Recent comments by Eric Kiraithe on alleged mistreatment of Chinese workers riled up Kenyans who felt that our sovereignty as a country was under threat. This instance made me think about China’s investment in Africa. Is China helping is or shafting us?
Let’s head to Sri Lanka. The Chinese built a port in one of the coastal cities at a cost of $1.5 billion dollars. The Sri Lankans were unable to service their debt and resulted in the Chinese leasing the port for 99 years at a cost of $1.2 billion. The port has been termed as one of the crucial points in the Belt and Road Initiative which will serve them well in their trade purposes.
Back to Africa now. China is an industrial country with majority of export trade. So they need resources to input into their industries and routes to their market. Voila! Africa with an abundance of natural resources and a market for their goods. But how would you get natural resources from them? Enter aid and concession loans. Look at this way. If I construct a railway that will connect the interior of a country such that resources can be transported to the port more easily, have I gotten the better end of the deal than you despite the fact that inakusaidia? In better perspective, if I give you a loan, use our state company to construction it and use it to get your resources eventually who got the better part of the deal? (Am open to correction) .
Let’s look at a few situations tuone.
China has constructed a military base in Djibouti as of 2016. They are paying them $20 million a year. In return they have given them a $1.1 billion loan to build an airport, port, water pipeline and railway. Before Eritrea and Ethiopia made up, Djibouti acted us Ethiopia’s port. Ethiopia would be huge market.
The Chinese built AU hqs in Ethiopia and installed spying software on the servers that transmitted data daily between 0000hrs to 0200hrs. After discovery, they had the audacity to ask the AU if they could help them to configure the new servers after abandoning the old ones.
Right next to us, we have coalitions between CCM party and Communist Party of China. Chinese granted Tanzania a $1 billion loan to build a gas pipeline to DaresSalaam. China has expressed interest to reconstruct TAZARA railway line( Zambia has copper).
Nigeria recently sold oil in the yuan currency and agreed to a currency swap.
I won’t talk about Kenya.
Chinese President is currently in Rwanda bearing.in mind Kagame is the president of AU this year.
After Rwanda, Chinese President will.land in Senegal where China has invested and loan $1.6 billion.
Zambia politicians had the audacity to appoint Chinese nationals to the police force
The west seemed to have relaxed during Obama’s reign and as a result China stepped in.
Based on this and the above. It seems the Chinese have already achieved two goals: access to cheap natural resources and market for their goods. Next on the plate is political influence of African nations for example votes in the international bodies and use of politics to gain better contracts. This can explain the secretive nature of their countries with African countries because of use of undue political influence.
Are we being fucked ama nitulie?
