By Evan Pliego
On September 5th, Chinese leader Xi Jingping promised to increase ¨support¨ towards Africa, which is approximately 1.152 trillion dollars in debt. China’s offer was to provide $51 billion over the course of 3 years, along with the promise to create at least 1 million jobs. Xi Jingping stated that China was ready to increase their connections with Africa in agriculture, trade, infrastructure, and investments at one of the 3 annual meetings called the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit. China was ready to start at least 30 new clean energy projects in order to tackle the energy infrastructure problem in Africa. China has been Africa’s largest trading partner for a very long time, which may be due to many African countries containing many valuable resources like copper, cobalt, and lithium. There is current speculation that China has more control over these valuable resources because of the two countries’ close relationship and Africa’s role of being the number one producer of Cobalt. Many of the funds China is providing seem to be for humanitarian purposes—like $142.1 million dollars for emergency food assistance. Some argue the true intentions for this funding seems to be blurry, knowing many host rising tensions with China—potentially meaning China truly does have intentions.
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