2024’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) takes place against the backdrop of two significant trends. First, the role of the Global South, and debate over whether China should be considered a part of it, has become a more prominent question amidst escalating U.S.-China tensions and an increasingly pronounced North-South split around issues like the conflict in Gaza.

Second, the continent is becoming increasingly cynical about so-called “Africa Plus One” summits. FOCAC wasn’t the first of these summits. France arguably coined the concept, and Japan’s Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), in many ways, set the template for FOCAC.