Chinese-Path Modernization and Africa’s Path of Development

Modernization is the historical trend of world development, and achieving modernization is the universal pursuit and inalienable right of all countries. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “China and Africa account for one-third of the world’s total population; without the modernization of China and Africa, there will be no modernization of the world.” Since the large-scale independence of African countries in the 1960s, African countries have generally established modernization as the core goal of national development. However, under the unequal international economic order, the results have not been ideal, with debt crises, economic stagnation, and social conflicts intertwined and superimposed, and regional economic growth has long been below the global average. In 2000, *The Economist* summarized the overall development predicament of Africa at that time as “the hopeless continent.” Although this judgment carries obvious bias, it also reflects the real pressures Africa faces at the levels of industrialization promotion, national governance, and improvement of people’s livelihoods.

现代化是世界发展的历史潮流，实现现代化是世界各国的普遍追求和不可剥夺的权利。习近平总书记指出：“中国和非洲占世界总人口的三分之一，没有中非的现代化，就没有世界的现代化。”自20世纪60年代大批非洲国家独立以来，非洲国家普遍将现代化确立为国家发展的核心目标。但在不平等的国际经济秩序下，成效并不理想，债务危机、经济停滞与社会冲突交织叠加，区域经济增长长期低于全球平均水平。2000年《经济学人》曾以“没有希望的大陆”概括当时非洲整体发展困境。尽管这一判断带有明显偏见，却也折射出非洲在工业化推进、国家治理与民生改善层面面临的现实压力。

Since the beginning of the new century, some new changes have emerged in Africa’s modernization process. Some African countries have made certain progress in economic growth, poverty reduction, and improvement of people’s livelihoods. For example, Ethiopia’s average GDP growth rate from 2004 to 2019 reached 10.3%, and Rwanda’s poverty incidence rate fell from 56.7% in 2005–2006 to 38.2% in 2016–2017. The process of African regional economic integration has advanced steadily; in 2023, intra-African trade volume had reached US$192.2 billion, accounting for approximately 14.9% of Africa’s total trade, a significant increase from 13.6% in 2022. However, these partial success stories have not changed the overall lagging state of economic development and improvement of people’s livelihoods in African countries. According to the latest World Bank data for 2024–2025, the poverty incidence rate in sub-Saharan Africa remains hovering around a high 45%, while the global poverty incidence rate over the same period has fallen to about 10%. According to the latest Human Development Index data, the average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa in 2023 was approximately 62.5 years, significantly lower than the global average life expectancy of about 73.4 years. In terms of food security, the proportion of hungry people in Africa in 2024 exceeded 20%, roughly more than double the global average.

新世纪以来，非洲的现代化进程出现了一些新的变化。部分非洲国家在经济增长、减贫与民生改善方面取得一定进展。如埃塞俄比亚2004—2019年国内生产总值增速平均达10.3%，卢旺达贫困发生率从2005—2006年的56.7%下降至2016—2017年的38.2%。非洲区域经济一体化进程稳步推进，2023年非洲内部贸易额已达1922亿美元，占非洲贸易总额约14.9%，较2022年的13.6%有明显提升。但这些局部成功的案例并未改变非洲国家经济发展和民生改善总体滞后的面貌。按世界银行2024—2025年最新数据，撒哈拉以南非洲贫困发生率仍在45%左右高位徘徊，而同期全球贫困发生率已降至约10%。根据人类发展指数最新数据，2023年撒哈拉以南非洲平均预期寿命约为62.5岁，明显低于全球约73.4岁的预期寿命。在粮食安全方面，2024年非洲饥饿人口比例超过20%，约为全球平均水平的两倍以上。

History and reality tell us that achieving modernization is an extremely difficult project. The authors believe that African countries currently face at least the following three challenges on the path to modernization.

