Austin Maho (2nd left), editor-in-chief of Nigeria's Daybreak News, stands with other foreign guests in front of the Three Gorges Dam in the city of Yichang in Central China's Hubei Province on May 31, 2023. Photo: Liu Shusong/Hubei Daily

Through a continuous boost in trade cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, more African people and governments will become aware of and support China's path to modernization, because Chinese prosperity could benefit Africa, a Nigerian media representative told the Global Times on Friday after a four-day visit to Wuhan and Yichang in Central China's Hubei Province.

"As the path to Chinese modernization is a new concept and integral to building a modern socialist China through high-quality development after China has achieved the first Centenary Goal of defeating abject poverty, many people and governments in Africa are still unaware of the new push, and that's why more visits like the one we are currently doing are needed," said Austin Maho, editor-in-chief of Nigeria's Daybreak News, while admiring Wuhan's prosperity and the beautiful environment after pollution remediation in Yichang.

The downtown park in Yichang stretches along the banks of the Yangtze River with a length of more than 10 kilometers. Seen on June 1, 2023. Photo: Liu Shusong/Hubei Daily

Maho was one of 177 foreign guests from 28 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America who visited Hubei from Tuesday to attend China's first large-scale in-person foreign political party event after the COVID-19 epidemic, which included multi-dimensional activities to help foreign delegations understand China better.

Following activities in Wuhan, foreign delegations from South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Russia, Moldova, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria visited Yichang from Wednesday to Thursday. The city is located at the dividing point between the middle and upper sections of the Yangtze River and is famous for its hydropower industry thanks to the Three Gorges Dam and the Gezhouba Dam.

After seeing ship navigation and hydropower generation from the top of the Three Gorges Dam, as well as walking in the downtown park which stretches along the banks of the Yangtze River, Maho admired the government's efforts to boost economic development and promote the river's shoreline remediation and restoration projects.

Maho told the Global Times that cooperation must be strengthened in trade and investment, people-to-people communication, cultural exchanges, and sharing of political experience, as this can benefit global peace, prosperity and harmony amid the current upswing in China-Nigeria and China-Africa relations.

Recent weeks have seen closer and more frequent interactions between China and African nations, with exchange visits by senior officials. For example, on Monday, the Special Envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Peng Qinghua attended Nigerian President Bola Tinubu's inauguration ceremony in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang has also recently held talks in Beijing with his Zimbabwe counterpart Frederick Shava, Ethiopia counterpart Demeke Mekonnen Hassen, and Democratic Republic of the Congo counterpart Christophe Lutundula.

Some western media reports have sought to discredit China-Africa relations by accusing China of luring African countries into a debt trap and using strategic debt to gain political leverage, but Maho said that the evidence points to the contrary.

"Several independent organizations have weighed in on the argument and made their reports public. Chinese loans are not a major contributor to debt distress in Africa, unlike loans from Bretton woods institutions and Western nations. Five centuries of Africa's relationship with the West have only brought us disease and underdevelopment, debt and endemic corruption. But the relatively short span of our relationship with China has brought massive development to Africa," Maho said.

Maho added that China has proved to be a reliable partner to Nigeria as a number of Chinese-funded projects have been successfully completed in areas such as railways, power and bridges. This has significantly boosted employment and created wealth for citizens, along with development of the Nigerian economy. China has also conducted more trade with Africa than any other country in the world in the last two decades.

In 2021, the volume of trade between China and Africa exceeded $200 billion, and China has been Africa's largest trading partner for 13 years in a row. China's stock of indirect investment has reached $110 billion, and more than 3,700 Chinese enterprises have invested or started businesses in various parts of Africa, providing a strong driving force for sustained economic growth in the continent.