Despite its status as a major country, China has continued to stand by all the countries from the global south through the principal of amity, good faith and real results. On Saturday, 15^th of February 2025 President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message to the 38^th Ordinary African union summit.  The 38th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Assembly that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from February 15 to 16, 2025 brought together Heads of State and Government to deliberate on pressing issues affecting the continent such as the Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Reparations for Slavery and Colonialism, and Leadership Elections.

In his message, President Xi highlighted three key elements the first being, the significant growth of Africa as a representative of the global south, he stated that over the past year, the AU has united and led African countries in vigorously advancing integration, actively responding to regional and global challenges and speaking in unison as the voice of Africa.

President Xi also noted that Africa and China should continue to stay at the forefront of building an All-weather community with a shared future for the new era through the corridors of the forum on China Africa cooperation (FOCAC). Thirdly, he expressed readiness to work with African Leaders to promote the implementation of six proposals for jointly advancing modernization and the 10 partnership actions.

In the current international situation characterized by aggression, conflicts and imperialism, the global south should join hands with China on a path of seeking peaceful development, political equality, connectivity and people to people engagements. China has a number of initiatives that strengthen Africa’s voice not only in the global south but internationally as well, such initiatives include FOCAC , Belt and Road Initiative, Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative.

So far, the above-mentioned initiatives have proven to be positive platforms for addressing key global challenges such as inequality in global governance issues, limited access to infrastructure finance, aid unavailability and the lack of technical assistance. For example, through the FOCAC framework Zambia has welcomed more Chinese investors with interest in various sectors such as Argo processing, mining, infrastructure development, energy, agriculture, manufacturing and tourism- recording more than 1.5 billion dollars in investments.

In the new era, the All-weather China- Africa community with a shared future means working collectively to confront existing and emerging global challenges, standing together through good and bad, embracing principals such as all under heaven are of one family, respecting the one China principal and coexisting in harmony. Therefore, as China and Africa continue on the path of development and modernization, it is imperative that the relations are guided by the six principals of modernization through the 10 partnership actions.

As the China Africa relations grow stronger, no one country or group of countries will ever single handedly dominate world affairs rather, peace, development, cooperation and common prosperity will continue to be the trend pioneered by the global south.