The African continent has become the focus of the international community since April this year, when the Fourth EU-Africa Summit convened in Brussels. In May, Chinese Premier Li Ke-qiang visited four countries in Africa, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited three countries on the continent, the First Ministerial Meeting of Tokyo International Conference on African Development was held in Cameroon, and the first U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit kicked off in early August in Washington. According to Zhou Yuyuan, assistant research fellow of the Center for West Asian and African Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, a complementary "division of labor" pattern is forming in the field of international cooperation with Africa, and there will be more cooperation than competition in the future. Excerpts of Zhou's views follow:

In 2000, Africa was dubbed a "hopeless continent" in an article in The Economist. But it was at that time that a fast economic growth period began on the continent. The influential magazine subsequently changed its tune, calling Africa a more hopeful continent. Bloomberg Philanthropies, the co-organizer of the first-ever U.S.-Africa Business Forum held in August 2014, brought out a book, Rising Africa, reflecting on the fundamental change in Western countries' views toward Africa.

The interest in Africa has increased as the continent's economic rise continues, prompting a change in patterns and structures of international cooperation with Africa. The cooperation has been greatly improved in terms of scale, mechanism and level. If the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit shows the influential developed nations have already established cooperation platforms with African countries, then the cooperation mechanisms between new emerging economies and Africa, such as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and BRICS countries' Africa agenda, symbolize international-African cooperation levels have become more complete. Countries may differ in values, views of cooperation, policy priorities and approaches, making competition inevitable. However, there will be many more chances of cooperation than competition.

In fact, a complementary "division of labor" pattern is forming in the field of international cooperation with Africa. As a global superpower, the United States is playing a positive role in areas such as development assistance and AIDS prevention. Europe has its influence in regional security, development assistance and integration, while Japan is busy with village building in Africa. China has showed its advantages in infrastructure construction, poverty alleviation, agricultural cooperation and medical and health services. Within this pattern, countries can enhance cooperation through complementing each other. For instance, China and Britain are working together to establish a tripartite cooperation with African countries in agriculture, in which partners can share "commonality products." A RAND Corp. report issued this year pointed out that China is not a strategic threat to the United States and China's contribution in infrastructure will be conducive to the trade and investment activities of the United States.

International cooperation with Africa has provided crucial driving force for its development and helped elevate the continent's importance in the world political and economic system. However, African countries will have to confront many problems, such as how to set their own development agendas, how to effectively use international resources, how to balance the influence of their international partners, and how to avoid repeating the era of Western colonialism and realize an inclusive development and rejuvenation in Africa. These are indeed tough challenges facing the continent.