BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) — This year marks the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of diplomatic relations between China and African countries. Over the past 50 years, China and Africa have become all-weather friends, partners of sincere cooperation, and good brothers, with the two peoples forging a profound relationship, and bilateral ties achieving great successes.    The Beijing summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), scheduled for Nov. 3-5, will be the highest-level and the largest meeting between Chinese and African leaders since China and African countries started to forge cooperative ties in the 1950s.

    Over the past five decades, the relations between China and African countries have become closer and closer, with the two sides understanding, supporting and helping each other. Forty-eight out of the continent’s 53 countries have established diplomatic ties with China so far.

    Since late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai’s three visits to Africa in the 1960s, there have been over 800 exchanges of visits between senior Chinese and African leaders.

    In the first half of this year, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao paid friendly visits to 10 African countries, injecting new dynamism into the China-Africa relations.

Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-11/01/content_5273962.htm