历史和现实告诉我们，实现现代化是一项极其艰难的工程。笔者认为，当前非洲国家在现代化道路上至少面临以下三重挑战。

First, colonialism interrupted the autonomous evolutionary process of African indigenous societies, causing a rupture and distorted extension of development paths. Before colonization, different regions of Africa had already formed diverse production structures and social division of labor systems within their respective ecological and trade networks, and had continuously accumulated indigenous technical knowledge and organizational forms. However, colonial expansion, through forced trade restructuring and changes in production structures, caused the existing autonomous development trajectory to be severed by external forces. This rupture first occurred at the level of agriculture and land systems. To meet the industrial and consumer demands of the metropolitan countries, colonial regimes forcibly promoted monoculture cash crop systems in multiple regions. East Africa’s Tanganyika was designated as a sisal plantation base, some areas of West Africa were planned as groundnut cultivation belts, Ghana was shaped into a core cocoa production area, and the Congo Basin became a site for large-scale collection of rubber and ivory. The consequence was the creation of a long-standing pattern of coexistence between a “high-productivity commercial sector” and a “low-productivity smallholder sector.” This pattern further internalized into an overall political-economic dual structure of the state. The former, relying on ports, railways, and the colonial financial system, obtained priority allocation of land, technology, capital, and infrastructure. The latter bore the functions of labor supply and food production but lacked institutional and technological investment. Because of the lack of industrial chain connections and technology spillovers between the dual structures, the high-productivity technology oriented toward the external metropolitan countries did not transform into general development capacity for domestic production sectors; instead, it solidified into structural segmentation. This segmentation did not naturally dissolve after African countries gained independence but was repackaged in forms such as international trade “comparative advantage.” Many countries continued to rely on primary product exports to participate in the global market, making industrial upgrading difficult to advance, and national economies repeatedly fluctuated under the impact of changes in external demand. African countries appear to be integrated into economic globalization but are in fact locked into the low-end links of the value chain.

第一，殖民主义打断了非洲本土社会的自主演进进程，造成发展路径的断裂与畸形延伸。被殖民前，非洲不同区域已在各自生态与贸易网络中形成多样化生产结构与社会分工体系，并不断累积本土的技术知识与组织形态。但殖民扩张通过强制性贸易重组与生产结构改变，使既有的自主发展轨道被外力截断。这种断裂首先发生在农业与土地制度层面，殖民政权为满足宗主国工业与消费需求，在多个地区强制推进单一经济作物体系。东非的坦噶尼喀被划定为剑麻种植基地，西非一些地区被规划为花生种植带，加纳被塑造成可可生产核心区，刚果盆地则成为橡胶与象牙的大规模采集之所。其后果是塑造了“高产商业部门”与“低产小农部门”长期并存的格局。该格局又进一步内化为国家整体的政治经济二元结构。前者依托港口、铁路与殖民金融体系运转，获得土地、技术、资本与基础设施优先配置。后者承担劳动力供给与粮食生产功能，却缺乏制度与技术投入。由于二元结构之间缺少产业链连接与技术外溢，面向外部宗主国的高产技术并未转化为国内生产部门普遍的发展能力，反而固化为结构性分割。这种分割在非洲国家独立后并未自然消解，而是以国际贸易“比较优势”等形式被重新包装。许多国家继续依赖初级产品出口参与全球市场，产业升级难以推进，国家经济受外部需求变化冲击反复震荡，非洲国家看似融入经济全球化，实则被锁定在价值链低端环节。

Second, colonial legacies caused long-term imbalances in political, economic, and social structures, making it difficult for national integration capacity to form coherence. If the change in production structure brought about economic rupture, then the deeper rupture that colonial legacies brought to African countries is the lack of coherence among political revolution, social revolution, and cultural reconstruction. After independence, the colonial systems centered around mining areas, plantations, and ports were inherited as a whole, resulting in the fact that the independence of African state power did not simultaneously bring about the restructuring of social organization methods and national identity. Political narratives emphasized national liberation and state sovereignty, but the grassroots level of society still operated along ethnic, religious, and local networks, making it difficult for national goals to transform into cross-regional common practices. Accompanying this, elite cognition gradually differentiated and solidified into different paths: political elites emphasized macro-planning and institutional transplantation, commercial elites were deeply embedded in the outward-oriented economic system, and social elites grew more within international organizations and social organization networks. The three groups found it difficult to form a consensus on development paths, institutional priorities, and resource allocation logic, and national development strategies therefore lacked stable social support. This differentiation is particularly concrete at the grassroots level. Taking some agricultural projects in Tanzania as an example, water-saving irrigation, seed improvement, agricultural machinery promotion, and climate adaptation technologies are often promoted in parallel by different external systems. Different projects have different evaluation indicators, funding cycles, and implementation rules. Village development is fragmented into multiple “project units,” and national departments play more of a coordinating and reporting role rather than leading planning and policy implementation. Over time, grassroots governance forms a dependency on external projects, policy continuity is difficult to maintain, and the allocation of public resources struggles to form strategic focus, thus modernization loses its most core organizational foundation.

