China in Africa: October 2024

Organizational Expansion at BRICS Summit: The sixteenth annual BRICS summit in 2024 was hosted by Russia in the southwestern city of Kazan from October 22 to 24. Following last year’s summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, Chinese-led expansion efforts saw the addition of two African countries, Egypt and Ethiopia, as BRICS members. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, more than thirty candidates have expressed interest in joining the organization, with at least two dozen countries having reportedly applied for membership ahead of this year’s summit. Not all of the prospects made the cut—the 2024 summit concluded with the addition of thirteen new countries as partners (without full member status), including three African countries: Algeria, Nigeria, and Uganda. 

With the adoption of the Kazan Declaration [PDF], BRICS has made the Global South its focal point. The organization expressed solidarity with conflict-ridden regions of Africa, calling for the urgent employment of international law, and reaffirmed its steadfast support for “African solutions to African problems.” Speaking at the summit, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa referred to the ability of BRICS to “change the trajectory of the Global South.” Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, on a more grandiose note, contemplated BRICS’s capacity to go beyond that and transform the existing world order. 

Both before and after the summit, pro-BRICS content ran rampant across the news cycle and social media. In a move seen as appeasing its ally China, South Africa last week requested that Taiwan relocate its “liaison office” from Pretoria to Johannesburg. With the conclusion of the summit, talk of a “new world order” has spread via dozens of Facebook pages from Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, most of which propagate pro-Russian and pro-Chinese rhetoric. 

Multi-sectoral Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Early in the month, Zambia signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Jijia International Medical Technology Corporation to construct the country’s first cholera vaccine manufacturing facility. The joint venture will produce three million doses annually, making Zambia the first African country to manufacture its own cholera vaccine. On October 9, Chinese new energy vehicle maker BYD launched its first all-electric SUV model built for the global market, the Yuan Plus (Atto 3), in Antananarivo, Madagascar, marking BYD’s further expansion in the African market. Just days earlier in Botswana, the country unveiled its first collection of locally assembled electric vehicles produced by the Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation and Chinese manufacturing firms Skywell Vehicles and CHTC Kinwin Automobile Company. Other efforts announced include commercial trials for water-saving and drought-tolerant rice by Chinese company African Agriculture in Botswana; Chinese support in establishing a National Bamboo and Rattan Center in Ghana to advance the country’s bamboo industry in lieu of plastics; and Sino-Zim academic research that will promote innovation, entrepreneurship, and start-up ventures in Zimbabwe. 

South-South Cooperation: Within the framework of the South-South and Triangular Cooperation, China has advanced several initiatives to expand China-Africa relations through collaboration on shared challenges such as food insecurity, energy, and health. On October 18, UN China announced that with a $100 thousand grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, it will work with governments and UN entities to host a series of dialogues to build climate capacity and increase financing for climate change in Africa. Speaking on the Global Development Initiative (GDI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, African Union Commissioner for Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation Mohamed Belhocine stressed the importance of the GDI in sharpening the Chinese-African focus on sustainable development. That same day, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and China signed a $2 million project agreement to address Sudan’s deteriorating food security and nutrition situation over an eighteen-month period. In Uganda, the UN FAO and China are in the third phase of a project that will enhance food production by directly exposing Ugandan farmers to the knowledge, skills, and technology of Chinese agricultural experts. 

Investments in Infrastructure: Chinese investment in infrastructure on the African continent has maintained speed—for the most part. On October 8, China’s Zijin Mining Group announced its plan to buy the Akyem Gold Mine Project in Ghana from the U.S.-based Newmont Corporation for $1 billion. In Cameroon, China First Highway Engineering Corporation began the second phase of constructing a two-hundred-kilometer motorway that will run between the capital city Yaoundé and the port city Douala. Chinese state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation subsidiary China Railway 20th Bureau Group commenced the construction of a road in Neno, an isolated border district with Mozambique in southern Malawi, while its 18th Bureau Group picked up two new road construction contracts in Madagascar. Meanwhile, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation won a contract to upgrade a train line linking Kranzberg to Otjiwarongo in central Namibia. 

Missing the Mark: Certain African countries are looking to pivot away from Chinese industry dominance, however. In Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mines Minister Kizito Pakabomba said the country is courting new investors to diversify ownership of its mining and minerals industry, including by partnering with the United Arab Emirates and initiating plans to renovate a railway that could more easily transport minerals to a port along the Atlantic Ocean, positioned closer to U.S. and European markets. Earlier, DRC opposed a proposal of Chemaf Resources to sell its copper and cobalt mines to China’s Norin Mining, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned defense firm China North Industries Corporation. On October 14, Uganda awarded Turkish construction firm Yapi Merkezi Holding A.Ş. a $3 billion contract to build a 272-kilometer section of the Standard Gauge Railway known as the Malaba-Kampala (Eastern Route) Railway project. That agreement follows the 2023 termination of a 2015 contract between Uganda and China Harbour and Engineering Company resulting from withdrawn funding support.