To lobby for a lion’s share of projects in railways, highways, ports and power.

China is set to expand investments in Africa that would help absorb its excess manufacturing capacity as part of an effort to re-engage with the continent and integrate it within its Belt and Road connectivity framework.

In tune with the meeting in Johannesburg, of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which President Xi Jinping and his South African counterpart, Jacob Zuma are co-chairing, China, has elaborated on its collective approach towards Africa. The two-day summit starts on December 4.

The summit, in which over 50 African countries are participating, is also expected to unveil the contours of China’s security partnership with Africa, focused on counter-terrorism, peacekeeping and funding to train troops within the framework of the African Union (AU).

Analysts say that resource-rich Africa has become yet another battleground for influence between Washington and Beijing, following the establishment of the U.S. Africa Command. China has also declared that it has established a logistics base in Djibouti — a move that critics say is a cover for a military base in Africa.

On Friday, President Xi announced a $ 60-billion-dollar package that will benefit Africa in 10 major areas: industry, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services, green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty reduction and public welfare, public health, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security.

Analysts point out that the offer out-scales the $40 billion Silk Road fund that China has offered for Asia’s infrastructure development. Ahead of the summit, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi had announced food security, public health and sas priority areas that would be discussed during the summit.

Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng wrote in an article published in the State-run People’s Daily on Friday that Chinese companies are being encouraged to invest heavily in steel, construction materials, cement and glass. China has developed enormous overcapacity in these areas, as domestic demand has dropped drastically on account of the slowdown in the real estate sector, and exports have slid because of a tepid international market. Mr. Gao also stressed that e-commerce, new energy and finance and push for a more active role in Africa’s aviation and tourism sectors — areas of growing Chinese strengths — will be priority sectors in the future. China’s Alibaba group, led by Jack Ma has already become a world leader in the e-commerce segment.

With its well-established clout in infrastructure development, the Chinese are set to lobby strongly for a lion’s share in Africa’s growing appetite for railways, highways, ports and power. This is likely to lead to a surge in Chinese direct investment which had already scaled $30 billion last year. Trade had also zoomed to $220 billion — Africa’s highest with any single country — though this could taper somewhat as China’s thirst for raw materials recedes following the economic downturn, and its tighter focus on investments in Africa.

In the bigger picture, the Chinese want to harmonise Africa’s Agenda 2063 — a 50 year developmental framework drawn by the African Union — with China’s Belt and Road blueprint of connecting Eurasia with roads, railways, cyber-optic highways, industrial parks and smart cities.

Analysts say that Chinese companies could find further opportunities in Africa’s North-South Corridor, which stretches from Durban in South Africa to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. In between it passes through eight countries in eastern and southern Africa: Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

President Xi’s participation in FOCAC is expected to yield substantial security dividends. Mr. Wang, the foreign minister, has pointed out that China and Africa will “strengthen cooperation in fighting terrorism and extremism” — a decision that has been steeled following the recent killing on three Chinese engineers and technicians in Mali.

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Syrian President says his country is ready to share intelligence with France, but only if Paris changed its policy toward Syria.

Russia and China have stepped up their campaign to form a unified international front to counter terrorism following the bloodbath in Paris and the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt.

Liu Jieyi, China’s permanent representative to the UN, during a Security Council debate, exhorted “concerned parties” to form a “unified front” to defeat terrorism.

Mr. Liu was amplifying a Chinese position, which had been flagged by President Xi Jinping during a meeting of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Antalya, Turkey.

Xu Qiliang, Vice-Chairman of China's Central Military Commission, on a visit to Moscow, has underscored Beijing’s willingness to work with Moscow to protect “mutual interests and regional as well as world stability”, Xinhua reported.

Gen. Xu asserted that China “strongly condemns the inhuman actions of terrorists” in connection with the Russian A321 plane crash in Egypt on October 31.

Russian-French cooperation

The Russians have already energised their diplomacy to form a “unified front” by their bid to rope in France as a partner in the air campaign in Syria, which targets the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) – the alleged perpetrator of the Paris horror. The ISIS is also the prime suspect in the crash of the Russian passenger airliner.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already ordered Russian sailors, on board the cruiser Moskva, to establish a direct contact with a French aircraft carrier, following a telephone conversation with President Francois Hollande, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.

The French task force in the Mediterranean, where the Moskva is already deployed, will be led by the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle. The Kremlin press service reported that the Russian and French Presidents focused on building bilateral and multilateral cooperation to counter international terrorism following the terror strikes in Paris and the attack on the Russian plane. The Russian Foreign Ministry had earlier called for the finalisation of the draft UNSC resolution “on forming a broad anti-terrorist front”. Mr. Hollande is now set to meet President Putin in Moscow on November 26 — a move that is likely to focus on a joint anti-IS campaign.

French participation in coordination with Moscow, if it materialises, would mean the first NATO country joining the expansion of an anti-IS front in Syria, which has so far included Russia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanese Hezbollah and Syrian army troops.

Analysts say strengthening the anti-IS combine, with French support, would mean that the “regime change” policy pursued by the West in Syria since 2011 could be reaching yet another defining moment.

In Damascus, Syrian President said his country is ready to share intelligence with France, but only if Paris changed its policy toward Syria.

