President's reply to scholars comes as Beijing prepares for landmark summit

Photo taken on Aug 28 shows workers arrange the theme flowerbeds at the Dongdan intersection of Chang'an Avenue in Beijing to welcome the opening of the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which will be held in the capital from Sept 4 to 6. [Photo by Wang Zhuangfei/chinadaily.com.cn]

President Xi Jinping has stressed the urgent need for China and Africa to strengthen unity and cooperation more than ever before in the face of a rapidly changing and turbulent world, in a recent reply to scholars from 50 African countries.

In his reply letter, which was published on Friday, Xi encouraged the scholars to continue contributing wisdom for building a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future and safeguarding the common interests of the Global South.

As China has made a clarion call for deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization, Xi said the country will continue to forge ahead with firm commitments to peaceful development and reform and opening-up.

This will certainly strengthen the world's forces for peace and international justice, and also give an endless source of energy to the world's modernization process, especially the development and revitalization of the Global South, he said.

It was ahead of a key gathering on China-Africa cooperation to be held next week in Beijing that the Chinese president received a letter from Gert Grobler, a former veteran diplomat of South Africa and honorary professor of the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University. The letter was jointly signed by another 63 scholars.

The three-day 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, starting from Wednesday, will be the largest diplomatic event China has hosted in recent years, with the highest attendance of foreign leaders.

In their letter, the scholars spoke highly of the historic achievements of the forum and said they expect the upcoming summit to write a new chapter in building a China-Africa community with a shared future and promoting the modernization of the Global South.

The upcoming summit also marks another grand reunion of the China-Africa family following the 2006 Beijing Summit, the 2015 Johannesburg Summit and the 2018 Beijing Summit of the forum.

Xi, who will deliver an important keynote speech at the opening ceremony, said in the reply letter that as the leaders of China and African countries once again gather together in Beijing for discussions on cooperation, it is expected that the China-Africa relationship will embrace a brighter future.

Xi said he looks forward to more research being made by the scholars on the development paths of the Global South countries, China-Africa cooperation and South-South cooperation.

Over the 24 years since the establishment of the FOCAC, the forum has become a "golden brand" of China-Africa cooperation. Under the framework of the forum, China has proposed a series of cooperation initiatives and projects to assist Africa's development.