A train station in Nairobi, Kenya Photo: Xinhua

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi started paying official visits throughout Africa Tuesday for his first foreign trip in 2020, marking the 30th consecutive year since 1991 that a Chinese foreign minister has visited Africa at the start of every year.

Unstoppable trend

The tradition of a Chinese foreign minister visiting Africa at the start of every year dates back to January 1991 when the Chinese vice premier and foreign minister Qian Qichen visited four East African nations.

It has since become a perennial trend as succeeding Chinese foreign ministers, including Tang Jiaxuan, Li Zhaoxing, Yang Jiechi and Wang, continued to choose Africa for their first trip of the year.

The idea for such a tradition, as the late Qian put it, rests in China's belief that economies around the world were becoming more interdependent since the end of the Cold War, and Africa, as a large continent in the United Nations family, represents an important force in international affairs.

Wu Chuanhua, a research fellow at the Institute of West Asian and African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said maintaining the same tradition of more than 30 years is unique in the history of diplomacy, noting the tradition is cherished by both sides.

FOCAC funds

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), a dialogue oriented toward promoting China-Africa cooperation and broadening consensus on issues of mutual concern.

Since FOCAC's inception in 2000, China and Africa have witnessed unprecedented cooperative outcomes.

China has been Africa's largest trading partner for 10 consecutive years. In 2018, trade volume between the two sides amounted to $204.2 billion, up 20 percent year-on-year.

Chinese expertise and technologies have given rise to numerous transformative mega-projects such as railways, ports, aviation hubs and power plants in Africa. In December last year, Kenya launched the Nairobi-Naivasha Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) cargo service, which extended the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR to reach the countryside.

"Over the past 20 years, China-Africa relations have developed in an all-around way," Wu noted. "Apart from strengthened mutual political trust as well as economic and trade relations, cooperation has enriched and expanded into more sectors such as culture, education, and health."

Evariste Irandu, a professor at the University of Nairobi, said that after having achieved its own historic development through decades of hard work, China has pledged to assist other less fortunate countries, and one of the principal beneficiaries of this commitment is Africa.

In December 2015, at the FOCAC summit in Johannesburg, China announced 10 major cooperation plans to promote industrialization and agricultural modernization in Africa, backed by a $60 billion fund.

China would extend an additional $60 billion of financing to Africa, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at the opening ceremony of the 2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit.

China's pledge to Africa is "a clear testimony to China's commitment," Irandu noted.

The professor added that the FOCAC is indeed based on "win-win cooperation," adding that the regular visits to Africa by senior Chinese government officials clearly indicates that China is really sincere and honest in seeing the continent develop.

New decade

Africa launched the operational phase of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) last year, forming what could be the world's largest free trade area that covers more than 1.2 billion people with a combined GDP of $2.5 trillion.

Expectations are growing high and trading within AfCFTA is expected to commence on July 1, 2020. Officials and experts believe that AfCFTA's launch will give way to broadened cooperation between Africa and China.

"China has shown keen interest in assisting Africa in closing her huge infrastructure gap especially in high speed rail and road development," said Irandu. "This will open up many inaccessible parts of the continent for regional and international trade."

With the  AfCFTA up and running, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers a great opportunity for Africa to develop its gigantic infrastructure projects and build transport networks linking different parts of the continent, said AU Commissioner for Trade and Industry Albert Muchanga at a conference in Ethiopia last month.

This was echoed by He Wenping, a CASS researcher, who said that since the BRI was proposed in 2013, "Africa has become an important partner of China in implementing the Belt and Road Initiative."