A Promising Partnership between BRICS and Africa:A Chinese Perspective
2013/05/22
abstract
The fifth BRICS summit will take place in Durban, South Africa this March, with the theme of “BRICS and AFRICA: Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialisation”. Under this framework, there would have 4 key focus areas, namely the promotion of African infrastructure development, the establishment of a BRICS-led development bank, a BRICS think-tank and a BRICS business council. To be frank, for China, it is the right time to tackle the development challenges faced by Africa as a whole, to motivate the development potential revealed for Africa by the grouped rising of emerging powers with BRICS at the core, and to design the development roadmap for Africa in the context of global development uncertainties.
I. China Attaches Great Importance to BRICS
China now attaches ever increasing importance to the BRICS. The reasons lie in two aspects mainly. The first is economic, namely to promote China’s influence and interest in the global economy and international financial institutions and to share China’s development achievements with other developing partners. The BRICS bloc represents 43% of the world's population, approximately one-fifth of global gross domestic product (GDP), estimated at US$13.7 trillion, as well as combined foreign reserves estimated at US$4.4 trillion. Last year, 2012, the BRICS countries accounted for approximately 11% of global annual foreign direct investment (FDI) flows (US$465billion) and 17% of world trade. Thus, the BRICS is of great importance for China's sustainable economic development.
Another reason is political consideration about China's “Southern identity” that is suspected in the eyes of the international community. To deal with such an identity dilemma, China declared in the Report to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in November 2012 that China will "increase unity and cooperation with other developing countries, work with them to uphold the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries and support efforts to increase their representation and voice in international affairs. China will remain a reliable friend and sincere partner of other developing countries".[①]
China’s attitude towards the BRICS has experienced three phases of development. Before 2009, China was preparing for putting the BRICs concept into practice, turning it from an academic concept to a political entity.[②] Then in the first two years of BRICs, the main goal was to build such an institution. It was in the year 2011, when China chaired the BRIC Summit that year, that China showed its political determination of consolidating the foundations of BRICs as a political group. The first symbolic action was to invite South Africa as a new member on 23 December 2010, which appeared to have surprised South African diplomats who called it as an ‘early Christmas present’.[③] The second action was to introduce political and security affairs into the BRICS agenda. The 2011 Sanya Summit took "Broad Vision, Shared Prosperity" as the theme affirming that the BRICS and other emerging countries have played an important role in contributing to world peace, security and stability, boosting global economic growth, enhancing multilateralism and promoting greater democracy in international relations.[④]
II. Sino-African Relations Transition and BRICS Relevance
The fast development of Sino-African relationship in the past decade is one of the most significant international developments. However, it is this development that facilitates the transitions in Sino-African relations which is of great importance to its sustainable development.
Firstly, Sino-African relationship now is on the way from one based on emotional/ideological intimacy to one based on economic interest consideration. On the one hand, in the past decade or more, China-Africa economic relations developed quite fast: with trade volume increased 20-times from US$ 10 billion in year 2000 to US$ 200 billion in 2012, accumulated investment in Africa to US$ 15 billion and the accumulated assistance to RMB 110 billion in 2011. On the other hand, the historical emotional/ideological intimacy is fading due to the various developments, including the generational change of African leaders, the growing people-to-people exchanges, mutual misunderstanding between two peoples growing, etc.[⑤]
The second transition is the natural consequence of the first one, that is, with the growing importance of economic consideration, now Sino-African relations is transfered from economic interest promotion to economic interest protection. The reasons are diverse, including the upgrading needs for the Going Global Strategy, the instabilities on the African continent, the increasing number of overseas Chinese, and so on.[⑥]
While the above two transitions are already in the making, the third transition in Sino-African relations is a would-be one that will happen in the next few years or decade, from asymmetrical interdependence to symmetrical interdependence. With the slowing down of China's development, Africa's rising in contrast, and returning of traditional powers and entering of emerging powers to Africa, the current asymmetrical interdependence will be shifted sooner or later.
While China has been aware of such transitions and started to deal with them, as proved by the 5th FOCAC Ministerial Conference held in July 2012, China needs to diversify its cooperation platforms with Africa, including FOCAC, BRICS, G20, G77 China, UN, and so on. Thus, for China, supporting BRICS is one of the strategic means to facilitate Sino-African relationship.
III. BRICS’ Relevance to Promoting African Development
Since its creation, the BRICs/BRICS have always kept helping Africa in mind. On one hand, similar to the China case, the rest of BRICS members also have close ties with Africa. On the other hand, the BRICS countries together constitute the largest trading partners of Africa and the largest new (NB: not overall largest) investors.
