China’s commitment to a better world is of historic significance

China’s commitment to building a better world through addressing today’s problems and mitigating future ones has been firm over the years as demonstrated by its contributions to humanity since the early 1950s, immediately after attaining its independence.
This has been seen during normal and hard times – including amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chinese people have maintained friendship with Africans and those in other developing countries in fighting diseases, poverty and threats to sovereignty.
The country supported Africa’s liberation movements when the continent needed help to squirm out of the throes of colonization.
This includes the building of the historic Tanzania-Zambia Railway (Tazara) which helped Zambia to circumvent the embargoes of the time when apartheid South Africa, Portugal and other imperialist countries gripped their hands against Africa’s efforts toward self-determination.
China was there during economic hardships of the 1970s and 1980s when the prices of agricultural and oil products fell to historic lows. Several war-ravaged countries including Angola, Mozambique and others, where blood was being shed, were in extremely hard times.
Given the global economic shake of the time and the much sharper east-west polarisation that characterised international politics as it was then, Africa could not satisfy its daily supply of necessities had the industrialising China not jumped in to curb the supply chain disruptions.
It is upon these foundations that China-Africa relations are still thriving despite the efforts to disrupt the same, with the narratives suggesting China as Africa’s new coloniser, as well as the labelling of African countries as economic, political and social savages.
The Western rhetoric always considers Africa as its sample when discussing poverty, illiteracy and diseases, while falsely branding China as one of the worst in human rights record. Ironically, the West itself overlooks its own gross controversies such as the economic mismanagement in Greece and Portugal as well as the racial violence and mass shootings in the United States.
On the contrary, China’s actions speak louder than those of others. Last year, the country committed itself to making its Covid-19 vaccine a global public good in the efforts to combat the ongoing pandemic.  
It has so far donated hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses to Africa, and plans to provide another one billion doses to the continent.  
Addressing the recent World Economic Forum, Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed the need for increased cooperation among nations, calling for removal of barriers and seek integration.
President Xi’s speech is a timely reminder of the quest to value everyone’s contribution in the fight against the pandemic, given the racist and hateful politics around it as it has been witnessed with the increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in the Western world, as well as the stigmatization of the African continent, especially after the emergence of Omicron, another variant of the novel coronavirus.
In his address, the Chinese president reiterated his country’s commitment to opening up and helping others whose capacity to deal with the pandemic don’t match the severity and damage it has caused so far, and therefore need humanitarian and economic assistance.
This quest for a multilateral world in advancing universal economic growth will benefit everyone through increased interaction at the personal and state levels while keeping the dangers and ruins of the pandemic in mind.
As businesses will gradually return to normal allowing movement of capital, people, and services, the current supply chain problems causing supply-demand imbalances, and the resulting inflation around the globe, will eventually go away.
Adapting to the current rules and doing everything possible to ensure steady recovery of the world economy through cooperation will not only ease the life of most people in the world, but improve state-to-state relations after the global industrial and supply chains have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.  
That having been said, China’s commitment to building what could be “a better world based on an open, inclusive and balanced global economy” could be of historic significance, as it would only serve the long-term interests of all countries in the world. 

Francis Semwaza is a social affairs analyst who is based in Dar es Salaam. He can be reached on : [email protected]