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As the world's poorest continent struggles with the emergence of a new and potentially more transmissible Covid 19 variant, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to provide another 1 billion doses of vaccine to African countries.
Xi said 600 million doses will be donated, while the rest will be produced jointly by Chinese enterprises and African countries, without any details. He spoke on Monday at the eighth Triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in the Senegalese city of Diamniadio.
In a speech, Xi said that the need to put people and their lives first, be guided by science, support waiver of intellectual property rights on COVID 19 vaccines, and make sure access and affordability of vaccines in Africa to bridge the immunization gap.
China has already sold 136 million vaccine doses to Africa and pledged 19 million in donations, according to Bridge Consulting, a Beijing-based company that tallies deliveries through government press releases and news reports. The consulting firm said on Monday that Beijing delivered 107 million of those doses and another 11.6 million through the Covax initiative.
In the next three years, Xi said that Beijing will offer African financial institutions a $10 billion credit line and encourage them to invest at least $10 billion in the continent. It will also provide $10 billion in trade financing to African exports to China rising to $300 billion over three years and allocate $10 billion of the country s International Monetary Fund special drawing rights, an international reserve asset, to African nations.
The two-day conference takes place as African countries are dealing with the devastating fallout of the pandemic, which is exacerbated by the detection of the omicron strain. China as Africa's biggest trade partner has an important role in the continent's economic recovery.
Xi Jinping's keynote speech focused on the most immediate concern for the continent, namely the shortage of vaccines to combat the pandemic, especially in light of the new variant, said Lina Benabdallah, assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University. She said that his vaccine pledge was the biggest to date in Africa.
Since 2006, China has doubled its investment pledge to Africa every three years at the FOCAC summit, Beijing's main vehicle for managing its relationship with the continent. In 2018, when Xi met China's previous pledge of $60 billion, the world's second-largest economy came under fire for saddling developing countries with unsustainable debt.
Senegalese President Macky Sall said that China's relationship with Africa had been tested by the challenges brought by the Covid-19 Pandemic. He said in his opening address to the gathering that Xi's speech prompted me to urge China to continue to support the continent by reallocating its SDR from the IMF.
Beijing has emerged as the world's largest non-commercial international creditor over the past decade, with its state-owned policy banks lending more to developing countries than the IMF and World Bank. The international scrutiny has intensified as the epidemic has resulted in dozens of countries suspending debt repayments.
Since he came to power, Xi has taken a personal interest in the forum, addressing or attending the opening ceremony. Previously, China had sent its premier to the summit when it took place in an African country. China and the continent take turns in hosting.
While Wang Yi attended in person, Xi continued his recent tradition of appearing virtually. The omicron variant was identified in Botswana and South Africa days before the event began, causing countries around the world to ban travelers from several African nations.
In 681 days Xi hasn't left home and is pivoting to all diplomatic duties by phone or video link, a byproduct of China's strategy to completely eliminate Covid cases. That has limited his ability to hold face-to- face meetings on the sidelines of major events that can help ease tensions.
African heads of state other than Sall were absent from the event, although South African president Cyril Ramaphosa and President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt made video addresses.
The summit comes after Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaled the US's intention to revitalize its long-neglected relations with Africa, where it has steadily lost influence on China and other global powers.
Africa has always been near the bottom of the U.S. foreign-relations priority list, with the world's poorest continent accounting for less than 2% of its total two-way trade. Relations reached a low ebb during President Donald Trump's tenure, during which he made disparaging remarks about African countries and high-level diplomatic engagements were few and far between.
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