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The Road Ahead for Africa & China Through OBOR

The Road Ahead for Africa & China Through OBOR

Issues of tourism, peace, security, culture, the environment and terrorism in Africa dominated talks that formed part of the final day of One Belt, One Road (OBOR) and a prosperous Africa conference which ended on Friday last week (20 November 2015).

The two-day conference was held jointly by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), DUT, Confucius Institute at DUT (DUT CI) and the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (DIRCO) and acted as a build-up to the 6th Forum for China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) ministerial meeting to be held in South Africa in December (2015).

“In 2013, the Chinese government started an initiative to try and understand how to integrate its economy into the global economy,” said Professor Ahmed Bawa, DUT Vice-Chancellor and Principal. “One of the things they decided to do is to look back in history and try to understand the historical link between China and the rest of the world. The relationship (between China and Africa) will provide DUT with opportunities such as research projects and student exchange. We are excited as DUT to be part of this China-Africa development strategy conference,” said Prof Bawa.

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DUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Ahmed Bawa chats with Chinese delegates during the One Belt One, Road and a prosperous Africa conference.

Dr Sylvester Maphosa, Senior Research at the HSRC, said the conference wielded great potential to complement the aspirations of the African Union’s Agenda 2016 (The Africa We Want).

Giving more insight into creating an enabling environment through peace, security and stability was Senior Researcher Dong Man Yuan, whose talk focused on West Asia and North Africa turbulence and its spillover effects in Africa. “China and Africa are traditional partners and brotherly friends. The spillover effect of the West Asia and North Africa turbulence not only hinders African economic and social development, but also the co-operation between Africa and China within the framework of FOCAC and OBOR, so both Africa and China should work together to deal with this spillover effect. Also, Africa and China should call for the United Nations and its Security Council to address both symptoms and the root causes of extremism and terrorism by taking multi-faceted and co-ordinated measures,” he said.

With terrorism being a contentious issue of discussion, Dr Yan Shuai from the Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies spoke about the escalating terrorist activity in Africa which has not only become a major security concern for the African countries, but has also endangered China’s interests. “China and its African counterparts have to strengthen co-operation on security, especially in fighting terrorism collectively,” he stressed.

Dr Eddie Chaobo FU, Co-Dean: DUT-CI, said the conference was successful and fruitful. “The informative ideas and thoughts from all presenters and participants on this great Chinese initiative enabled us to hear various and positive voices from South Africa and China as well on how Africa, especially South Africa, and China can work together for a more prosperous China-African relationship to bring more win-win fruits in the near future. I trust that this conference has provided a precious opportunity for both sides to understand more clearly the role that Africa can play in the OBOR initiative, to picture the prospect more vividly and to bring forward challenges that need facing with. I believe that the conference is only a beginning of the conversations between Chinese and African scholars and surely more engagement in different fields will be further promoted and collaborated on in the coming days,” he said.

The conference proceedings will be consolidated into a publication that will be used to further solicit inputs from African countries and scholars on how Africa should participate in the One Belt,One Road strategy going forward.

– Waheeda Peters, Mxolisi Ntanzi and Sihle Ndebele

Pictured: Local and international delegates at the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) and a prosperous Africa conference.

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