Building the path to modernization together, composing a new chapter in China-Africa cooperation
By Yu Dunhai, Chinese Ambassador
The G20 Summit was held in South Africa from 22 to 23 November, 2025. This marked the first time a G20 Summit has taken place on the African continent.
The aspirations of African countries for independent development were deeply integrated into the global development agenda, and the voice of the Global South resounded throughout the Johannesburg Nasrec Expo Centre.
This summit was a victory for multilateralism, a victory for the Global South, and above all, a victory for Africa.
During the summit, China and South Africa jointly launched the Initiative on Cooperation Supporting Modernization in Africa.
The Initiative both carries forward the traditional friendly cooperation between China-Africa, and makes an important contribution to the global development agenda.
It demonstrates the firm resolve and responsibility of China and Africa to march forward hand in hand in the new era, injects strong momentum into the development and revitalization of the African continent, and draws a new blueprint for building a China-Africa community with a shared future.
Ten years ago, on December 4, 2015, during the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China was willing to jointly implement with Africa the Ten Cooperation Plans, with a focus on helping Africa address three major development bottlenecks of lagging infrastructure, talent shortages and funding gaps. These efforts aimed to accelerate industrialization and agricultural modernization, achieving independent and sustainable development.
This was the first time China explicitly proposed supporting Africa in accelerating its industrialization and agricultural modernization, ushering in a new phase of China-Africa cooperation.
Over the past decade, China has honored its commitments, continuously expanded its investment in Africa, and driven fruitful outcomes in China-Africa cooperation in areas such as industrialization and agricultural modernization.
From the Ten Cooperation Plans to the Eight Major Actions, and onward to the Ten Partnership Actions in the new era, China’s cooperation mechanisms with Africa have been continuously refined, with cooperation domains steadily expanded. China has provided hundreds of billions of RMB in aid to Africa and implemented a large number of major projects benefiting the people, creating millions of jobs for Africa.
With China’s support, Africa’s infrastructure, including railways, highways and ports, has seen significant improvement. Its industrialization is progressing steadily, while agricultural technology have continuously improved. All this fully demonstrates China’s sincere willingness and practical results in supporting Africa’s modernization.
The Initiative on Cooperation Supporting Modernization in Africa, jointly proposed by China and South Africa, inherits and develops President Xi Jinping’s important propositions.
It reflects the continuity and stability of China’s policy toward Africa, highlighting the distinctive features of China-Africa cooperation in keeping pace with the times and pursuing pragmatic innovation. Grounded in Africa’s actual needs and aligned with the laws of modernization, the Initiative establishes a comprehensive and multi-level cooperation framework. Its core content can be summarized as Six Major Principles and Six Major Directions.
In terms of cooperation principles, the Initiative upholds six major principles, which are justice and equitability, openness and win-win, putting the people first, diversity and inclusiveness, sustainable development, underpinned by peace and security.
It explicitly respects the sovereignty and independent choices of African countries, adheres to non-interference in internal affairs, supports “African solutions to African problems”, advocates an open and inclusive cooperation model, and ensures that the benefits of cooperation truly reach the African people.
In terms of cooperation directions, the Initiative focuses on six key areas of Africa’s modernization: the first, it aims to achieve modernization that is just and equitable, by upholding the principle of “Africa-initiated, Domestic Ownership, and Africa-led”, supporting African countries in exploring development paths suited to their national conditions, strengthening exchanges on governance experience and conceptual alignment, and promoting reform of the international financial system.
The second, it aims to achieve modernization that is open and win-win, by supporting the signing of agreements on economic partnership for shared development between African countries and China, increasing the added value of African mineral resources, deepening industrial and supply chain cooperation, boosting infrastructure investment, conducting innovation cooperation, and promoting high-quality cooperation.
The third, it aims to achieve modernization that puts people first, by focusing on food security, health, poverty reduction and other livelihood areas, and supporting the development of regional value chains.
The fourth, it aims to achieve modernization that is diverse and inclusive, by strengthening people-to-people exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, expanding cooperation in education, youth development, women’s empowerment and other fields, and promoting harmonious coexistence among different civilizations.
The fifth, it aims to achieve modernization that is eco-friendly, by supporting Africa’s green and low-carbon transformation, strengthening cooperation in clean energy, disaster prevention and mitigation and other areas, and assisting Africa in achieving sustainable development.
The sixth, it aims to achieve modernization underpinned by peace and security, by conducting early cooperation under the Global Security Initiative, supporting African countries in building collective security mechanisms, and supporting making special arrangements on the United Nations Security Council reform to meet Africa’s aspiration as a priority.
The Initiative links the Ubuntu spirit and pan-Africanism with the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, representing an innovative exploration of integrating African philosophy and Chinese wisdom into international consensus.
It provides new opportunities for Africa’s modernization endeavors and serves as a vivid practice of building China-Africa community with a shared future: the first, the Initiative enriches the connotations of the China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era.
As the first multilateral initiative jointly launched by China and Africa and oriented toward Africa’s modernization, it elevates China-Africa relations from traditional economic cooperation to a new height of comprehensive modernization partnerships, driving an upgrade from project alignment to strategic synergy in China-Africa cooperation.
The second, the Initiative provides a comprehensive solution for Africa to address its development challenges. Unlike traditional aid models, it targets the root causes of Africa’s development issues and strives to enhance the endogenous driving force of African economies through measures such as industrial chain cooperation, infrastructure construction and capacity building.
The third, the Initiative sets a model for Global South cooperation. By advocating principle of wide consultation, joint construction, and shared benefits, as well as the philosophy of openness and inclusiveness, it exemplifies the spirit of solidarity and collaboration among the Global South, provides a new paradigm for the international community to support Africa’s development and contributes to the building of a more just and equitable global governance system.
The fourth, the Initiative offers an important pathway for sharing the outcomes of Chinese modernization.
By sharing its own modernization experience, China facilitates the flow of technology, funds and talent to Africa, which not only helps Africa accelerate its development but also create conditions for Chinese enterprises to explore markets and achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcomes.
This model of cooperation that highlights two-way commitment enables China and Africa to empower each other in their modernization processes and jointly drives a wave of modernization in the Global South.
As one of Africa’s major economies with the largest population, Nigeria is a key force in Africa’s modernization process and an important partner in China-Africa cooperation.
Joint efforts between China and Nigeria will undoubtedly provide strong momentum for the implementation of the Initiative and make significant contributions to Africa’s modernization.
To this end, the two sides should leverage their complementary advantages, focus on key areas, deepen cooperation in infrastructure and interconnectivity, strengthen agricultural and food security cooperation, advance industrial chain and digital economy cooperation, strengthen livelihood improvement and capacity-building cooperation, expand green development and ecological conservation, and explore pragmatic cooperation in peace and security, creating a model for China-Africa cooperation.
Looking to the future, as long as China and Africa uphold the principles of sincerity, real results, affinity, and good faith, and adhere to the principles of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, we will surely turn the blueprint of the Initiative on Cooperation on Supporting Modernization in Africa into reality.
This will yield more fruitful results for China-Africa cooperation along the path of modernization, inject more impetus into global development and jointly write a new chapter in building a community with a shared future for mankind.
