As Washington prepares to host dozens of African leaders this week, Beijing has underlined its opposition to turning the continent into a focus of China-US rivalry. The second US-Africa Leaders Summit starts on Tuesday amid concerns in the United States that China sees Africa as an arena to advance its commercial and geopolitical interests and to weaken the US’ ties with African governments and peoples. “We are glad to see that all sides of the international community are paying more attention to Africa, but we firmly oppose using Africa as an arena for great power rivalry and using African strategy as a tool to limit and attack other countries’ cooperation with Africa,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday. Wang said China would form partnerships with African countries on the basis of mutual respect, equal treatment and sincere cooperation. Wang was responding to a question about a report by South African think tank the Institute for Global Dialogue on China-US rivalry on the continent. The report, widely covered by Chinese media in the lead-up to the summit, said the US’ role in Africa had been overshadowed by China because of Beijing’s policy of non-interference. It also said the US should “trade its self-serving emphasis on democracy for tangible and practical economic cooperation that will benefit the African people”. Leaders from 49 governments and the African Union Commission, as well as members of civil society, are expected to attend the gathering, which is being held for the first time in eight years and will include sessions on space partnership, governance, security and climate change. China has often touted that its loans and infrastructure investments come with no strings attached. US must ‘play catch-up’ to China’s investment in Africa, commerce official says But the US has accused China of creating “ debt traps ” by extending unsustainable loans to poor, developing nations with the intent of capturing loan-supported projects when they cannot pay back the loans. Chinese and American officials sparred again over debt-trap diplomacy at a conference on Monday, as Washington sent the message to African nations that US investments were more attractive than China’s because they were more transparent. Qin Gang, the Chinese ambassador to the US, who was at the conference, denied China was using debt traps, saying that China had written off loans to struggling borrowers. Zhu Feng, an international relations professor at Nanjing University, said the US had lagged behind China in investing in Africa and US officials at the summit would take on more roles in Africa. “As China’s relations with Africa grow closer, especially with the Belt and Road Initiative, the US cannot sit idly by,” Zhu said, referring to Beijing’s global strategy to grow trade with Chinese investment. “The US’ strategic concern over China’s rise is becoming greater.” Pang Zhongying, a professor of international affairs at Sichuan University, said the administration of US President Joe Biden had adopted a “competition-dominated” approach towards China. Pang said China might find it difficult to compete with the US, the world’s largest economy by nominal gross domestic product, with the White House pledging US$55 billion to support Africa over the next three years. “It’s not that much money to the US, but to Africa, it’s a lot of money,” he said. “US investments have conditions attached, strings attached, but American money can be good to use as well.” Pang said Chinese investment also came with some political strings, including requiring African nations to agree to Beijing’s one-China principle that says Taiwan should be under the control of Beijing.