Chinese President: African Resources Should Not Be Tools for Geopolitical Conflicts

Beijing, Oct 13 (KUNA) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that Africa’s natural resources should not be used as a tool for geopolitical conflicts, reaffirming Beijing’s commitment to steering cooperation between China and Africa in mining toward value-added industries that support modernization on the continent. The remarks came during talks between Xi and Botswana’s President Duma Boko, who arrived in the capital Beijing on Monday for an official visit to China that will last until next Saturday.

Xinhua News Agency quoted Xi as saying that the principle that African resources belong to their peoples must be upheld as a condition for cooperation, and expressed Beijing’s readiness to share its expertise and assist African countries in formulating mining development plans aligned with their realities. He noted that China would continue to encourage its companies to enhance their operational capacities to transfer green technologies to Africa, thereby strengthening South-South cooperation, and stressed the need to adhere to the principle of mutual benefit and to create a fair, open, and investment-friendly cooperative environment.

On the bilateral front, Xi emphasized the importance of improving the framework for economic and trade cooperation between China and Botswana and leveraging opportunities arising from China’s policy of granting full tariff exemptions on imports from 53 African countries with which it maintains diplomatic ties. He expressed a desire to deepen cooperation with Gaboron in the fields of the digital economy, agriculture, animal husbandry, and smart education.

For his part, Boko expressed his readiness to deepen cooperation between Botswana and China in the areas of industry, mining, innovation, and digital transformation, thereby driving bilateral relations to achieve more tangible results. He reaffirmed his country’s commitment to enhancing coordination with Beijing to uphold multilateralism and advance China-Africa solidarity, making the global governance system more inclusive. (End) S L Q / M A A