China’s involvement in Africa goes back more than fifty years. However, over the past decade or so its presence on the continent has been growing at a remarkable rate. Since 2000, China-Africa trade has increased twenty-fold, and Chinese direct investment in Africa more than thirty-fold. Foreign aid figures are less readily available. According to the Chinese Government´s White Paper on Foreign Aid, published in 2011, China had provided 256.29 billion yuan (US$37.7 billion) in aid to foreign countries by 2009. Africa has received a significant share of such aid, accounting for 45.7% of the total sum in 2009. Estimates of annual Chinese development assistance to Africa vary between US$ 1 and 3 billion. In 2012, China pledged US$20 billion in loans to Africa over three years for infrastructure, agriculture and manufacturing. If these funds are actually committed, China will become one the principal financial backers of Africa’s growth and development.

The Chinese government established the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000 to mark a new chapter in bilateral relations between China and African countries, and in 2006 it published a document entitled China´s Africa Policy. Over the years, the FOCAC Ministerial Conferences, the last of which was held in 2012 in Beijing, have generated a large number of principles, action agendas and commitments which have widened and deepened China’s involvement and investment across Africa. The motivations for such expansion are numerous and mixed, ranging from the need to strengthen political and diplomatic ties with countries seen as regional leaders to the promotion of commercial interests, and from securing access to natural resources to projecting a new global image of China as a trusted partner for developing countries.

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(Source: BRICS Policy Center)