What to expect from China-Africa Cooperation Summit

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Editor's Note: Andrew Moody is a senior correspondent with China Daily. The article reflects the authors' opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit will be held in Beijing September 3-4. At this year's summit, Africa's involvement in China's Belt and Road Initiative is attracting people's attention.

VCG Photo

One of the two main arteries of the Initiative – the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road – connected mainly with East Africa.

The Initiative is now, however, much bigger than either this maritime route or the land-based and Central Asia-focused Silk Road Economic Belt.

China has signed memorandums of understanding with nine African countries in relation to Belt and Road projects, including South Africa, Madagascar and Egypt, and is in talks with 20 more.

The FOCAC summit, which will be the third since the organization was founded in 2000, is almost certainly going to lead to announcements of more infrastructure building across the continent.

The continent is held back by a lack of energy capacity, roads, modern railways systems as well as not enough modern ports and airports. According to some estimates, the impact on GDP per capita is as much as 1.7 percent.

President Xi Jinping has made clear that BRI is a much bigger concept than just about infrastructure.

In a letter published on Aug 28 replying to participants in the Youth Forum on Creativity and Heritage along the Silk Road, which was held in May in China, he said young people from China and Africa should proactively take part in the Belt and Road.

A youth delegate of the Youth Forum on Creativity and Heritage along the Silk Road expresses her gratitude at being invited to the event. /VCG Photo

This meant, he wrote, facilitating greater cultural exchanges and forging closer bonds and friendship between the 2.6 billion people of both China and Africa.

He made clear that Belt and Road Initiative was also partly underpinned by his concept of building "a community with a shared future for mankind."

This does not just apply to China and Africa cooperating for mutual benefit but to the whole world.

Xi spoke about this concept at the last FOCAC summit in Johannesburg as well as at the Palace of Nations in Geneva, at the United Nations in New York, the G20 summit in Hangzhou in 2016 and also during his report to the 19th CPC National Congress in October last year.

In a world of increasing tensions, particularly over trade, it stands out as a beacon of hope.

And as Xi himself has said it is about achieving a fair and equitable order for which mankind has always striven.

It owes much to the spirit of the Bandung Conference in Indonesia of 1955, which was attended by 29 Asian and African countries and where the five principles of peaceful coexistence were agreed.

One of the most important aspects of the "shared future" approach that underpins the Belt and Road is that it is inclusive, where there are many aspects of the current global order that seem to exclude nations. This is sometimes particularly felt by Africans.

Through the Belt and Road Initiative and bodies such as FOCAC, China is hoping to bring about a better and more equitable world order, one in which there is both a shared destiny and shared benefits.