Dlamini-Zuma to open UCTs China-Africa colloquium

Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chair of the African Union Commission, will deliver the keynote address at the opening of the China-Africa Colloquium at UCT from 21 to 22 May.

The colloquium will discuss and reflect on the Sino-Africa relationship. This is significant for the country because 2015 is the Year of China in South Africa.

Prominent speakers will include Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price; Kgalema Mothlante, South Africa's former president and deputy president; Tian Xuejun, China's ambassador to South Africa; Dr Said Adejumobi, director of the Sub-Regional Office for Southern Africa for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa; and Professor Ben Turok, director of the Institute for African Alternatives; Rob Davies, Minister of Trade and Industry; and Professor Shi Yinhong, counsellor, Chinese State Department, Renmin University.

Among the invited speakers will be academics from China and Africa as well as representatives of Confucius Institutes across the continent.

Organised by the International Academic Programmes Office, it will be hosted as a partnership between the Confucius Institute at UCT, the Centre for African Studies, the Institute for African Alternatives and is being supported by the Hanban, the Confucius Institute headquarters in China.

The colloquium "headlines" UCT's Africa Month celebrations. These have been part of the university's calendar since 2012 and rose out of the Africa Union's (formerly the Organisation of African Unity) establishment of 25 May as Africa Day.

Each year UCT uses the occasion of Africa Month to showcase teaching, learning and research opportunities available here.

One of the signature events of Africa Month is the Big Debate, through which contemporary African issues are discussed and the papers presented are published in The Africa Series. This year the debate takes the form of a colloquium.

UCT's own Confucius Institute celebrates its fifth birthday in October. With China's star rising in Africa, there are now 42 institutes on the continent. South Africa has the largest number with institutes also hosted at the Universities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, and at Rhodes, Stellenbosch, and the Durban University of Technology.

The two-day events will be held in the Jameson Hall (first day) and the Robert Leslie Social Sciences Building. It is viewed as an opportunity to deepen UCT's Afropolitan vision by providing space and opportunity to get to grips with the way China is shaping the continent's future.

Members of the broader UCT community who wish to attend may RSVP.

Staff reporter. Image supplied.