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China is expected to convey in detail its perception about disputed maritime boundaries in the South China Sea during the visit of a top military official who left Beijing on Wednesday for Pakistan and India.

General Fan Changlong, Vice-Chairman of China’s powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) is accompanied with Admiral Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of general staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and Zhu Fuxi, political commissar of the PLA Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC).

The presence of Admiral Sun in the delegation is widely seen as a pointer that the South China Sea dispute — highlighted recently by a U.S. naval patrol within 12 nautical miles of the Zhubi Reef, over which China exercises sovereignty — is likely to be one of the focal points, when talks get under way in New Delhi. China Military Online, a website run by the PLA, pointed out that Admiral Sun was part of the entourage of President Xi Jinping during his recent visit to Vietnam.

The website observed that Admiral Sun, has on several occasions, been an exponent of China’s stance on the South China Sea disputes. Beijing’s position that the U-shaped nine-dash-line defines its boundaries in the South China Sea has been contested by Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Philippines and Brunei.

India has been gradually amplifying its pitch on the South China Sea issue. Speaking earlier this month at a ASEAN security conference in Kuala Lumpur, defence minister Manohar Parrikar backed the legitimacy of freedom of navigation concerns in the South China Sea — a pet theme of the United States — but fused it with an early conclusion of a Code of Conduct (COC), of which China has been a strong advocate.

The article quoting a military officer observed that Admiral Sun “is responsible for the military’s foreign affairs, so he is often in the delegation of high-level foreign visits”.

His position as a naval officer “has advantages when it comes to maritime issues”. It added that the Chinese Navy has carried out escort missions in the Indian Ocean in recent years and its communication with Pakistan and India has increased.

The write-up stressed that Gen. Fan’s visit is part of escalating military diplomacy by the PLA in “surrounding countries.”

On Tuesday, Wu Shengli, a CMC member and commander of the PLA Navy, left Beijing on an official visit to Malaysia, Indonesia and Maldives, where the South China Sea issue is expected to feature on the agenda.

“He might discuss with relevant countries about the South China Sea issue, and will urge them to properly handle and manage maritime disputes without affecting the bilateral friendly cooperation,” said Zhang Junshe, a senior researcher at the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute. The presence of Zhu Fuxi in the delegation signals that enhancing stability on the borders is likely to be among the talking points in New Delhi. During last month’s Sino-Indian counterterrorism exercise in Kunming, military commanders from the two countries decided to step up humanitarian relief and disaster management, in view of recent earthquake in Nepal and in anticipation of possible joint collaboration that may be required along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), whose segments fall within a vulnerable seismic zone.

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Amid much fanfare on live national television, China on Monday rolled its first homegrown large passenger jet off the production line in Shanghai, vowing to challenge the dominance of Airbus and Boeing in the global commercial aviation market.

At the ceremony, a shiny C919 -- sporting a largely white fuselage with a blue wavy stripe and a green tail -- was towed beneath a banner with the phrase "a dream takes off" and past a huge Chinese national flag.

The C919 -- a twin-engine, narrow-body aircraft seating up to 174 people -- is similar in size to the Airbus 320 and Boeing 737 series of jets, long the workhorses for airlines around the world.

With a flying range of up to 5,555 kilometers (3,451 miles), it is designed to compete head-to-head with its Airbus and Boeing rivals, and said to easily cover popular business and leisure routes from China such as Shanghai to Singapore and Beijing to Bangkok.

Launched in 2008, the C919 project marks China's return to the business of making large passenger jetliners, after a failed attempt in the 1980s.

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 Come next month, students trying to copy in examinations in China will face a jail term of up to seven years as the government has brought about a new law making cheating a crime. The new law, effective from November 1, will make cheating on major exams in China a crime punishable with a jail sentence. Parents involved will also be seriously punished, according to the law.

The amended criminal law, which will take effect from November 1, stipulates that those who aid in cheating will be sentenced to three to seven years in prison and face penalties, state-run China Radio International reported. The law also stipulates that people trying to impersonate during examinations will be detained by police.

In the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, 14 cases related to exam violations were found in the national college entrance exam last July, including nine cases of cheating.

Previously, college students involved in exam-related fraud were only punished by their universities, through warning, disqualification of their degree or dismissal.

Every year, China mobilises its security forces in a big way to prevent copying specially in the nationwide entrance test Gaokao in which nearly 10 million students took part last year.

The entrance determines the future of education and job opportunities of high school students.

In 2014, public security departments across the country have pressed in drones and exposed cases of producing, selling and using telecom instruments used for copying.

The Ministry of Education last year warned that cheating students would be stripped of the enrollment qualification for a period ranging from one to three years.

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 India has emerged on top of the foreign direct investment league table, overtaking China and the United States, according to the FT data service.

A ranking of the top destinations for greenfield investment (measured by estimated capital expenditure) in the first half of 2015 shows India at number one, having attracted roughly $3 billion more than China and $4 billion more than the US, according to the Financial Times newspaper.



"With midyear data on greenfield FDI now in, 2015 looks to be a milestone year for India following its impressive performance in 2014," the article in FT said quoting fDi Markets, a data service of the FT.

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