COLONIZATION ACCUSATIONS "A COMPLETE MISCONCEPTION"
While welcoming China's steadfast commitment to and fresh measures on advancing its interaction with their continent, African leaders and observers have also joined the chorus of voices against the claim that China is colonizing Africa.
Xi struck a chord with many African leaders, including Dlamini-Zuma, when he said in Friday's keynote speech that "China strongly believes that Africa belongs to the African people and that African affairs should be decided by the African people."
Africa should be given space to chart its own destiny, echoed the AU Commission chairwoman. "Africa belongs to Africans and we must be allowed to chart our own development path."
Adji Ayassor, minister of state in the Togolese Ministry of Economy, Finance and Development Planning, told Xinhua on Friday that the Chinese president's keynote speech told "the truth about the cooperation between China and Africa."
Contrary to what some claim in the West, China "is not colonizing Africa," he said. "We believe that is the best way to develop Africa. ... It (China) is taking a real path of Africa's development. It is a real cooperation."
Ayassor's remarks were in line with what Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who also holds the rotating AU chair, said in his speech at the opening ceremony. While thanking China for its unconditional support for Africa, he slammed actions by the West that have derailed progress in the world's second largest continent.
"China has never been our colonizer, and while some detractors allege that our cooperation with Beijing is commercially driven, the reality on the ground does not conform to such a distorted view," Mugabe remarked.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was in Johannesburg for the summit, also lashed out at the various insinuations that China's intentions in Africa could be similar to those of the colonialists, telling reporters Saturday that "the perception that China is the new colonizer is a complete misrepresentation of Beijing's activities here in Africa."
"Achievement of mutual benefits is the basis of Sino-Africa cooperation," Kenyatta pointed out. "I don't think that a partner who is helping us fight poverty and other development challenges can be called a colonizer."
What China is doing in Africa is what the colonialists failed to do in the past, namely help Africa out of poverty, he stressed. "China is ready to help us develop and meet our socioeconomic objectives without imposing its agenda on us. This is the outstanding aspect of our cooperation with China."
