US hegemony Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

It is common to see Western media outlets repeatedly smear China's cooperation with Africa, falsely claiming that its investments are primarily focused on gaining control of key minerals in the region. But this biased perspective fails to acknowledge the diverse and mutually beneficial nature of the economic partnership between China and Africa.

The latest example of this misleading perception was a report by Reuters on Wednesday, which said that China's economic cooperation with Africa is "still largely extractive." 

"While new Chinese investment in Africa increased 114 percent last year, according to the Griffith Asia Institute at Australia's Griffith University, it was heavily focused on minerals essential to the global energy transition and China's plans to revive its own flagging economy," it claimed.

Apparently, after labelling Chinese investment in Africa as a "debt trap" and a form of "neocolonialism," the West has started to hype China's hunt for critical minerals in the continent. 

But it is the West that has been plundering Africa's resources, and the Western concern over China's interest in Africa's minerals is essentially a projection of the West's underlying attitude toward Africa onto China. 

Indeed, the West is in no position to judge China's cooperation with Africa. Today, many African countries with abundant natural resources are still among the poorest in the world, largely due to historical plundering by Western nations. 

In the 19th century, Western countries engaged in predatory exploitation of Africa's resources, including minerals, land and forest resources, resulting in widespread poverty.

Moreover, while the West has gone to great lengths to spread the so-called China "debt trap" narrative, in fact, Western capital is the real culprit behind Africa's huge external debt. In the 1960s and 1970s, African countries sought financing from Western countries and other international financial institutions. Nevertheless, due to the decrease in primary commodity prices on the global market and the implementation of trade barriers by Western nations, the export situation of African countries has significantly worsened. This has resulted in imbalances in their balance of payments and a decrease in their capacity to repay debts, ultimately forcing them to accumulate new debt to settle old loans. This is how Africa's external debt built up. 

These loans often came with stringent conditions that made it difficult for African countries to develop their economies. From 1970 to 1987, the total external debt of African countries skyrocketed from an estimated $8 billion to $174 billion, according to media reports.

Compared with Western creditors and other international financial institutions, Chinese lenders represent only a small portion of Africa's external debt. China's investment and financing in Africa primarily focus on infrastructure construction and productive sectors, providing significant support for industrial development on the continent.

Now the West views China's mining investments in Africa as a strategic move in industrial chain competition, with concerns that China could leverage these holdings to strengthen its economic influence. However, this apprehension actually reveals the Western desire to dominate Africa's resources.

China's partnership with Africa extends well beyond the mere extraction of mineral resources. In reality, China's involvement and investment in Africa encompass a wide range of sectors including infrastructure development, agriculture, healthcare, education, science, technology and more. These collaborative projects have established a strong basis for economic advances and societal development in Africa.

Many African countries eagerly embrace Chinese investment due to the obvious positive impacts of these cooperation projects on their economic development, technological progress and social wellbeing. This attitude serves as compelling evidence that working with China benefits African countries, fostering a healthy and sustainable economic and trade relationship. This type of cooperation, founded on mutual benefit and a win-win situation, will not easily be undermined by Western smearing with ulterior motives.