Don’t make Africa a China-US battleground, Beijing says in countdown to Washington summit

Name: Addis Ababa road built by Chinese company aims to ease traffic woes in Ethiopian capital
Uploaded: 2022-12-13T14:30:11.000Z
Duration: 1 min 31 s
Description: Addis Ababa road built by Chinese company aims to ease traffic woes in Ethiopian capital

The United States is hosting dozens of leaders from the continent this week – the first of its kind in 8 years

American concern about China’s activities in Africa is rising amid claims and denials of debt-trap diplomacy

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An honour guard waits for the arrival of Senegalese President Macky Sall land at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Monday ahead of the US-Africa Leaders Summit. Photo: AFP

Jack Lau

Published: 10:30pm, 13 Dec 2022Updated: 11:26pm, 13 Dec 2022

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.

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Addis Ababa road built by Chinese company aims to ease traffic woes in Ethiopian capital

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.