by Guo Jun, Olatunji Saliu
LAGOS, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- China has been playing critical roles in international politics and economics, leading to a tremendous mutually-beneficial relationship with many African countries, a Nigerian expert said.
In this way, China has come to change the dynamics of international politics and economics, and has been laying the right foundation, using the platform of its progressive and win-win friendship with Africa for the continent's development take-off, Efem Ubi, a senior research fellow at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), told Xinhua in a recent interview in Lagos.
"It is left for the (African) countries on how they want to maximize that platform for the take-off of their development," said Ubi.
"The Chinese government is building huge connectivity. A lot of countries today have productive infrastructure courtesy of China," said the professor of international relations who currently heads the division of international economic relations at the NIIA.
"If you had gone around Africa before when China-Africa relations became intense, you would have found out that most of the rail lines we had were from colonial days and they were from areas of raw materials to the seaports. But today they are not like that," he said.
"In a lot of countries like Ethiopia, the light rail is running. There is another rail line from Djibouti port to Ethiopia. There is this connectivity that they are working on between the Horn of Africa," he said.
In his observation and studies, China has over the past 70 years achieved a lot- from a closed country to a more open country, from a weak country to a very strong country, from a small economy to a major economy, he said.
Ubi, who has been working on China-Africa relations with a specialization in international political economy, noted that over the years China's leadership had taken a very pragmatic approach toward its development.
The scholar urged developing countries, in particular those in Africa, to learn a few lessons from that toward their own development.
"Some of us who focus too much on the criticisms about this country should look for ways on how to maximize our relationship with China for our development," he said.
"We should also look at how to learn from the Chinese development model to see how it could fit into the African setting. These are the things that we should be looking at," he told Xinhua.
"China has come to show that what we cannot achieve with many other countries for over 150 years, we have achieved them within the last two decades of our relationship with China," he added.
