China and Africa elevated their relations to a new level in recent years. This transformation stems directly from both sides' commitment, sincerity, faith, and shared determination to achieve tangible results through their engagement. As China continues its rise and modernization, Africa actively deepens its cooperation with the country, harnessing the benefits of China’s remarkable growth and development.

In 2019, President Xi Jinping, in his congratulatory letter to the China-Africa Institute, reaffirmed the importance of strengthening exchanges, learning from each other’s civilizations, and fostering a traditional friendship to promote global development and peace. Since then, the China-Africa Institute (CAI) has worked diligently to realize these goals by collaborating with think tanks, academics, researchers, policymakers, and senior government officials to enhance mutual understanding and friendship. It's significance is seen in many ways and will be discussed below.

Firstly, CAI advances the exchange of knowledge and ideas through it's planned study visits and trips to China. This allows African partners to experience China’s modernization path firsthand and practically. For example, the Institute’s trip with African scholars to Liangjiahe Village allowed them to learn and internalize China’s leadership approach of developing new projects based on local conditions. Through this program, African scholars absorbed key Chinese principles like working hard and smart, selecting leaders through meritocracy, investing in people, and relying on strong national leadership.

Additionally, the Institute organizes high-level academic exchanges not to impose Chinese thought or style but to foster open discussions and mutual learning on modernization processes, poverty reduction approaches, leadership styles, and innovative methods in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Madagascar, and Djibouti. This exchange of ideas on national development has profoundly inspired scholars and policymakers to generate fresh insights that can reshape and strengthen their countries' modernization trajectories.

Moreover, CAI operates as a central intellectual platform and rich repository of ideas and concepts it shares widely across Africa. During visits, the Institute presents African scholars with foundational texts, including Up and Out of Poverty, Liangjiahe Village: A Story of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and The Governance of China volumes. Scholars adopt these works to deepen their understanding of Chinese methods, leadership styles, the socialist path with Chinese characteristics, and party development. These texts also provide insight into President Xi Jinping’s leadership approach through his youthful experiences in Liangjiahe, where his selfless service and innovative initiatives (such as building dams and developing a biogas digester) exemplify the values that inspire both Chinese and African scholars.

Therefore, CAI actively shares discourses on Chinese leadership as a model for African governance, presenting it as a pathway to transform Africa’s political structures. Participants extensively discuss the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership ideology and economic planning model. African scholars, through these exchanges, embrace the Chinese principle of putting people first and study China’s comprehensive reforms, including its adoption of science-based development strategies, growth models tailored to national conditions, emphasis on the rule of law, and protection of the environment. The Institute facilitates these programs through numerous engagements, high-level academic seminars, and workshops.

Similarly, CAI serves as the primary action platform for advancing the policy goals of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). It fosters open, inclusive dialogue with African scholars and shares China’s experiences to promote a strategic partnership based on mutual respect. Through its China-Africa Studies Journal, the Institute uses objective, data-driven analysis to study relations, eliminate bias, and encourage balanced perspectives. The journal built a vibrant intellectual community that advances knowledge and scholarly collaboration, and it promotes joint research between Chinese and African scholars, producing reports and books that inform policy decisions.

Furthermore,  the institute continues to expand its network to strengthen cooperation, actively supporting President Xi Jinping’s 2022 emphasis on building academic and discourse systems grounded in Chinese civilization.

Finally, CAI truly acts as a bridge for mutual learning between civilizations. It fosters cooperation and connectivity in areas such as development, agriculture, poverty alleviation, green growth, common security, and leadership development, aiming to intensify and deepen collaboration in the near future to build the capacities of both sides. It has reignited discourses on global issues, the Chinese perspectives and African issues on how to achieve global development and security to ensure sustainable progress. The plethora of knowledge it has offered to Africa is unquantifiable and overwhelming, this Africa is better positioned to deal and tackle it's issues.

About the author: 

Dr. Adetoro Olaniyi Banwo, senior lecturer at the Department of Linguistics, African and Asian Studies, University of Lagos, Nigeria.