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Africa

Best of friends

John McDermott: chief Africa correspondent, The Economist, JOHANNESBURG

African countries will reject calls to loosen the continent’s strong ties with China

2021 in brief

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, commonly known as CHOGM, will
be held in June in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, the first such meeting in Africa for more
than a decade

EVERY THREE years African and Chinese politicians gather at a diplomatic jamboree
known as the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC). The summits, which attract
more African heads of state than annual UN gatherings, are waypoints in China’s long
journey on the continent. Over the past three decades it has become the pre-eminent
partner for many African countries. Its importance will be apparent again in 2021 at the
next FOCAC meeting, the eighth, which is due to take place in Dakar, the capital of
Senegal.