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The recently appointed Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang is currently on a five-nation Africa tour, including a visit to both the headquarters African Union and the League of Arab States, from January 9 to 16. His visit will include diverse African countries including Ethiopia, Gabon, Angola, Benin, and Egypt.

This trip marks the 33rd annual customary overseas visit by a Chinese Foreign Minister (FM) to Africa that takes place at the start of every year. Naturally, African leaders are excited about the visit by the new FM from the belief that he is bound to come with fresh approaches and even ideas where necessary.

This long tradition is proof that Africa is always a top priority for any Chinese administration. It underscores consistent and transparent Sino-Africa relations. In African culture, the visit at the start of the year is symbolic of a visitor who comes early in the morning to help you face the day’s challenges.

In addition, Qin’s visit comes as China has finally eased its zero-COVID policy with the scrapping of mandatory quarantine for cross border travelers. International travel is expected to make a fast return to pre-pandemic levels. The world is already watching media footage of heartwarming reunion of Chinese family members and friends in airports.

China’s opening up is definitely going to be a boon for thousands of Africans who could not return to their host country due to the strict COVID restrictions since 2020 when the pandemic was declared an international emergency by the World Health Organization. For instance, although many college students continued their studies online, they felt a huge difference from the in-person experience. The physical presence added much value to the intercultural experience and exposure to China’s social and economic life, as opposed to the virtual communication.

In addition, trade and commerce between China and Africa supported millions of livelihoods, and created fortunes as well for business partners on both sides. Unfortunately, many of these businesses were curtailed, causing a lot of inconvenience and even financial losses due to stock outs and supply chain delays.

But all these is water under the bridge. The long hiatus had a silver lining as the two partners took the time out to undertake strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats evaluation on the strategic and practical cooperation. Indeed, China and Africa are facing a much brighter future if they are ready to take more risks in pursuing both the latent and emerging opportunities.

During his visit to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on January 11, Qin captured this imperative by stating that the two countries “should strengthen the synergy of their development strategies and expand cooperation in a variety of fields to create new growth points.” China and Africa are ready to move to the next level. It is hoped that China’s private sector will now play a bigger role in the value addition of Africa’s products and services in various sectors, some of which can be exported to China.

With a lull in infrastructural investments aimed at fully exploiting what has been constructed so far, African entrepreneurs are looking at how they can plug into the Chinese manufacturing machinery and prowess to add value particularly through agro-processing. Africa’s economy is still predominantly agricultural, which makes it an obvious option in kick-starting the continent’s long overdue journey to industrialization.

Another low lying albeit untapped fruit in Sino-Africa relations is tourism. According to data released in an annual report on outbound tourism from the China Tourism Academy, a department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, a total of 25.62 million Chinese tourist trips overseas were expected to be made in 2021.

These numbers were an increase from 20.334 million outbound tourists in 2020, but a decrease of 86.9 per cent from 2020 a year earlier as the coronavirus outbreak led to severe restrictions on global travel. With the opening up this year, millions of Chinese tourists are raring to visit overseas destinations to compensate for the three years they have missed out on international travel. African countries should immediately start marketing their destinations to the vast untapped Chinese market.

Qin will also take the opportunity to evaluate progress on the nine programs of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) as contained in the Dakar Action Plan (2022-2024). The latter, canvassed during the 8th FOCAC Ministerial Conference held in Dakar, Senegal in November 2021, agreed on closer cooperation on a wide range of areas.  

These include trade, investment, digital innovation, green development, peace and security, cultural and people-to-people exchange, capacity building, poverty reduction and agricultural development. These are definitely not only comprehensive but priority areas for the continent’s development as well. Achievement of the above will now get a boost with the full resumption of supply chains that had been hampered by China’s COVID restrictions.

As the immediate former Chinese Ambassador to the United States, the new FM will also play a crucial role in China’s reputational management among one of the country’s critical partners. The U.S. has relentlessly tried to muddy the waters of Sino-Africa relations in a desperate bid to create a permanent wedge between the two partners. Qin will work at covering the diplomatic loopholes exploited by the U.S. misinformation and disinformation stratagems.