第二，殖民遗产造成政治、经济与社会结构长期失衡，国家整合能力难以形成一致性。如果说生产结构被改变带来的是经济层面的断裂，那么殖民遗产带给非洲国家更深层的断裂是政治革命、社会革命与文化重建之间缺乏贯通。独立后，围绕矿区、种植园与港口的殖民制度被整体继承下来，由此导致非洲国家政权独立并未同步带来社会组织方式与国家认同结构的重塑，政治叙事强调民族解放与国家主权，但社会基层仍然沿着族群、宗教与地方网络运行，国家目标难以转化为跨区域的共同实践。与之相伴，精英认知逐渐分化并固化为不同路径，政治精英偏重宏观规划与制度移植，商业精英深度嵌入外向经济体系，社会精英更多在国际组织与社会组织网络中成长，三者在发展路径、制度优先序与资源配置逻辑上难以形成一致共识，国家发展战略因此缺乏稳定的社会支撑。这种分化在基层实践中尤为具体。以坦桑尼亚一些农业项目为例，节水灌溉、种子改良、农机推广与气候适应技术往往由不同外部体系并行推动，不同项目有不同评估指标、资金周期与实施规则，村庄发展被切割为多个“项目单元”，国家部门更多承担协调与报备角色，而非主导规划与政策落地。久而久之，基层治理形成对外部项目的依附，政策连续性难以维持，公共资源配置也难以形成战略聚焦，现代化便失去最核心的组织基础。

Third, development agendas, funding, and institutional supply are externalized, making it difficult to internalize development momentum. Against the backdrop of already limited national integration capacity, the continuous embedding of external intervention further strengthens the dependency structure, gradually turning Africa’s modernization process into an “externally supply-driven process.” This is specifically manifested as follows: First, the right to set the national development agenda is transferred outward. Issues such as gender and climate change enter the policy priorities of African national development through international projects, thereby blurring the country’s own development focus. Second, African countries’ fiscal funds and policy implementation rely heavily on external organizations. African countries’ development plans need to align with international multilateral loan conditions; operational funding in areas such as public health, basic education, and agricultural extension has long depended on support from international projects. Institutional operations revolve around competing for aid projects, development practices are oriented toward meeting funding indicators, and projects exit upon completion, making it difficult for experience to precipitate into national policy. Third, institutional supply is externally driven. Under the constraints of debt pressure and loan conditions, some countries have reluctantly accepted neoliberal development concepts, promoting public sector downsizing and privatization reforms. Agricultural credit, technology extension, and public procurement systems, which should have a public nature, are weakened, and development space is further compressed.

第三，发展议程、资金、制度供给外部化，发展动力难以内生化。在国家整合能力本就有限的背景下，外部干预的持续嵌入进一步强化了依附结构，使非洲现代化进程逐渐演变为一种“外部供给驱动型过程”。具体表现为：一是国家发展议程设定权的外移。像社会性别、气候变化等议题通过国际项目进入非洲国家发展的政策优先序，从而模糊了本国的发展重点。二是非洲国家财政资金与政策执行严重依赖外部组织。非洲国家发展规划需要对接国际多边贷款条件，公共卫生、基础教育、农业推广等领域运行经费长期依赖国际项目支持，机构运转围绕争取援助项目展开，发展实践以完成资助指标为导向，项目结束即退出，经验难以沉淀为国家政策。三是制度供给外部驱动。在债务压力与贷款条件约束下，一些国家无奈接受新自由主义发展理念，推进公共部门压缩与私有化改革，本应具有公共性的农业信贷、技术推广与公共收购体系被削弱，发展空间被进一步压缩。

The predicament of Africa’s modernization ultimately boils down to the issue of development concepts and path choices. Modernization does not equal Westernization. When the Western paradigm of modernization repeatedly fails, the compelling power of the fresh development experiences of emerging countries is continuously strengthening. Because China and Africa once shared similar historical circumstances and face common development challenges, the successful practice of Chinese-path modernization is increasingly attracting widespread attention from African countries.

