Belt and Road in Africa: Can western join in to make it benign influence?
 One can take a benign view of the British Empire, though few do today. The same goes for China's Belt and Road initiative, ostensibly conceived to shore up infrastructure gaps worldwide but mostly along the old trading route from Asia to Europe.
But just as one can cast a forensic eye on the British Empire, and its later incarnation, the Pax Americana, one also be suspicious of ulterior motives behind China's Belt and Road imitative, particularly in Africa.
On one hand Belt and Road can be viewed as an effort, guided by reasonable and legitimate self-interest, to fix broken infrastructure, roads, bridges, tunnels and the like, to ease the sale of Chinese manufacturers and facilitate the import of natural resources. Alternately, it can be regarded as a tactical stab at global hegemony, which is the way the US sees it. The fact that China's President for Life Xi Jinping says that he thinks it perfectly reasonable to have China replace the "Pax Americana" in precisely those terms, lends credence to the less benign view.
China’s US$1 trillion global plan for infrastructure projects and trade deals connecting Africa, Asia and Europe. This project, touching 68 countries, would link China’s people and markets to regions far beyond their borders.
But the project also conjures images of China playing a neo-colonial role, pillaging natural resources and enabling dictators across Africa to exchange UN votes for soft financing.
With that caveat, let us now to proceed to the more benign view that is fully supported by Janet Eom of the China-Africa Research Initiative at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, in Baltimore.
Ms Eom says her research suggests positive outcomes, that there are other drivers behind China’s foreign policy than the malign motives often imputed by critics.
"Our data at the China-Africa Research Initiative - collected from official websites of central banks, ministries of finance and Chinese contractors, and cross-checked through interviews with Chinese and African officials - reveals that China’s economic needs, rather than any set political agenda, drives Beijing’s activities in developing countries," she said.
"Chinese engagement is about business, not just politics. Belt and Road focuses on infrastructure because Chinese construction companies need business. From 2000 to 2015, China Exim Bank contributed US$63 billion in loans to Africa, largely aimed at road, railroad, airport and harbour construction. In 2000, the gross annual revenue of Chinese construction contractors in Africa was $1 billion; by 2015, this figure was $55 billion."
Yet critics of the plan view the Belt and Road as a trade route for oil and minerals. Granted, Ms Eom concedes that the top 10 imports from Africa are raw materials. Oil-rich Angola is the top African exporter to China, and 99 per cent of its exports to China are petroleum products. African natural resources power Chinese factories and raw materials for manufacturing.
"But Belt and Road countries may soon inherit these factories. In 2015, manufacturing was 13 per cent of Chinese foreign direct investment in Africa. In comparison, just seven per cent of US investment in the region went to manufacturing ventures.
"Rising wages in China are pushing its firms abroad to regions where labour is cheaper, opening up the Belt and Road countries to a slew of other economic engagements after construction is over," said Ms Eom.
Not surprisingly, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi defends Beijing, saying it responds to the needs of its “African brothers and sisters", whose friendship with China was “unbreakable”.
Said Mr Wang: “Africa is facing challenges maintaining peace and stability, and of promoting development and revitalisation. In response to needs, China will step up mediation in regional flashpoints and cooperation with African countries on unconventional security threats such as terrorism, piracy and natural disaster, and help them build capacity to ensure their own peace and security.”
China maintains it is committed to taking an inclusive approach to trade and diplomacy, and welcomed the active participation of all including American public and private institutions. China made it clear from the start that the initiative would not survive without widespread participation.
If there are enough participants, the scheme is likely to have a ripple effect on a number of regions. For example, the impact could be felt across Africa, although its significance, in relation to other regions, remains unclear.
Belt and Road projects are big and numerous. In Africa alone there is, starting with biggest, the $12 billion 1,402-kilometre Coastal Railway from oil-rich Nigeria's old coastal capital and major city of Lagos (pop 16 million) to Calabar (pop 370,000) near the Cameroon border. To go with that, there is a $1 billion deep sea port construction job to be completed in Cameroon.
