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Africa Should Negotiate Collectively with China at FOCAC. But That’s Not Going to Happen.

by Cliff Mboya
Coordinators' Meeting on the Implementation of the Follow-up Actions from the 2018 Forum on the China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, June 25, 2019. Image via Xinhua.

As the next Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) draws closer, the same sentiments and concerns over Africa’s relative position in the 20-year-old arrangement keep coming up.

It is widely acknowledged that the continent generally gets the short end of the stick in its relationship with China. For as many years, experts, scholars and commentators have called on African leaders to assert greater African agency through taking a common African position on China and using collective bargaining to influence the summit’s outcomes to their advantage.

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