Africa can benefit from China’s global community of shared future

Solly Rakgomo | Monday October 30, 2023 06:00

His proposal lights the path forward as the world fumbles for solutions, and represents China’s contribution to global efforts to protect our shared home and create a better future of prosperity for all.

The vision is based on both observation of the present and visionary planning for the future It is within this context that African states such as Botswana who have a strong friendship with China can benefit from this vision.

President Xi Jingping states that our world is undergoing change on a scale unseen in a century where various problems old and new and complex issues are converging with and compounding each other, posing unprecedented challenges for human society. Instability, uncertainty, and unpredictability are now the norm.

First, he says that the peace deficit is growing even though human society has largely maintained peace since the end of World War II, threats to world peace continue to amass. War has returned to the Eurasian continent, tensions are rising, and a series of flashpoints are emerging. His statement is true because many African states are facing a lot security challenges such as violent extremism, effects of climate change, transnational crime, intra-state conflict, post-COVID-19 economic recovery, etc.

These challenges call for multilateral responses where African states need to be fully involved in finding solutions to these challenges. China’s global community of a shared future is a very important vision which can go a long way in helping African countries such as Botswana in contributing to finding long lasting solutions to global security challenges.

China’s Global Security Initiative is one of the multilateral frameworks which can fully engage African states to find solutions to security challenges that the continent faces and at the same time realize the vision of a community of shared future.

Besides multilateral security collaboration, China’s global community of shared future offers African countries such as Botswana opportunity to engage in other forms of global cooperation. President Xi Jingping says that it is only when all countries work together by aligning individual interests with the interests of all and only when they truly build a global community of shared future, can humanity tide through the crises confronting them and sail towards a better future. This is a clear demonstration that to build a global community of shared future is to pursue openness, inclusiveness, mutual benefit, equity and justice.

Worthy to note is that China’s Global Development Initiative is a very important avenue that can be aligned to the Global Community of Shared Fupture that can help the international community to steer global development toward a new stage of balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth in face of the severe shocks of COVID-19.

African states such as Botswana, in this particular case, as one of the Group of Friends of the initiative, in her quest to deepen ties with China, should strategize and find ways in which she can benefit from the initiative. It must be noted that COVID- 19 has exposed the fragility of Botswana’s health infrastructure and increased the poverty levels of many citizens. It is thus important for strategic and economic planners within Botswana government to reposition Botswana in such a way that it cooperates with China in multiple ways so that at the end of the day it enjoys some socio-economic benefits that come with the initiative.

There are several areas which need to be prioritized in order to realize the benefits that come with the initiative. Firstly, there is a strong need for Botswana to ensure energy security. The country has long and hot summer days and as green energy is one of those important areas in the initiative, there is need for Botswana to create a very strong infrastructure to harvest sunshine which can be used to produce enough electricity that can also be exported to other countries. It is through strategic cooperation with China to build such an infrastructure to produce electricity and attain energy security. This cooperation can go a long way in the realization of a global community of shared future. For African states, cooperation is not limited to the Global Development Initiative.

There is the Forum for China –Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) whose main idea is centered on ethos of pragmatic cooperation with the purpose of strengthening consultation and expanding cooperation characterized by the promotion of political dialogue, economic cooperation and trade. Areas which African states such as Botswana can work hard to cooperate within the framework of FOCAC is on scientific research partnership that can result in the establishment of a National Medical Research Centres which can go a long way in helping Botswana to produce her own vaccinesdrugs with a long term aim of reducing dependency on foreign countries for medical assistance thus ensuring health security for the citizens.

This scientific program can be utilised under the 10 medical and health projects which China has outlined for African countries as well as the provision of more than one thousand medical and health experts to Africa.

The other area which I think strategic planners from Botswana should give serious attention is the poverty reduction and agricultural development program. As way of ensuring food security Botswana should utilise its close ties with China to benefit from the 10 poverty reduction and agricultural projects for Africa and the 500 agricultural experts from China to Africa.

FOCAC provides opportunities to gain from digital innovation program where China promised to undertake 10 digital economy projects for Africa. As African leaders always preach the Fourth Industrial Revolution (acknowledge based economy) opportunities for cooperation with China on satellite remote- sensing application, joint laboratories, partner institutes, scientific and technological innovation bases should be fully explored by the political leadership of countries such as Botswana so that entities like Botswana Innovation Hub, educational institutions such as universities and technikons, small and medium scale businesses, performing arts, etc. can benefit as part of Botswana-China cooperation in expanding Silk Road e-commerce cooperation, holding of online shopping festivals and tourism e-commerce promotion activities. This will surely be initially steps towards the realization of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and most importantly the vision of shared future.

The Road and Belt Initiative as well as the expansion of the BRICS compliments other initiatives that if well implemented can go a long way in contributing immensely to the global community of a shared future. The past decade has seen steady progress in implementing the vision. From bilateral to multilateral and from regional to global dimensions, ground-breaking results have been achieved on every front. The Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative have taken root and borne fruits, bringing prosperity and stability to the world and creating substantive benefits for the people.