This week, Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with leaders from almost every country across the African continent in Beijing for the third Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. During that summit, Xi pledged 60 billion in additional development dollars over the next three years, “no strings attached.” That pledge comes on top of billions of dollars already invested in various development projects across the continent.
What does Beijing hope to gain from spending all that money?
Essentially, Beijing sees countries in Africa as vast, mostly untapped markets with the potential for rapid development mirroring China’s own. Based on that bet, investing money now to capture those markets will have big payoffs later. Beijing has long-term plans to both solidify and maintain its power domestically while also reaping the benefits of broad global networks.
For the United States, China’s foreign policy goals have direct implications as the U.S. may well be seen as the competitor that China hopes to replace. Economically, of course, investment is not a zero-sum game and both Chinese and U.S. investments can be a good thing for the countries involved.
For its part, though, China is interested in more than just investment, and investment is never as simple as pure altruism. For Xi’s government, spending money on infrastructure projects also secures political allies and strengthens relations with regional powers.
Already, the political implications of these relationships are becoming clear: Every African nation was represented at the forum except eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, the only country in Africa to maintain ties with Taiwan.
