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| Cathrine Mountain |
Although the majority of our class with Dr. Hua here at Shanghai Jiao Tong University has mainly focused on China-US relations, we were able to talk with the Chinese students in our class today about China's relationship with African countries.
Since Li Keqiang, the current premier of the People's Republic of China, just returned from a series of visits with a few African countries, I was able to hear news of the trip on the CCTV news channel that is broadcast in English. Li visited Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola, and Kenya and described the trip as very "fruitful". He was able to witness the signing of a deal between China and Kenya that will build a railway from Nairobi to Mombassa, Africa's second largest city and an important trading port. According to Xinhua Net News, 90% of the project will be financed by China's Ex-Im Bank. This deal seems to be a definitive landmark in the economic relationship between China and a number of African countries.
After learning about Li Keqiang's visit we were able to ask our Chinese classmates what they thought about the relationship. They were able to expound upon the belief that China and Africa have been very friendly towards each other, especially in the past 50 years. Not only did the students seem to feel friendly towards the potential of increasing economic interaction with Africa, but they also expressed that African students that they have talked to feel the same way towards China. Although I am still woefully uneducated in this area of international relations, I think that it will become a very important relationship for both countries and I am very interested to see how the relationship will grow.
Cathrine Mountain, of Frankfort, Ky., is a junior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. She is studying political science and anthropology.