With its streets and lanes decked with lanterns and colorful streamers and the whole city beaming under the golden autumn sunshine, the people of Beijing are joyfully rolling out the red carpet in a festive mood for the African friends coming to attend the upcoming Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation . Whenever the China-Africa relationship is brought up in a conversation, the term of "all-weather friends" will come up naturally, be they government officials, experts, scholars or ordinary civilians.

　　In the past half-century, China and the African countries stood the test of changes of years, evolution of era, and the constant flux of international situation. And yet, they have kept all along the "all weather friends, sincerely cooperative partners and brotherly relationship". How on earth could this happen?

　　Soumana Sako, the executive secretary of the African Capacity Building Foundation, also former prime minister of Mali, came up with the brilliant answer: Most African states have noticed that China respects other countries' sovereignty and allows others to be the master of their own destiny and economic policies. China has no interest to impose its own way of doing things upon others. Facts have vindicated that China holds Africa and the governments of African countries in high esteem, and supports Africa by way of positive encouragement instead of resorting to heavy-handed practice or punitive actions in dealing with Africa.

　　In the past half-century, China has all along stood on the side of the African people unswervingly and administered moral support and rendered material support to the broad African countries in their arduous struggles of casting off the colonial rule and in their strive for national liberation. After African countries achieved independence, China, as always, throws its weight behind the African states' commitment to safeguard their own sovereignty, to uphold their national independence and develop their national economies, and thereby, has made its own contributions to the political stability and economic and social progresses of Africa.

　　African countries, in turn, have rendered great and precious supports to China too. The African friends made great contributions to the restoration of the legal seat to the Peoples Republic of China in the UN and provided strong support to China in its effort to foil the Western powers' anti-China draft resolutions at the human rights conferences. Most of African countries adhere to the one-China principle and assist China to thwart Taiwan's conspiracy of "joining in the UN" and squeezing into the WHO and other international organizations. On top of that, the African friends also deserve considerable credit for China's success in its bid to hold the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2010 World Exp.

　　China stands out to be the largest developing country and Africa is a continent where more developing countries are located. Under the new situation, the common interests shared by China and the African countries are mounting instead of waning, and the potential of cooperation between them is swelling instead of shrinking. It is China's long-term strategic choice to deepen all-roundly the friendly cooperative relations between China and Africa, which likewise spells the inevitable course leading to common development and prosperity of China and Africa in the new century. It has become the common understanding of the Chinese and African leaders to pool their efforts and to join hands to boost the China-Africa relations up to a new rung, in which also rests the fundamental reason for the successful opening of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

　　By Li Donghang

　　(Nov.3, PLA Daily)