China-Africa forum wraps up in Beijing

This year’s meeting of the Forum on Africa China Cooperation (FOCAC) is over, and Africa news answers a burning question: Which seven African leaders did not wear suits at FOCAC? Other news from the final, slow day of the Africa-China love-fest:

• Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta failed to “secure funds for the second phase of the Standard Gauge Railway during this recent visit to China,” and this “has raised concerns about the future of the flagship project,” reports Kenya’s Standard.
• Egypt has emerged as “China’s Africa bulwark with $9.6 billion in deals” says Caixin (paywall): A “pair of deals will see China State Construction Engineering Corp. (CSCEC) build a $6.1 billion oil refining and petrochemical complex, as well as a $3.5 billion commercial area in a new Egyptian administrative capital being built about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Cairo, CSCEC said in an announcement (link in Chinese) of the two deals.”
• “There’s no new colonialism,” President Cyril Ramaphosa [of South Africa] told reporters on Tuesday, echoing Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said on the first day of the summit on Monday that China’s investment in Africa came with no political strings attached,” according to Caixin: “‘We were all engaged in struggle against the colonialists from the Northern Hemisphere,’ he said, referring to the long-standing relationship between South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party and the Communist Party of China.”
• “China’s 2018 financial commitments to Africa: Adjustment and recalibration” is the title of a relevant report from the Brookings Institution.
• “The foreign minister of Djibouti said the East African country intends to help promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative, but is also cautious about over-reliance on China in light of Djibouti’s ballooning debts linked to Chinese investment,” reports Nikkei Asian Review.
• The China Project’s other reporting on this year’s FOCAC:

‘We are not puppets’ — Namibian president to China

China-Africa forum kicks off in Beijing

https://thechinaproject.com/2018/09/05/the-raid-on-cgtn-kenya-and-focac-pabulum/