China’s top diplomat began his annual New Year tour of Africa on Wednesday, focusing on strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa as Beijing seeks to secure key shipping routes and resource supply lines.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Ethiopia, Africa’s fastest-growing large economy; Somalia, a Horn of Africa state offering access to key global shipping lanes; Tanzania, a logistics hub linking minerals-rich central Africa to the Indian Ocean; and Lesotho, a small southern African economy squeezed by U.S. trade measures. His trip this year runs until January 12.
Beijing aims to highlight countries it views as model partners of President Xi Jinping’s flagship “Belt and Road” infrastructure programme and to expand export markets, particularly in young, increasingly affluent economies such as Ethiopia, where the IMF forecasts growth of 7.2% this year.
His visit to Somalia will be the first by a Chinese foreign minister since the 1980s and is expected to provide Mogadishu with a diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognise the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, a northern region that declared itself independent in 1991.
