A China-Africa Trade Expo in Hunan Province — Why It Matters to Australia

Recently, CAETE-linked events have been held beyond Hunan too, in both other provinces in China and African countries. The first such CAETE-linked event held outside of China took place in May 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya. In November 2024 a CAETE-linked event, the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo (Nigeria) Special Event, was held in Nigeria's capital Abuja. Within China and outside of Hunan Province, a CAETE (Hubei) Special Promotion Conference was held in late 2024 in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province (neighbouring Hunan). These events signal a relatively centralised agenda to drive newly elevated China-Africa trade and investment ties.

What’s on the Agenda for CAETE 2025?

The theme for this year's core and biennial CAETE event in Changsha, Hunan Province, is "China and Africa together toward modernization". Areas in focus are aligned to the China-Africa "Ten Action Plans" including cultural and people-to-people exchange, trade, industrial cooperation, connectivity, health, agriculture, green development and security that link to goals agreed through FOCAC. In a signal of the emphasis on green development goals and industries, this year's event itself will be powered by renewables and is branded as a "zero carbon exhibition".

According to media reports, one of the focal points of this event is to emphasise new areas of exchange and services. Hence, there will be a "China-Africa Fashion Industry Pavilion" for the first time, as well as emphasis on finance. Financial institutions with elevated engagement in this year's event include the Bank of Communications, Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China(ICBC), the Agricultural Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China and the Hunan Construction Investment Group. Among 11 designated service providers, at least one is reported to be African, being Kenya Airways, according to Chinese media.

In line with Hunan Province being the heartland of China's electric transportation competitiveness, new energy transportation and green energy development in general is also in focus. For example, Zanmei Automobile Co., a Chinese new energy vehicle and tech company, promises to launch two new products at this week's CAETE, one being a new energy vehicle and the other a remanufactured new energy vehicle. Zanmei's name in Chinese has resonance in interpretation as meaning "beautiful Zambia automobile company", and is a company specialising in launching knock-down assembly factories in Africa, notably in Ethiopia.

According to media reports of a Hunan Province press event on the topic of the 2025 CAETE biennial trade expo, some 28,000 people are registered to attend and participate in the event, representing 48 African countries alongside most provinces and autonomous regions of China and including more than 4,700 Chinese and African enterprises. Business associations and international organisations will be participating too, including the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, the African Union Commission, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and the East African Community. The press event informed that it is expected that 199 projects to a value of US$16 billion will be signed, and 295 collaborative projects will be agreed and other achievements announced.

Is there a strategic reason Hunan Province plays host to CAETE? 

The launch of a China-Africa trade expo, promised by Xi in 2018 and now established in Hunan Province, marks the beginning of a new flagship era for the province in fostering deeper economic and trade ties between China and Africa. This relates to the fact that a second national flagship Africa-oriented agenda has since landed in the province, the other being the China-Africa Economic and Trade Deep Cooperation Pilot Zone (the Zone).

The Zone was approved by China's State Council, the highest organ of state administration and the executive body of the National People's Congress, in January 2024, and is a high-level platform for fostering trade, investment and industrial cooperation between China and Africa. It covers an area of 119.76sq km across three locations that foster trade facilitation solutions and lower-cost transportation and trade corridors linking landlocked Hunan with the rest of China and the world.

The operational focus and structure of the Zone is of "one core, three areas and five functional clusters" (Figure 2). In general, the Zone is an all-out effort to surmount trade barriers such as finance (including currency-related issues), law, IT and human capital constraints, between China and Africa. The three "functional areas" (Figure 2) offer an all-out trade logistics offensive to open all corridors of trade – air, river, road and sea. The Changsha Free Trade Zone, for example, is the hub for receiving a rising array of agricultural goods from Africa for processing and consumption in China. As one of China's food production heartlands the province is home to related distribution and processing networks and opportunities.

From an industry perspective, the five functional clusters highlight not only to the intended areas of industrialisation focus between China and Africa (alongside a parallel agricultural trade focus), but also to Hunan's industrial strengths. Hunan is not only a hub for green transportation, including automobiles (BYD's headquarters) and electric trains (a national cluster in Zhuzhou), but also for heavy and construction industry machinery (global giant Sany calls the province home) and minerals processing and agri-tech. This relates not only to mineral deposits in the town, but also the ample water supplies making the area an ancient food production and trading heartland, akin to the Nile Valley in Africa.

In the global development context, the choice of Hunan may also relate to its legacy within China. First, China itself solved its hunger issues thanks to a green revolution built on elevated grain productivity innovation (hybrid seeds) in Hunan. More recently, President Xi had the idea for China's targeted poverty alleviation agenda on a 2013 visit to Hunan. That targeted (or precision) poverty alleviation agenda over the 2010s is credited with the "Last Mile" and hardest mile of absolute poverty eradication in China. By more deeply linking Hunan Province with China's economic growth and development ties with Africa, it may be intended also to build on this unique legacy in Hunan of alleviating hunger and extreme poverty, given the significance of these ambitions in parts of Africa today. This prospective and relatively comprehensive agenda has been called the "Hunan Model".

What is the significance for Australia and how might policymakers respond?

Australia's closest answer to CAETE and China's flagship and concentrated Africa-focused efforts in Hunan Province, is "Africa Down Under" (ADU). ADU is held in Perth the first week of September annually, has a focus on mining and energy, and is the leading forum for Australia-African business and government relations. Since other Africa-focused activities have emerged around ADU since it began in 2003, there is now also a notion of the first week of September in Perth being Australia's "Africa Week". But neither Perth nor anywhere else in Australia has a policy initiative at all comparable with the efforts happening in Hunan Province.

On the one hand, Australia has no case to respond to events in Hunan Province. Australia is not an economy the size of China's, while Hunan Province alone is home to almost three times as many residents as Australia, or some 66 million people. On the other, this analysis suggests that the pull of economic opportunity between China and Africa at a time of the push of a trade war with China's biggest trade partner, the United States, seems to be giving striking new impetus to China's interest in deepening ties with African markets. And since that trade and investment agenda is likely to deeply intersect the industries that characterise Australia-China trade and investment, it appears timely for Australia to evolve its own multi-continental response to China's "Hunan Model".

Australia could also respond by learning from how other countries are responding. For example, in July 2024, the "German Small and Medium Enterprises Cluster Zone (Hunan)" was inaugurated at the Zurbrüggen Headquarters in Hunan Xiangjiang New Area as a collaboration between Germany and Hunan Province. Reflecting that both Germany and Hunan Province have deep competitive advantages in transportation, construction and machinery manufacture, the zone has a focus on advanced manufacturing and R&D, aiming to forge new partnerships in related industries. It is unclear whether the zone is intended to, or ultimately will, result in partnerships in third markets such as Africa. Nonetheless, Germany's new zone in Hunan is a demonstration of elevated and proactive external economic interest in the province.

Bigger questions for Australia also arise out of China's "Hunan Model". First, how might deepening China-Africa relations affect Australia's commodity markets and industries? Second, how will China-Africa ties potentially shape Africa-Australia relations, and how should Australia respond to any such projections? Given these considerations, should Australian interests engage more directly with China's "Hunan Model"?

Regardless, it would be prudent for Perth's Africa-focused communities – and Australians more broadly – to monitor the outcomes of this week's CAETE event and the ongoing developments between Africa and Hunan. The Prime Minister will visit both China and Africa later this year. As many African Ministers and officials meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and others in Changsha this week, it is hoped that Prime Minister Albanese will consider the nation's strategic response to the "Hunan Model" before he leaves for these visits.