Sino-African Cooperation (Opportunities and Impact - Evidence from Cameroon)

The effective presence of China in Africa and particularly Cameroon is growing or even worrying for Europeans and Americans and for some Africans. Its growing commitment to economic development through South-South cooperation brings significant life changes in daily lives of Cameroon populations, but also enormous impacts environmental than economic (over-indebtedness). In this chapter, we shall initially focus on the state of the economic situation in Africa Sub-Saharan, then explain the geostrategic challenges that represents China-Africa for the African continent. Today, China-Africa summits are more important in terms of trade economic and are much more representative than traditional peaks French. From the organization of these international forums on Sino-African cooperation, China marks its footprint and its presence in Africa. These forums are held every three years with strong African participation. This positioning and deployment of China in Cameroon is causing economic upheavals and create geopolitical and geostrategic challenges because Cameroon is no longer under the yoke of new colonizing power, so it has diversified its economic partners with the arrival of emerging countries. We therefore observe in large western powers a strategic reassessment of their relationships in terms of trade and new markets to conquer to do business with Cameroon. On the Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese Government will be extending its support to have more impact on the continent's infrastructure-led growth with more projects being undertaken in building of gas and oil pipelines, shipping lanes, railways, roads, ports, and economic corridors, among others. In fact, without the support of the Chinese, some of the life-changing mega-infrastructure projects that are visible in Africa today would have been non-existent. At the FOCAC Beijing Summit held in September 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China will offer Africa $60 billion for infrastructure development in line with the Belt and Road Initiative on the continent. China has been at the forefront of supporting Africa's industrialization and joins African countries in raising global awareness on industrialization challenges marked by the annual Africa Industrialization Week, organized by the Department of Trade and Industry of the African Union Commission.