China-Africa Relations Democracy and Delivery

The recently concluded Fifth Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) adopted the Beijing Action Plan for 2013-2015 that will provide African countries with USD 20 billion as concessional loans for the development of infrastructure, agriculture, and manufacturing. This concessional loan is twice as much as that pledged in 2010. In 2011, trade between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Africa reached USD 260 billion, of which USD 166 billion represented the value of China’s exports to Africa. This is a drastic surge from USD 1 billion in 1980. With the financial crises in the United States and Europe, China increased its investment in Africa, causing the value of trade transactions to exceed the value of aid. China is now also engaged in peace and security projects in Africa and has contributed modest auxiliary troops to peacekeeping operations in Darfur, Liberia, the Western Sahara and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Recently, it contributed USD 5 million in peacekeeping equipment to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

China-Africa Relations Democracy and Delivery (Aljazeera Studies)