非洲现代化的困境归根到底是发展理念与路径选择的问题。现代化不等于西方化，当西方的现代化范式不断失效时，新兴国家鲜活的发展经验感召力正在不断增强。由于中非间曾经有着相似的历史境遇、面临共同的发展挑战，中国式现代化的成功实践日益受到非洲国家的广泛关注。

Looking back on China’s modernization process, in modern times China likewise experienced the developmental rupture brought about by being passively drawn into the modern world system. At the founding of New China, the foundation of modern industry was virtually blank, and the starting point for modernization was extremely low. Faced with this predicament, New China, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, adhered to the fundamental principle of independence and self-reliance, maintained strategic resolve and patience, and through the continuous implementation of five-year plans (programs), ensured the steadfastness of the nation’s long-term development vision and the pragmatism of its step-by-step implementation, thereby fundamentally establishing the material foundation and technological capacity for national development. In opening up to the outside world, China has always adhered to the principle of “taking ourselves as the mainstay and making use of external resources for our own purposes,” guiding capital, technology, and management experience through institutional arrangements to serve the growth of its domestic industrial system, and gradually accumulating domestic production capacity through technology diffusion, talent cultivation, and enterprise collaboration, thereby turning external resources into part of a “capacity-building mechanism.” Entering the New Era, in the face of severe and complex domestic and international circumstances, the Communist Party of China, as the supreme political leadership force, has insisted on placing national and ethnic development on the basis of its own strength, scientifically formulating and successively implementing five-year plans, while continuously expanding high-standard opening up, promoting the construction of a new development pattern, advancing high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening, resolutely safeguarding national economic security, and successfully advancing and expanding Chinese-path modernization. At the same time, through continuous theoretical innovation and breakthroughs, it has preliminarily constructed a theoretical system for Chinese-path modernization, providing scientific guidance for comprehensively advancing the building of a strong country and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese-path modernization. Chinese-path modernization works and is stable not only because of “what has been done,” but more importantly because of “why it can be continuously accomplished.” The most crucial factor is that China possesses a stable and strong political leadership force capable of effectively handling the relationship between independence and self-reliance on the one hand and opening up to the outside world on the other, thereby enabling development goals to maintain continuous advancement along the timeline and achieve vertical integration in spatial structure.

回顾中国的现代化发展历程，近代以来，中国同样经历过被动卷入现代世界体系所带来的发展断裂。新中国成立之初，现代工业基础几乎是空白，现代化起点极低。面对这样的困境，中国共产党领导下的新中国，坚持独立自主的根本原则，保持战略定力和耐心，通过持续实施五年规划（计划），确保国家长期发展愿景的坚定性和分步骤落实推进的务实性，从根本上建立起国家发展的物质基础与技术能力。在对外开放中，中国始终坚持“以我为主、为我所用”原则，通过制度安排引导资本、技术与管理经验服务本国产业体系成长，通过技术扩散、人才培养与企业协作逐步积淀本国生产能力，从而使外部资源成为“能力生成机制”的一部分。进入新时代，面对严峻复杂的国内外形势，作为最高政治领导力量的中国共产党，坚持把国家和民族发展放在自己力量的基点上，科学制定和接续实施五年规划，在持续扩大高水平对外开放的同时，推动构建新发展格局，推进高水平科技自立自强，坚决维护国家经济安全，成功推进和拓展了中国式现代化。同时，在理论上不断创新突破，初步构建中国式现代化理论体系，为以中国式现代化全面推进强国建设、民族复兴伟业提供了科学指引。中国式现代化走得通、行得稳，不只在于“做了什么”，更在于“为什么能够持续做成”，最重要的就是中国具有稳定的坚强的政治领导力量，能够有效处理好独立自主与对外开放的关系，从而使发展目标能够在时间轴上保持连续推进，在空间结构上实现上下贯通。

Currently, Africa is also experiencing a new awakening, steadily advancing toward the modernization goals depicted by the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Based on the authors’ nearly two decades of grassroots cooperation practice in Tanzania, African countries’ willingness to “look east” is growing increasingly strong. Many countries, through the reshaping of their national administrative management systems, the launch of national five-year plans, and the continuous selection and dispatch of young students, senior technical and management experts to China for study and training, are hoping to explore an effective path to modernization suitable for the African region by drawing on China’s experience. In the authors’ view, the successful practice of Chinese-path modernization provides useful experience and inspiration for African countries to escape development difficulties and move toward modernization.

