The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC): A Framework for China’s Re-Engagement with Africa in the 21st Century

Abstract

This paper offers an examination of FOCAC as a framework for Sino-African engagement in the 21st Century. China’s growing andexpanding engagement with Africa has assumed a prominent feature ofInternational Relations and discourses. The engagement ismultifaceted, encapsulating mainly trade and related economic ties.Given China’s fast economic and industrial growth, thirst and hugedemand for new sources of energy and other resources has beengenerated, bringing China closer to Africa where the availability ofthese resources abound. This situates China’s renewed interest inAfrica in the recent years. The deepening of economic involvement inAfrica is realized through a mix of aid, special concessions, debt relief,scholarships, the provision of educational and medical trainingpersonnel and infrastructural investment projects. This represents astark departure from the past under Mao Zedong, when therelationship was guided by the ideological conflict of the Cold War andespecially Beijing’s attempts to dislodge Moscow’s influence in theThird World. Now economic pragmatism and symbolic diplomacyappear to navigate Sino-African relations. The lynchpin of China’s reengagementof African in this century is the Forum on China-AfricaCooperation (FOCAC), initiated at the Ministerial Conference inBeijing in 2000. The paper explores the FOCAC framework, assessesthe reality of its promises, and addresses the question of its problemsand challenges.

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