Mr. President, 

I thank SRSG François Louncény Fall for his briefing. 

For some time, countries in Central Africa have taken active measures to maintain political stability and restore economic and social development, demonstrating strong resilience and vitality. The stability in Central Africa bears on the overall security in Africa. The UN and the international community should heed the voices of the countries in the region, respect their wishes, support their efforts to strengthen unity and cooperation, and work together towards prosperity and stability in the region. Here China underlines three points. 

First, supporting countries in the region in taking a development path that fits the national conditions. This year, President of the CAR Touadéra announced a unilateral ceasefire and continued to improve the security situation. Chad adopted a transitional roadmap, established transition national institutions and held a national dialogue, making positive progress. The Government of Cameroon adopted important measures in areas such as decentralization, local institutional building, DDR, and culture and education to firmly safeguard national unity and security and stability in southwestern and northwest regions. This clearly shows that only the development path that suits national realities and national historic, cultural, economic and social conditions can truly contribute to stability and development. The importation of democratic transformation, the imposition of development models and frequent pressure will not only fail, but also backfire. Next year, many countries in Central Africa will hold elections. The international community shall respect their sovereignty and ownership, while providing assistance to their elections and encouraging and supporting regional organizations in playing an important role. Some countries turned a blind eye to the efforts and progress made by Burundi in the promotion and protection of human rights, ignored the strong views of the Government of Burundi, and forced it through the establishment of the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burundi to intervene in Burundi's internal affairs. China expresses its strong rejection, and calls on these countries to stop the intervention in Burundi’s internal affairs. 

Second, supporting regional unity and cooperation. We welcome the 19th summit of ECCAS, which has adopted a series of important resolutions to promote regional connectivity, economic and trade integration, and security mechanism building and more. At the same time, it is concerning that ISIS's West Africa Province and other terrorist forces continue to spread in the region, maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea remains a pressing issue, the humanitarian situation in the region has deteriorated, and the number of refugees and displaced people spiked. The international community should support the building of the regional security mechanism, enhance the region's own capacity to maintain stability and counter terrorism and address cross-border challenges such as piracy and drug smuggling in the Gulf of Guinea. We need to help countries in Central Africa to improve their governance capacity, achieve sustainable development, promote social inclusion and cohesion, and remove the soil for extremes forces and terrorism. 

Third, supporting the region’s fight against COVID-19. With the pandemic currently still raging across the world, and the low vaccination rate in the Central African region, we should not underestimate the pandemic’s negative impact on the region’s political, economic and social stability. It is the most pressing issue for countries in the region. The international community should support them in their response to the pandemic, and step up assistance for early and broad access to safe and affordable vaccines. We call on developed countries to effectively honor their ODA commitments, scale up their assistance, activity provider finance, technology and capacity-building support and help countries in the region to eradicate poverty, expand employment and improve livelihoods. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the recent eighth ministerial meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, announced nine projects of practical cooperation with Africa and set out policies and measures such as the provision of one billion doses of vaccines to Africa, promotion of African export to China, debt relief, investment, and the climate response. This will inject new impetus to the pandemic response and post-pandemic recovery for countries in Africa, including those in Central Africa.

Mr. President,

SRSG Fall has led UNOCA to actively carry out its work in close cooperation with ECCAS and in touch with countries in the region, playing an important role. We hope the SRSG will continue to, as mandated by the Council, consider the actual circumstances of the region and wishes of the countries as he provides targeted help to them. China will continue to support your work.

Thank you, Mr. President.