China’s relationship with Africa can be traced back to Zheng He’s voyages to East Africa in the Ming Dynasty where gold, porcelain, and silk were exchanged for animals such as ostriches and zebras and ivory.

 

These ancient trading ports will serve as eastern African anchors for the new Silk Road. 

 

Egypt will serve as its northern anchor with the New Cairo to be bigger than Madrid and fibre-optic telecommunications and renewable energy will stretch from there to South Africa to help support the introduction of 5G already being piloted in places such as Gabon.

 

Smart cities are also being built by Huawei and Cloudwalk in Zimbabwe and Kenya for example as Africa adopts AI. 

 

More than 10 SEZs hosting industrial parks have been established already in each of Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Zambia, Namibia, and Mauritius. 

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China by September 2018 had constructed over 10,000 km of African railways and new rail infrastructure in the form of the East African Railway as well as the Abuja-Kudana Railway in Nigeria for example will continue to cover the continent as well as high-speed rail connecting Africa’s eastern and western coastlines in under 20 hours. 

 

Africa is the globe’s youngest region and will have a majority of the world’s population by 2100 facilitating Nigeria and Egypt becoming the world's fifth and seventh largest economies (GDP) by 2075.