from new rising economies like China, some pockets South East Asia coupled with the emergent economic growth of some African regions that changes in the manner of conducting relations among different countries of the global south and south-south cooperation nations became discernable. Such tendencies that sought mutual understanding, mutual respect, win-win cooperation and partnership of equals was nowhere more evident as was in the case of the then nascent Forum for China-Africa cooperation (FOCAC).
The nature and the type of relations experienced within the FOCAC configuration gave an impetus that became a platform for establishing people-to-People relations, People-to-People Exchange and an array of economic instruments and unprecedented trade relations between China and Africa. These developments defied logic that had been regarded as the mainstay of conducting trade and relations among nations. Previously there had been a tendency of grading and relating to and with different nations in relation to their wealth, perceived power, be it martial or position in multiple so-called world rankings.
Such developments that defied classification of nations founded on the notion of a zero-sum-game were met with scepticism if not total scorn from majority parties of the global north and the developing world. Challenges brought forth by the emergent tendencies towards cooperation, mutual respect, non-conditional economic help was that it made a mockery of the logic of capitalism with its mantra of the ‘magic hand of capital’ in economic policy formulation, implementation and final distribution that is based on profit for profit sake.
China-Africa cooperation under the ambit of the FOCAC engaged in infrastructure development that included all member state of the cooperation framework, irrespective of the size of any nation, amount of natural resources, size of its Gross Domestic Product, or Gross Domestic Product Per Capita. Such egalitarian form of engagement with other countries with China at the helm clearly brought some resentment and animosity from those accustomed to be the world leaders as developed nations of the global north. Fortunately, the noise and coupled with the unsavoury spirit from the West which came to be known as sinophobia did not have effects on the rising might of China-Africa cooperation that is today regarded as a template for countries of south-south cooperation among them all developing nations.
Initial studies as to the reason for solidarity and cooperation between China and Africa alluded to perceived and discernable similarities between Chinese and African cultures. Such studies focused on examination of Confucianism and Ubuntu; with the former identified as the bedrock of Chinese form of governance and responsible for China’s rapid economic growth at the time. Ubuntu value system on the other hand was identified as a possible backdrop responsible for guiding majority African citizens in their daily practices. Harmony and respect were identified as strongest similarities the two cultures and value systems of Confucianism and Ubuntu.
The second decade of the 21st century China-Africa cooperation under FOCAC saw further distillation of the above comparisons that eventually gave rise to a range of pronouncements that were to serve as guides for practices of China-Africa relations. The first pronouncement to emerge aimed to guide practices and running of the FOCAC was the ‘First China’s Africa Policy Paper of 2006. The policy paper was followed by the establishment of the Belt and Road Initiative the year 2013 and the Four-Point Proposals announced by President Xi Jinping during his first state visit to Africa in 2013. This Four-Point Proposal consists of (i) “sincerity,” (ii) “Real outcomes,” (iii) “affinity,” and (iv) “good faith”. The Four-Point Proposals were followed by the Second China’s Africa Policy paper during the Johannesburg FOCAC Summit, in 2015. The 2nd Decade of FOCAC became the cornerstone on discussions and establishment of People-to-People relations and People-to-People relations.
As we are in the middle of the 3rd Decade of the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation we are experiencing a high-level from each other as both sides of the relationship have embarked on engagements of civilizational exchanges, cultural exchange throughout the spectrum of People-to-People relations and People-to-People Exchanges. The exercise experienced in-depth exchanges in all sphere of China-Africa cooperation. It is also in the 3rd Decade of FOCAC that China-Africa cooperation entered the greater geopolitical spaces through global initiatives that were pronounces by President Xi Jinping over time. These are the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI) and Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI).
Out of the four Global Initiatives the GCI has played a greater role in strengthening of People-to-People relations and People-to-People Exchange programs. The GCI has gone beyond exchange that is meant for nations, cultures and civilizations to recognize and know one another. Instead, it has served as platform for understand that there multiple forms of cultures, civilizations and peoples and that in each and every civilization lies a unique value system and a knowledge system. Pronouncement of the GCI by President Xi Jinping also goes a long way that it is from one’s own civilization that one may adopt a type of modernization worthy of one’s ideal of develop. Such a lesson is even more compounded in the pronouncement and processes and practices of Building a Community of a Shared Future for Humanity, beginning at national, bilateral and intercontinental level. Building of a China-Africa Community of a Shared Future is only possible when all those that participate in this partnership of equals respect, learn and understand one another’s civilization.
President Xi Jinping mentioned that, it is an absurd notion to think that one civilization is superior that the other. It is also absurd to assume that other civilizations have nothing to contribute in the international table of nations. The compelling evidence to China’s adopting its own culture to model a Chinese-style modernization is discernable in its unprecedented successes in multiple areas including poverty eradication within one generation. The China-Africa cooperation golden era is an optimal time for new level of exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and African Civilizations. The current China-Africa cooperation that makes emphasis on civilizational exchanges is true to a dictum that there is no trade that can flourish without the catalyst of strong people-to-people exchanges.
Civilizational exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and African civilizations is an opportunity to join hands on the path towards modernization. Learning and exchange of civilizations stand to offer a window to the past of Chinese and African cultures and reflection of respective society’s traditions and custom that are salient on path of development of respective nations. On the other hand, it is also an opportunity to gaze into possible future trajectories of China and difference Africa countries. However, missing in the equation of civilizational exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and African civilizations is a specific African agency. Majority of China-Africa engagements be it trade, commerce, human development, cultural and sports exchanges including high-level exchanges among leaders of China-Africa cooperation have had excellent achievements expect for areas of policy formulation and implementation from the African side.
In conclusion, representation of cultures, traditions and civilizations all lead to better relations and understanding respective type of governance among different nations. The type of governance in place in a given country is partly determined by its inherent type of civilization. In turn, formulation and implementation of a given type of governance reflects back on a specific local civilization. I will leave my listeners with the following question; how will the Chinese part understand African civilizations in full if there is lack of agency in as far as formulation of policies towards guidelines and practices in the China-Africa cooperation within the ambit of FOCAC? In order for Africa to have a chance at establishing an African-style modernization it needs to be seen to engage with its partners in the global arena, especial within the ambit of China-Africa cooperation and south-south cooperation countries.
* Paul Zilungisele TEMBE is a practicing Sinologist and Director at the SELE Encounters CCCSA
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.