Research On The Sustainable Development Of China-Africa Railway Cooperation

Since the 1970 s,China's policy towards Africa has mainly experienced transformation from the free aid stage to equality and mutual benefit stage.In the 21 st century,along with the promotion of the One Belt One Road initiative,China and Africa have made great progress in practical cooperation and innovation in various fields during the systematization stage of current comprehensive strategic cooperation.According to the data of the 2017 China Foreign Direct Investment Statistics Bulletin,China's foreign direct investment to Africa reached 4.11 billion US dollars in 2017,an increase of70.8% year on year,making it the fastest growing target market among the five continents.Among all of them,as an important way to help Africa improve its infrastructure,China-Africa railway cooperation can not only better support the development of leading industries in Africa,and drive economic growth,but also make African countries effectively attract international investment and accelerate capital accumulation and technology transformation by improving the investment environment of their countries.In this context,this paper focuses on the differences of railway cooperation behavior between China and Africa in different stages of China's policy towards Africa,constructs an analysis framework of China Africa railway cooperation based on the hierarchical form of transport industry.This paper analyzes four typical railway projects of China-Africa cooperation in different periods,i.e.TAZARA,Benguela railway,Mombasa-Nairobi railway and Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway,discusses and puts forward important factors and policy suggestions affecting the sustainable development of China-Africa railway cooperation:(1)China-Africa railway cooperation needs to improve the top-level design,promotes the complementary participation of resources,energy,labor resources,capital,technology and other elements in the implementation of the project,and combines the political power structure,economic system,development stage,interest monopoly,land ownership and cultural values of the territorial countries.It is necessary to fully consider the participation needs of Chinese companies' participation needs in the design,investment,construction and operation phases,and jointly form a "Chinese standard" for railway construction to meet the needs for the territorial countries,so as to provide mechanism guarantee for the sustainable development of China-Africa railway cooperation.(2)Regarding the perspective of transport economics,China-Africa railway cooperation projects need to integrate the policies,regulations,environment and other factors of the host countries in the operation process.It is committed to providing services to meet the needs of passenger and freight transportation.By fully integrating road network facilities,rolling stock equipment,human information and other transportation resources,and building its own transportation network economic advantages,it is helpful to form a comprehensive core competitiveness of product-resource-network economy for China-Africa railway project.In this way,the operation performance and management level of the railway project can be fundamentally improved to achieve long-term sustainable development.(3)The realization of territorial management is not only an important symbol of successful operation,but also a key link to determine whether the territorial countries can rely on their own personnel to realize operation and whether China's railway industry chain can truly “going global”.China-Africa railway cooperation needs to be based on the guiding ideology of comprehensive strategic cooperation of mutual benefit and win-win results.It is needed to promote the localization process of railway enterprise operation and management through all-round technology transfer of management,operation and technical equipment.(4)With the promotion of the One Belt One Road initiative,China-Africa railway cooperation can effectively boost the bilateral economic development and enhance mutual trust and regional stability.Through the sustainable development of China-Africa railway cooperation,the infrastructure interconnection of African countries can be accelerated,and the international production capacity cooperation can be better realized.China can realize the adjustment of productivity and production mode,and achieve the strategic goal of balanced development of international division of labor.