Since its inception, the One Belt And One Road initiative has attracted the participation of more than 150 countries and international organizations. It has been included in relevant UN resolutions and has become the most attractive international cooperation initiative in the world."One Belt And One Road" after all, however, is a new thing, China put forward such a grand international cooperation initiative, and also first time history, and the international community, especially the western media, there are still many don't adapt to, do not understand, the current all kinds of one-sided absurd arguments flush from time to time, such as the "debt trap", "Chinese model output theory" theory of "environmental damage" the Chinese version of the Marshall plan ".What needs special attention is that in recent years, as China is more and more involved in the construction of African countries, the west has come up with "neo-colonialism" and other arguments to attack and discredit china-africa cooperation, which need to be responded to and thoroughly refuted.

China has no colonial DNA

In 1498, da gama led his fleet of three old sailing ships to India, where they sailed round the cape of good hope and landed in East Africa.The natives boasted that they had seen green silk hats with beautifully embroidered brims.The natives mocked the Portuguese for giving them beads, clocks, strings of coral, worthless washbasins and boats that made no impression.The old man in the village told a story about the "white ghost". Long ago, some people in silk clothes came to their shores in big ships.The treasure ships are lost in the memory of the world...

Nearly a century before western navigators, zheng he's fleet reached East Africa, outnumbering Columbus's largest ship by several times.However, zheng he is "I came, I saw, I left", different from western Caesar "I came, I saw, I conquered".Colonial culture in the west, and the culture of peace has long been infiltrated into the genes of the Chinese nation.

Because the Chinese nation has such cultural genes, China has realized the largest industrialization in the history of mankind through 40 years of reform and opening up, and created the miracle of industrialization without colonial expansion, war and plunder.

"One Belt And One Road" initiative: boosting the decolonization of Africa

The "One Belt And One Road" initiative is completely different from the colonial practices of the modern west."One Belt And One Road" follows the principle of "consultation, joint contribution and sharing" to build a community of Shared interests, Shared responsibilities and Shared future.

Since being colonized by the west, African countries have little contact with each other. They are all connected with European suzerainty. The capitals of two neighboring African countries cannot realize direct flights, but have to bypass Paris, France.After Africa was colonized, it gradually became the source of resources and raw materials for western countries.European integration did not lead to the integration of the colonial system of the suzerainty in Africa, and the African market was still divided by the western colonists.Intra-african trade accounts for less than 15 percent of the total foreign trade of African countries.The "One Belt And One Road" initiative put forward by China is conducive to rectifying the vertical links between African countries and the suzerainty under the western colonial system and strengthening the horizontal links within Africa."One Belt And One Road" starts with infrastructure connectivity, connecting the African market with the dots and the dots, so as to help Africa gain the momentum of endogenous development, achieve industrialization and truly get rid of poverty.

In addition to internal connectivity, "One Belt And One Road" will bring two major effects to Africa: land and sea connectivity and intercontinental linkage.At present, 80% of the world's trade depends on the sea, and more than 70% of the GDP comes from the coastal area of 100 kilometers.Therefore, the economic globalization initiated by the europeans in modern times is actually Marine globalization, and the vast landlocked countries can hardly share the benefits of this globalization.Five years ago, President xi jinping proposed to build a silk road economic belt in kazakhstan, the world's largest landlocked country, in an effort to reverse this unbalanced economic globalization.

In addition, China's "government + market" two-wheel drive model also helps change the marginalization of African countries.In some landlocked developing countries, market economy rules make it difficult to obtain loans from international financial institutions.But China's state-owned enterprises and Banks can provide development finance loans, starting with improving their infrastructure and gradually cultivating the environment needed for a market economy.In the process, only China can provide the first pot of gold for African countries to change their destiny of being marginalized by globalization.

In recent years, China's investment in Africa and business mode, is western opinion question, for example, a tone said China only care about mineral resources and exploiting local cheap Labour in Africa, while China's assistance to Africa and investment "is not attached political conditions", and add to the local authoritarian and corrupt regimes, and according to the Chinese is "new colonialism" in Africa.This is wrong.In recent years, the west's investment interest in Africa has decreased greatly and only provides humanitarian aid. The western public opinion in turn accuses China of conducting trade and investment in Africa according to the market logic. Besides the reasons of values and ideology, this also reflects the strategic anxiety of the west.

There is a fundamental difference between Chinese investment in Africa and predatory western investment.China's greatest contribution to Africa is that it offers different choices, which is exactly the logic that China followed in its early years of rural reform and market economy development: its core is to stimulate people's enthusiasm and rationally allocate resources.From the perspective of practical effect, China's funds have initially changed the destiny of Africa and pushed china-africa comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership to a new height.

We will build a closer community of Shared future between China and Africa

China will always be a good friend, partner and brother of Africa.China-africa relations are south-south, fundamentally different from the north-south relationship between the west and Africa.Today, china-africa cooperation is on the wing of "One Belt And One Road", ushering in a golden era.All the way around the "initiative" with the agenda 2063 African union, the United Nations sustainable development agenda in 2030, and African countries mutual butt joint development strategy, to explore new cooperation space, exploring new opportunities for cooperation, in the field of traditional advantage deep strengthen and speed up cultivating in the field of new economic window, fundamental goal is to build closer china-africa fate community.

It is worth noting that in the face of the facts, western public opinion has also begun to shift in understanding.For example, the recently released McKinsey research report "dance of dragons and lions: how china-africa economic cooperation is going and how it will develop in the future" confesses that western donors such as the European Union and the United States mainly provide aid in the form of subsidies, while China prefers the forms of preferential loans for infrastructure construction and export credit.Compared with western aid with strict political conditions, China's investment and aid are not only unbound by ideology and values, but also look at Africa from the perspective of economic development according to market rules.It can be said that Africa's explosive economic development in the past 20 years or so is fundamentally attributable to China's investment and assistance in Africa.

Although Africa has made long-term explorations, most countries have yet to find a development path suited to their national conditions.Frustrated with the western model in the face of brexit and the trump us, African countries are looking east.From development aid to study China's independent development experience, and then make investment promotion and capital introduction and reform and opening up, African countries pay more and more attention to learning experience in China, the Chinese capital, technology, market, enterprise, talents and experience of successful development, development of relative advantage with the rich natural resources, combining the demographic dividend and huge market potential, will create new miracles.

（The author is vice President of the institute of xi jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era at renmin university of China）

Beijing daily theory weekly.