Close relations

Thanks to efforts from both sides, Sino-African relations have witnessed rapid development in all aspects, especially in the past three years. "This can be witnessed from the growing economic and trade figures," said Zhang.

Due to the world financial crisis, the trade between China and Africa in 2009 was only $91.2 billion. But both sides soon recovered. In 2011, the figure exceeded $160 billion. Meanwhile, China promised to provide $10 billion of preferential loans to African countries in 2009. In fact, China's preferential loans to Africa have exceeded the promised figure.

"The most notable improvement in Sino-African relations in the past three years is that China has strengthened cooperation with the African Union (AU) and sub-regional organizations," said Zhang.

On January 28, after financing and constructing the AU Headquarters, China officially transferred the building to the AU in Addis Ababa. In addition, China announced to provide 600 million yuan ($95 million) in aid to the AU in the next three years for Sino-African cooperative projects.

"African integration is the general trend for the continent's development," said Zhang. "In order to better engage with Africa, China should strengthen cooperation with the AU and sub-regional organizations, because they are playing increasingly important roles in Africa's integration and regional peace and security and in other fields."

The AU was formally admitted as a member of the FOCAC at the Senior Officials Meeting of FOCAC in Hangzhou (China) at the end of October 2011.

Mind power

Zhang noted that exchanges between scholars and think tanks in China and Africa are another highlight in Sino-African relations in the past three years as they promote mutual understanding between peoples on both sides. On March 30, 2010, the China-Africa Joint Research and Exchange Program was officially launched in Beijing. This program held a series of events promoting exchanges between scholars and think tanks, such as the China-Africa Think Tanks Forum and the Workshop on Environmental Sustainability in Sino-African Cooperation.

"Launching the joint research program to increase exchanges and cooperation among Chinese and African scholars and think tanks is one of the eight measures proposed by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the the Fourth FOCAC Ministerial Conference," said Zhang. "2012 is the third year after the program was established and everything is progressing well."

According to Zhang, due to the long distance and historical reasons, for a long time, Chinese scholars did not understand Africa and African scholars did not understand China correctly. These scholars lacked first-hand knowledge as their information about the other side mainly came from third parties - mostly from the Western media. This inevitably led to misunderstandings on both sides, Zhang said.

"Scholars and think tanks can influence the policy makers and the common people with their research findings," said Zhang. "They can only get correct research results with first-hand information they obtain directly from these countries."

"Undoubtedly, thanks to FOCAC, the relations between China and African countries have greatly improved in the past decade," said Zhang. "I believe the Fifth FOCAC Ministerial Conference will have more pragmatic measures to further strengthen the cooperation."