Since 2011, Africa has been one of the top topics on the BRICS agenda. The third BRICS summit held in 2011 in Sanya, China, had declared their support for African infrastructure development and industrialisation within the framework of New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).[⑦] Then at the fourth BRICS summit, in New Delhi in India in March/April 2012, South African President Jacob Zuma met with BRICS captains of industry, inviting them "to join hands with South Africa in the development of the African continent". The Delhi Declaration also touched on African Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) implementation, African development and stability, among others.[⑧]
This year, the Fifth BRICS Summit will focus exclusively on ‘BRICS and Africa’, which symbolizes a new era of BRICS’ relations with Africa and the South-South Cooperation (SSC). While there are four declared key issues, the implications or the prioritized cooperation fields include three aspects.
The first one is to promote African continental and regional integration, or more broadly, the capability of sustainable development for Africa. For the first time, high-level representatives of Africa's regional economic blocs and the African Union (AU) have been invited to attend the fifth BRICS summit taking place in Durban in March. The decision to invite the AU along with the various regional groupings, including the East African Community (EAC), Common Market for Eastern and Central Africa (Comesa) and Southern African Development Community (SADC), is in line with BRICS' declared goal of promoting African continental and regional integration.
Secondly, BRICS will focus more on consolidating African sustainable development foundations. It’s important to note that three of the four key areas of Durban Summit are related to capability building for African sustainable development, including the promotion of African infrastructure development,the establishment of a BRICS-led development bank, and a BRICS business council. It is widely known that, while it is rising, Africa is still lacking infrastructure, funding, and trade opportunities. While emerging powers, especially China, have input a lot into these areas, there remain huge needs for collective efforts. By joint actions, BRICS will not only foster African sustainable development capability, but also promote co-development of both Africa and the BRICS.
Thirdly, through contributing to African development, BRICS will strengthen the SSC and promote North-South cooperation (NSC). With focusing on BRICS-Africa relations, the Durban Summit will pave the way for "a new global pattern focusing on South-South relations...overriding previous East-West and North-South constructs and divisions".[⑨] And the establishment of a BRICS think tank also will contribute a lot to the new ideas and approaches of promoting both SSC and NSC.
IV. Conclusion
While of greatest relevance, there are still a lot of possibilities to promote BRICS members engagement into Africa. Individually, there are various bilateral cooperation platforms, including FOCAC, the India–Africa Summit, the Africa–South America Summit, and so on. Globally, G20, UN, IMF, World Bank, among others, can provide multilateral platforms for BRICS members to argue for African needs and voices. Thus, there is an urgent need to combine (or coordinate) these efforts for the promotion of a common future for different African organizations, rather than putting forward different agendas in different frameworks. The promising partnership between BRICS and Africa lies not only in collective action, but more in collective idea, collective voice, and collective agenda.
This article is the short version of a contribution to The China Monitor (2013): Special Edition: The BRICS Summit 2013 – Is the Road from Durban Leading into Africa?, Stellenbosch, Centre for Chinese Studies (www.sun.ac.za/ccs).
[①] HU Jintao, Firmly March on the Path of Socialism with Chinese Characteristic and Strive to Complete the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects: Report to 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Beijing, November 8, 2012.
[②] YANG Jiemian, “Emerging Powers’ Strategic Options on Transitional International System,” World Economics and Politics, No. 6, 2009.
[③] Paul-Henri Bischoff, “An Early Christmas Present – What is BRIC to South Africa and South Africa to BRIC?” Paper presented for Third Global International Studies Conference, Porto, August 17-20, 2011.
[④] BRICS, Sanya Declaration, Sanya, Hainan, China, April 14, 2011.
[⑤] ZHANG Chun, “Prepare for Future of Symmetrical Ties,” China Daily (Africa Weekly), January 25, 2013.
[⑥] ZHANG Chun, “Prepare for Future of Symmetrical Ties,” China Daily (Africa Weekly), January 25, 2013.
[⑦] BRICS, Sanya Declaration, Sanya, Hainan, China, April 14, 2011.
[⑧] BRICS, Fourth BRICS Summit: Delhi Declaration,New Delhi, India, March 29, 2012.
[⑨] “Africa the Theme for 5th BRICS Summit,” SouthAfrica.Info, January 23, 2013, http://www.southafrica.info/global/brics/africa-240113.htm#.USbP8qWxrKo.
ZHANG Chun