US tariffs impact emerging economies; China-Africa cooperation to strengthen: business leaders

Business representatives attend an investment conference themed "Investing in South Africa to build a high-quality South Africa–China community for shared prosperity in a shared future" in Beijing on May 7, 2025. (Photo/Courtesy of the Embassy of South Africa in China)

While the US-provoked trade war may negatively impact emerging economies like China and Africa, it will also catalyze stronger bilateral cooperation in trade, investment, and key sectors such as manufacturing, green energy, and digital technology, African and Chinese business leaders and experts told the Global Times.

The unilateral measures imposed by the US have a significant impact on South Africa, as the US is one of its major markets for exports such as automobiles, agricultural products and minerals, especially as the automotive sector offers a large number of job opportunities, Lester Bouah, chief director of Investment Mobilisation and head of Energy One Stop Shop at the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, told the Global Times on the sidelines of an investment conference held by the Embassy of South Africa in Beijing on Wednesday.

Under the theme "Investing in South Africa to build a high-quality South Africa-China community for shared prosperity in a shared future," the conference was aimed at highlighting investment opportunities for Chinese investors across various economic sectors, including finance, infrastructure development, agriculture, green manufacturing, energy and mining.

Bouah said that the US tariffs do not advance anybody, and nothing can be gained from the tariffs. "Hopefully the American people will wake up and realize there's something wrong," he said, adding that globalization will not stop.

Under such circumstances, Bouah emphasized importance of the Chinese market for South African goods and services that are seeking to capture the consumption potential of the population of 1.4 billion. He added that the two countries are working on identifying 100 products that Chinese consumers may have an appetite to buy from South Africa.

Apart from trade, South Africa can become the springboard for Chinese investment to enter the sub-Saharan African region, thanks to its banking system, infrastructure, and market, Bouah noted, while highlighting the growing expansion realized from the Belt and Road Initiative.

In terms of future growth points, Bouah hoped to further enhance cooperation in skill and technology sharing in new areas. Taking cooperation in solar and wind as an example, in addition to land investment and plants, Bouah expressed the need to establish the building capacity for component manufacturing, and said that he wished to start manufacturing some products locally and supplying the country as well as the continent.

Bouah also highlighted the cooperation potential in new-energy vehicles along with artificial intelligence, adding that he also uses DeepSeek to facilitate his work more efficiently and effectively.

Meanwhile, Yu Qing, chief investment officer of the China-Africa Development Fund and chief representative of its South Africa representative office, highlighted the consumption potential of the African market to offer growing opportunities for Chinese exports of consumer goods, digital technologies, and infrastructure solutions.

As the global supply chains undergo restructuring, Chinese enterprises are adjusting industrial layouts, opening new avenues for China-Africa industrial cooperation, particularly in labor-intensive sectors like textiles, electronics assembly, and automotive components, Yu told the Global Times.

Yu also noted that African nations are increasingly incorporating the Chinese yuan into their foreign exchange reserves amid the steady progress of the yuan's internationalization. Chinese companies are adopting the yuan more widely in economic and trade exchanges with Africa, significantly reducing exchange rate risks and transaction costs, he said.

Yu noted that Africa has the potential to emerge as a new destination for global manufacturing relocation, driven by its demographic dividends, urbanization, policy incentives, and regional integration. When it comes to the prospects for collaborative manufacturing between China and Africa, Yu said that it goes beyond mere relocation of production capacity, but focuses on technology transfer, localized operations, and industrial chain collaboration to help Africa build sustainable industrial systems.

Speaking on the specific fields in Africa that could be the most promising growth areas for Chinese investment in the future, Yu said that traditional sectors such as infrastructure, manufacturing, and agriculture will remain key investment priorities for China in Africa, and sectors from green energy, healthcare, data centers and cloud computing, fintech, to the blue economy will emerge as new engines driving collaborative development between China and Africa.

Upholding rules-based system

During the interview, Bouah stressed the importance of having a rules-based system, adding that the absence of a rules-based system disproportionately affects developing countries. He noted that countries, particularly emerging economies like the BRICS, should work together and utilize multilateral mechanisms such as the UN and the WTO to respond to these unilateral tariffs imposed globally and focus on the rules-based system.

Bouah said that BRICS can look at ways of interacting with each other, such as by using local currencies for payments. He emphasized the importance of talking to the partners, especially following the BRICS expansion.

For Africa's future development, strengthening China-Africa collaboration and enhancing cooperation among Global South nations, particularly through platforms like the BRICS mechanism, would be of great importance, Song Wei, a professor at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Mutually beneficial partnerships rooted in self-reliance among Global South countries represent a critical opportunity for Africa. On the one hand, BRICS nations can address economic challenges by deepening trade and investment ties. On the other hand, innovative policy tools - such as local currency settlement systems and trade facilitation measures - will further consolidate cooperation within the bloc, Song said.

The meeting of BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs/International Relations was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from April 28 to 29, which articulated a BRICS voice of supporting multilateralism, upholding the multilateral trading system, and opposing unilateral bullying, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on April 30.

Guo said that all parties voiced serious concerns about the rise of unilateral protectionist measures, including indiscriminate raising of reciprocal tariffs and non-tariff measures. They warned that such measures disrupt global supply chains and bring more uncertainty to the global economy, and called upon all sides to take measures to defend free trade and the multilateral trading system.