Interview: China's pledge shows willingness to help Africa realize development -- African official

China's pledge to Africa demonstrates its willingness to help the continent realize development, an African official has said.

At the just-concluded Johannesburg summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward 10 major cooperation plans for the next three years in the areas of industrialization, agricultural modernization, infrastructure construction, financial services, green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty reduction and public welfare, public health, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security.

China's focus on improving infrastructure, industrialization and agricultural modernization, and realizing independent and sustainable development reflects its willingness to help Africa in many fields to reach constant economic development, Ahmed Hajjaj, head of the African Society and former assistant secretary-general of the African Union (AU), said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Xi's proposal to lift the China-Africa relationship to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership showed that China deals with Africa as one bloc, Hajjaj said.

The summit, attended by Xi and heads of state and government and representatives from about 50 African countries, adopted a declaration and an action plan for cooperation in the coming three years.

Hajjaj said that FOCAC has developed since it was established in 2000 and managed to achieve at least 80-85 percent of its goals, noting that China has carried out a large number of projects in Africa such as the construction of railways, football stadiums, conference halls and other important social and economic projects.

"All these projects will benefit the whole continent, not a specific country in Africa," he added.

This will for sure serve China's Belt and Road initiative as building a large network of roads and railways in Africa will ease commercial exchanges between China and Africa, he said.

The initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, is aimed at reviving the ancient trade routes that span Asia, Africa and Europe.

Commenting on the Chinese president's "Happy Life" projects that will focus on women and children in Africa, Hajjaj said that such projects will make Africans more hopeful and optimistic.

The African official said that the FOCAC summit in Johannesburg rules out some Western allegations that China is going to reduce its investment in Africa.

"The Chinese pledges have put an end to these allegations especially after African countries labeled the summit as successful," Hajjaj said.

He said that the Johannesburg summit has tackled security and military issues for the first time, expressing hope that China will play an important role in helping stabilize the situation in some African countries.

At the summit, Xi announced that China will provide a total of 60 million U.S. dollars in free aid to the AU to support the building and operation of the African Standby Force and the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis.

"China will continue to participate in UN peacekeeping missions in Africa and support African countries' capacity building in areas such as defense, counter-terrorism, riot prevention, customs and immigration control," Xi said.

"China's peace-keeping missions in Africa prove that China is sharing responsibility to ensure world peace as a member state of the United Nations Security Council," Hajjaj said.

In the past decade, Chinese peacekeepers in Africa have been in the front line of carrying out UN missions in unrest-hit countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Mali, Liberia, Sudan and South Sudan. Endi