当前，非洲也正经历新的觉醒，朝着非盟《2063年议程》描绘的现代化目标稳步迈进。根据笔者在坦桑尼亚近20年的基层合作实践感受，非洲国家“向东看”的意愿日益强烈。不少国家正通过国家行政管理体系的重塑、国家五年规划的启动，以及持续选派青年学生、高级技术和管理专家来中国留学与培训，期盼在借鉴中国经验中探索出一条适合非洲地区的有效现代化路径。在笔者看来，中国式现代化的成功实践为非洲国家走出发展困境、走向现代化提供了有益的经验启示。

First, ensure development autonomy, and continuously advance the modernization process through independence and self-reliance. The modernization of late-developing countries takes place within a world system dominated by capitalism. Without an independent and self-reliant development will, it is easy to form a dependent development on the external system, which is repeatedly interrupted amid fluctuations in the global system. Under such conditions, advancing modernization requires first solving not the problem of speed, but the problem of autonomy. For Africa today, possessing development autonomy means having the ability to maintain policy continuity and economic resilience amid global uncertainty. Currently, it is particularly necessary to promote the formation of autonomous development capacity from the following aspects: First, treat “foundational capacities” such as basic industries and infrastructure as cross-cycle objectives, avoiding growth that remains long-term dependent on a few bulk commodities or a single sector reliant on external markets. Second, stabilize the basic framework of fiscal and public services, so that policies are not frequently interrupted by cycles of international capital flows. Third, form more stable demand and division-of-labor networks within regional integration and the cultivation of domestic markets, transforming the pressure from external shocks more into momentum for internal structural adjustment. Currently, the advancing African Continental Free Trade Area provides such “autonomous space,” and the integration of African regional markets is moving from political commitment to institutionalized advancement.

一是确保发展自主性，以独立自主持续推进现代化进程。后发国家的现代化是在资本主义主导的世界体系中进行的，没有独立自主的发展意志，很容易形成对外部体系的依附性发展，在全球体系波动中反复中断。在这样的条件下推进现代化，首先需要解决的不是速度问题，而是自主性问题。对当下非洲而言，拥有发展自主性意味着在全球不确定性中具备保持政策连续性与经济韧性的能力。当前尤其需要从以下方面着手推进自主发展能力的形成：第一，把基础产业与基础设施等“底座能力”作为跨周期目标，避免增长长期停留在依靠外部市场的少数大宗商品或单一部门上。第二，稳住财政与公共服务的基本盘，使政策不被国际资本流动周期频繁打断。第三，在区域一体化与国内市场培育中形成更稳定的需求与分工网络，把外部冲击的压力更多转化为内部结构调整的动力。当前，不断推进的非洲大陆自贸区就提供了这种“自主空间”，非洲区域市场整合正在从政治承诺走向制度化推进。

Second, focus on strengthening strategic coordination, promoting the formation of synergy among politics, economy, and society. As a cross-generational, cross-regional, and cross-class systematic project, modernization, if lacking stable and continuous leadership, is prone to repeated vacillation amid policy changes, interest conflicts, and social differentiation. As late-developing economies, the construction of strategic coordination capacity is crucial for African countries, so that under conditions of diverse social structures and coexisting multiple external projects, it is possible to combine national goals, policy tools, and social mobilization into a unified force, reduce fragmentation, and form mechanisms that make development strategies executable, feedback-capable, and correctable. Africa is one of the youngest continents in the world, with huge potential for future growth in the labor force population, but whether this can be transformed into a demographic dividend depends on education, skills, and job creation. Therefore, the future focus of strategic coordination can be more specific and pragmatic. First, place employment and industrial policy in a more central position, creating sustainable jobs through infrastructure, agricultural modernization, urban service industries, and manufacturing support. Second, establish more stable cross-departmental coordination mechanisms within the national planning system, linking education, skills, industry, finance, and local governance, avoiding “each doing its own thing.” Third, strengthen executable policy feedback mechanisms, allowing resource allocation to be dynamically adjusted as realities change. The key here is not to pursue convergence in institutional forms, but to enhance a governance capacity that can organize diverse social forces and move policies from text to action.

