COVID-19, China, and African Development: Crisis, Continuity, or Readjustment?

As Africa’s largest provider of infrastructure financing and a major source of commercial investment and foreign aid, China occupies a central position in the continent’s aspirations for development.¹ However, after twenty-five recession-free years, the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to result in a contraction of up to 3.3% in Sub-Saharan African economic growth in 2020 alone, as well as major health and social impacts.² Does the pandemic represent a juncture toward crisis, a moment of continuity, or an opportunity for readjustment of China’s role in African development? This article offers a nuanced answer to that question, uncovering elements of all three.³ On the one hand, the pandemic has intensified—rather than singlehandedly causing—debt and health challenges on the continent, prompting a response from China that follows well-established patterns of the country’s diplomatic engagement in Africa. On the other hand, the pandemic also presents opportunities for China to reorient its role in Africa, both economically and ecologically.

To a significant extent, crisis and continuity are two sides of the same coin. While the COVID-19 slowdown is pushing some African countries substantially further toward debt crises and demands for cancellation and/or renegotiation are already underfoot, China is responding to these requests using its longstanding approach of bilateral discussions that resist cancellation of the majority of debts but consider renegotiation. Moreover, China has long been a partner in addressing African medical and public health challenges, and Chinese COVID-related aid in this sector continues to follow the decades-long blueprint of linking Chinese provincial medical teams to specific recipient countries alongside a provisioning of supplies and construction of medical infrastructure.

Nonetheless, the pandemic also highlights opportunities for constructive readjustments. First, logistical difficulties in global trade following the COVID-19 outbreak have underlined the need to enhance local supply chains and to reduce African reliance on imports of manufactured products. Chinese investment in manufacturing on the continent, including in the medical and pharmaceutical sectors, could have a major role to play in improving local manufacturing capabilities, in turn creating industrial-sector jobs at scale.⁴ This would not only contribute to addressing the unemployment impacts of COVID-19, but would also help to improve fiscal sustainability through expanding the tax base. Relatedly, as African exporters face a major slump in depressed Western markets, there are opportunities to address longstanding bilateral trade imbalances through the promotion of African exports to the Chinese market.

Second, the widespread suspicion that the disease jumped to humans from a wild animal appears to be crystallizing China’s ambition to regulate its trade in wild animals and animal products, many of which originate in Africa. Following the coronavirus outbreak, China has taken initial steps to eradicate its domestic market for wild animals, and early anecdotal evidence of a slump in demand in African markets suggests these measures are already having an effect.⁵ Sharp reductions in Chinese trading of African wildlife would have not only major ecological benefits, but also developmental ones—by reducing organized crime and the depletion of biological resources.

Tying together the COVID-19 crisis’ impacts upon China’s role in African development is the contention that, while the crisis response has displayed substantial continuities with past patterns of engagement, the pandemic brings opportunities for both economic and ecological constructive readjustment. Nonetheless, whether these opportunities will be fully realized remains to be seen, and the outcomes of the next session of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), scheduled for 2021 in Dakar, Senegal, will be a key indication of the longer-term impacts of COVID-19 on China’s role in African development.

The COVID-19 situation in Africa

Despite reporting only a small proportion of global confirmed virus cases, Africa is bearing substantial economic consequences as a result of the pandemic. As of 18 October 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) data suggests that Africa has experienced just 3% of global cumulative cases and 3% of deaths.⁶ Many African governments acted swiftly and decisively, utilizing pre-existing outbreak management measures. Nonetheless, there is...