BEIJING, Sept 2 , 2018 (MENA) - China's top diplomat has hailed the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The Summit, with unprecedented scale and global attention, is bound to lift China-Africa comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership to a new high, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a signed article published on People's Daily. The summit, scheduled to be held on September 3 and 4 in Beijing, will be a historic event for China and Africa to deepen traditional friendship and strengthen strategic cooperation, underlined Wang. He pointed out that General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping earnestly practised what he advocated by his four visits to Africa and meetings with about 140 African leaders in various occasions over the past five years. "Africa was twice chosen by Xi as his first destination of foreign visits when he took office and re-elected as the Chinese President, which indicated that strengthening the China-Africa friendly cooperation was an unswerving strategic choice of China's diplomacy," Wang said in the article. The foreign minister pointed out that since the 2015 Johannesburg Summit of the FOCAC, China and Africa implemented the summit outcomes and intensified bilateral cooperation in each field, thus shifting China-Africa relations onto a fast-track development. The foundation of political mutual trust between China and Africa had been further consolidated, he said when concluding the fruits of bilateral cooperation. China and Africa had witnessed increasingly frequent political exchanges and constantly deepened communication of experiences in national governance and development, he elaborated, adding that they firmly supported the development path independently chosen by each other, as well as their efforts to guard core interests and major concerns.