Then there was the related $8.3 billion, 1,124-kilometre railway from Lagos to Kano (pop 3.3 million) in the north west to add to the already completed $850 million 186-kilometre rail link between the capital of Abuja (pop 2.4 million) and Kaduna (pop 760,000) midway on the Lagos-Kano line.
Farther west, the China International Fund and the Government of Guinea are in a $7 billion joint venture to fund the creation of the Guinea Development Corporation with 25 per cent coming from Guinea, chiefly to fund oil and gas exploration in a profit sharing deal.
Looking south, there is Congo Brazzaville’s $1.2 billion restoration of its capital, rebuilding after a munitions dump explosion in 2012.
Then there is the $6 billion loan to finance the Sicomine project in the Democratic Republic to dig for copper and cobalt. And further south the $3.5 billion construction of an oil refinery in Angola.
Farther south there is the Mini-City project in South Africa. Chinese property group Shanghai Zendai was investing $7 billion in a 1,600-hectare site at Modderfontein New City Project of 100,000 residents outside Johannesburg. Although now the “city building” dream has already been shattered with Zendai selling all properties of the project in 2017.
In East Africa, from the north they are building the Nepanda Nkua hydro-electric dam in Mozambique for $3.1 billion. Then there is the $5.6 billion 1,344-kilometre Chad-Sudan Railway as well spending $4.3 billion building cement plants in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger and Nigeria, Senegal and Zambia.
Then there is Sudan's $1.1 billion 762-kilometre Khartoum-Port Sudan railway and the much-publicised $3.4 billion 441-kilometre standard gauge railway from Mombasa (pop 1.2 million) to Nairobi (6.5 million), with the Exim Bank of China funding 90 per cent of the cost. Then comes Tanzania's $1.03 billion gas pipeline and Zimbabwe's $1.1 thermal power plant.
Which all goes to show there is a lot going on in China's Belt and Road scheme in Africa.
But this isn't the first attempt to revive ancient trade routes. There have been attempts by the EU, US, Russia and even India to reconstruct the ancient Silk Road that linked Asia and Europe in particular.
What makes China's attempt different is the commitment of President Xi, as well as the numerous agreements - such as the 130 transport pacts - it has already signed with partner countries along the route.
But is this $124 billion plan a means for Beijing to expand its influence and power in foreign countries? The Centre for Global Development, a Washington think tank, thinks so. It rates as “junk”, or below investment grade, the sovereign debt of 27 nations of the 68 listed as Belt and Road partners. It said the debt levels of eight countries could rise dramatically because of the initiative. As issues like debt forgiveness are rooted in a desire to re-borrow, this puts pauper states under Beijing's thumb as its only source of lending and spending.
One of the most indebted is Djibouti a sliver of a state without resources but a strategic location on the Horn of Africa, were Chinese troops are now stationed in China's first overseas military station. To be fair, the Americans have troops there too, as they do throughout the Gulf region.
So the question of whether China is using the Belt and Road initiative to position itself diplomatically on the global stage is still uppermost in the minds of critics, chiefly the United States.
But rising wages in China are pushing its firms abroad to regions where labour is cheaper, opening up the Belt and Road countries to a slew of economic opportunities after construction is over.
In this light, China’s “Marshall Plan” looks more like a stimulus project than a blueprint for geopolitical control. African countries embrace China as a development partner precisely for Beijing’s “non-interference” policy: This foreign economic engagement comes with few demands.
In contrast, the United States has urged African governments to acknowledge democracy and human rights - or lose out on US business opportunities. Such restrictions on American involvement however praiseworthy only hamper West's ability to act.
Much of Belt and Road's success depends on public sector participation. It is here western powers can exact some leverage by co-operating with what they like about Belt and Road and shunning what they do not, using their economic clout to win diplomatic points when and where needed.
It must be pointed out that on the rare occasions when China does intervene in Africa - so far - it acts in concert with the United States. The two countries have coordinated peacekeeping missions in Sudan and South Sudan as well as anti-piracy efforts off the Horn of Africa and response efforts against Ebola in West Africa.
Such is to be encouraged as it provides help where it is often desperately needed, but also positions the West to monitor Chinese actions in Africa and influencing them on occasions when policy differences arise. Conversely it gives China the right to do the same. |
