Lianghui Through African Eyes
Lianghui, or the Two Sessions of the National People’s Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, are the landmarks in China’s annual political calendar. The lianghui this year, which were held from March 3 to 20, have witnessed great achievements, such as the election of new leadership, constitutional amendments and state institutional restructuring arrangement. These are keenly watched by media at home and abroad. ChinAfrica caught up with four African journalists who are in Beijing to report on the lianghui. Edited excerpts of their thoughts and expectations on proceedings follow:
Trix Ingado
Journalist with Kenya Television Network
My main interest here is how [what China does] affects Africa, because China is trying to forge links with many countries, [one of those being] my country Kenya. Kenya has been working closely with China in the past few years, and we have the [Nairobi-Mombasa] Standard Gauge Railway project and other projects going on. So whatever is decided at the lianghui this year will be very important for Kenya as well. I am quite interested in China’s economic development, because Kenya is a developing country. I want to know how the bilateral relations between China and Kenya are going to help Kenya even more than the projects that have happened so far. In addition, I’m interested in Chinese culture, and to find out how it is compared to my own culture, what I can learn, and how it can change my perspective as a person and a journalist. Chinese culture is vast - you have interesting food, interesting social relations, and especially the way Chinese people work is very different. I’d love to know how people work in China, the kind of social relations [they have], what people value here, the teamwork spirit, and I’d also like to learn about ancient Chinese things that are still present and dictate how things happen in China today. During my stay in China, I’d like to interview professors in economics, the minister of commerce and minister of foreign affairs just to find out how they are planning to work further with Kenya and what their plans are for the future. We know Kenya has been borrowing from China to fund its own development plans, so I’d like to get an overview from the people [involved in these plans] on how these two countries can keep working together.
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Adrian Bwanika
Journalist with Vision Group of Uganda
This is my first time in China. Here, [at the lianghui] I expect to see how Chinese are organized politically so that we can learn lessons from them, and try to emulate them, and then as journalists try to seduce our leaders on how best societies can be governed. The most important topic I want to know about is China’s economic development - we need to know about the economic cooperation between China and most African countries. Another topic is culture - Chinese are rich in culture, so we need to learn about how Chinese keep their culture [alive]. Chinese are very patriotic people, they are people who love their country and their nation, so we need to copy some things about Chinese [culture] and see if we can use it to make Africa great.
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Amatijane Cande
Journalist with Guinea-Bissau TV
This is not my first time in China. I was here last year in September. In my country and across Africa, to look for information on China, we need to search on Western media, which shows China as a very closed country. The first time I came here was with that impression. But I noticed China is an open country, so I think I must introduce the real China to my audience.
Keeping this in my mind, during the lianghui, the topics that interest me and my audience are foreign affairs, international cooperation, constitutional amendments and also the socialism with Chinese characteristics.
China has been showing that democracy is not one-size-fits-all. The West has its own governing system, but China has shown to the world that this socialism with Chinese characteristics can work and it has shown very good results in terms of living conditions and building a prosperous society.
During the lianghui, I also listened carefully to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s remarks on China-Africa relations. I think he delivered a very strong message for Africa as a whole and [also] for certain countries. China, in the past 15 years, has become a strategic partner of African states and particularly my country.
To give you an example, the most relevant public infrastructure in my country was built thanks to the bilateral cooperation with China. The bilateral cooperation between China and Guinea-Bissau has impacted positively on the living conditions of the Guinean population. One of the main strategic sectors of development in my country is agriculture, and our main ally in this development is China.
The Summit of the Forum on ChinaAfrica Cooperation (FOCAC) will be held in September in Beijing this year. I’m expecting that important deliberations will come out of FOCAC, and it will allow China to enhance its multilateral cooperation with the whole continent and to strengthen bilateral relations with certain African countries. I think China has become a strategic partner of development for Africa as a whole and for my country in particular, so we hope this FOCAC will strengthen all these aspects [I mentioned].
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Laetitia Melidor
Journalist with L’Express du Groupe La Sentinelle of Mauritius
During the lianghui, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met the press and made comments on China-Africa relations. It is impressive. His message is reassuring. He talked about the need to strengthen relations and friendship between Africa and China, especially because of China’s presence on the African continent. Chinese companies are involved in several African countries in various sectors, including telecommunications, natural resources, finance and trade, which has resulted in quite a lot of criticism from the West.
So it’s reassuring to see that despite such criticism, the Chinese foreign minister said that on the contrary, these relationships are bound to be deepened and improved.
One of the topics that interest me is poverty, and how China managed to reduce poverty, both domestically and globally, because the decrease in poverty in China inevitably impacts the world poverty level. I am also interested in the development of China’s infrastructure. China is also assisting African and Asian countries with their infrastructure levels by providing its expertise, while building links with other countries through its policy of openness, including the Belt and Road Initiative.
In terms of China-Africa cooperation, I think our bilateral cooperation is mostly limited to industrial and commercial sectors. I think it would be nice to have more cultural and tourist exchanges. For example, in Mauritius, the majority of our tourist arrivals come from China.
But we have noticed that over the last three years, there was a drop in tourist arrivals. So we should research why a declining number of Chinese are coming to visit African countries, and how to improve and change this situation.
On a cultural level, a large proportion of the Mauritian population is of Chinese origins. We have Chinatowns and traditional dances and so on. So deepening cultural exchanges between our countries would be a good way to deepen our bilateral understanding. 
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