二是着力加强战略统筹，推动形成政治、经济与社会合力。现代化作为一项跨代际、跨区域、跨阶层的系统工程，如果缺乏稳定而连续的领导力量，就容易在政策更替、利益博弈与社会分化中反复摇摆。作为后发经济体，战略统筹能力建设对非洲国家至关重要，这样才可能在多元社会结构与多源外部项目并存的条件下，把国家目标、政策工具与社会动员拧成合力，减少碎片化，形成让发展战略具备可执行、可反馈、可纠偏的机制。非洲是全球最年轻的大陆之一，未来劳动力人口增长潜力巨大，但能否转化为人口红利则取决于教育、技能与就业创造。因此，战略统筹的未来着力点可以更具体、更务实。第一，把就业与产业政策放在更核心的位置，通过基础设施、农业现代化、城市服务业与制造业配套共同创造可持续就业岗位。第二，在国家规划体系内建立更稳定的跨部门协同机制，把教育、技能、产业、金融与地方治理联动起来，避免“各做各的”。第三，强化可执行的政策反馈机制，让资源配置能随现实变化动态调整。这里的关键并非追求制度形式趋同，而是增强一种能把多元社会力量组织起来、把政策从文本推向行动的治理能力。

Third, achieve creative transformation, activating endogenous momentum through external cooperation. In the context of globalization, modernization cannot advance in isolation from the external system. Currently, African countries face multiple challenges in the integrated construction of key sectors such as energy, infrastructure, and industrial chains. Addressing these challenges and promoting development are inseparable from deep cooperation with the outside world. However, if external cooperation remains only within the scope of “project delivery” and “aid,” it will be difficult for African countries to form long-term production capacity and development resilience. If “embedded design” can be carried out around local electricity supply, industrial support, operation and maintenance systems, and talent cultivation, cooperation is more likely to be transformed into endogenous growth momentum. This requires African countries to effectively align the introduction of capital and technology transformation with local institutional construction, avoiding the hollowing out of capacity once projects end. At the same time, financing structures and revenue mechanisms should be designed to be more sustainable, promoting a closed loop among debt, cash flow, and public service provision, reducing vulnerability to fluctuations in external interest rates and exchange rates. Finally, within the framework of regional integration, promote industrial chain collaboration and local market expansion, so that when external trade rules change, a relatively strong internal room for maneuver can still be maintained. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in its *Economic Development in Africa Report 2024*, also emphasizes that Africa needs to strengthen regional markets and enhance economic resilience, which is highly consistent with the logic of transforming external resources into endogenous capacity.

三是实现创造性转化，以对外合作激活内生动力。在全球化背景下，现代化不可能脱离外部体系而孤立推进。当前，非洲国家在能源、基础设施与产业链等关键行业一体化建设方面面临多重挑战。应对这些挑战和促进发展，都离不开与外部的深度合作。但外部合作若仅停留在“交付项目”与“援助”范畴，非洲国家就很难形成长期生产能力与发展韧性。如果能围绕本地电力供给、产业配套、运维体系与人才培养进行“嵌入式设计”，合作就更可能转化为内生增长动能。这就要求非洲国家要把引进资金、技术转化与本土制度建设等有效对接，避免项目结束即能力空心化。同时，要把融资结构与收益机制设计得更可持续，推动债务、现金流与公共服务供给形成闭环，降低外部利率与汇率波动带来的脆弱性。最后，在区域一体化框架下推动产业链协作与本地市场扩容，使外部贸易规则变化时仍能保持较强的内部回旋空间。联合国贸易和发展会议在《2024年非洲经济发展报告》中也强调，非洲需强化区域市场、提升经济韧性，这与把外部资源转化为内生能力的逻辑高度一致。

In summary, looking to the future, the key to Africa’s modernization lies not in copying existing experiences and paths, but in drawing on the experiences of other countries to form a development model suited to its own realities. The successful practice of Chinese-path modernization has boosted the confidence of developing countries in achieving national prosperity and strength, expanded the pathways of modernization, and provided experience and reference for those countries and nations in the world that both hope to accelerate development and maintain their own independence, to follow a development path suited to their national conditions. At this important historical juncture marking the 70th anniversary of the official establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Africa, the deepening interaction between China and Africa through development cooperation and mutual learning among civilizations will surely open up new practical space for the modernization process of the Global South.

总而言之，面向未来，非洲现代化的关键不在于复制既有经验与路径，而在于借鉴他国经验形成符合自身实际的发展模式。中国式现代化的成功实践提振了发展中国家实现国强民富的信心，拓展了现代化的途径，为世界上那些既希望加快发展又希望保持自身独立性的国家和民族，走符合本国国情的发展道路提供了经验和借鉴。在中非正式开启外交关系70周年这一重要历史节点上，中非双方通过发展合作与文明互鉴不断深化互动，必将为全球南方现代化进程开辟新的实践空间。

Authors: Professors at China Agricultural University

作者：中国农业大学教授