One Belt, One Road Initiative: A Familiar Pathway for Africa?

By Amadu Wurie Jalloh

Introduction

2013 was a phenomenal year in the discuss of international trade and political cooperation. President Xi Jinping of China announced his country’s ambitious but yet strategic plan for a “Silk Road Economic Belt” and a “21^st Century Maritime Silk Road” that will formally be dubbed as “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). The BRI will run through Asia into Europe extending to Africa (Mukwaya and Mold, 2018). Meanwhile, the Sino-African bromance had started since April 1955 Bandung (Asian-African) Conference where government officials from twenty-nine Asian and African states met in Bandung, Indonesia to deliberate the role of the Third World in the Cold War and the promotion of Peace, economic prosperity, and decolonization (Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State, n.d.). The aim of this paper is to assess the development implications of China’s BRI to Africa with a particular focus on pointing out the arguments for and against the policy drive.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), what is about?

China, over the past three decades has progressed from being a more traditionally agricultural dependent economy into an inward -looking state, and today into a global economic and tech-producing giant close to the United States (Cheung & Lee, 2015—as cited by ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). In order to secure its stature in the international system and enhance its full economic potentials, China’s president Xi Jinping could in 2013 reestablish 2100 years old Han Dynasty’s  ‘Silk Road’ initiative that aimed to encourage trade and cultural interchange between China, Asia, Africa and Europe covering 7000 km at around 206 BC to 24 AD (Li et al., 2015—as cited by ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016 ).  Meanwhile, the new “Silk Road Economic Belt,” débuted as ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) imitative or Yídàiyílù encompasses two symbiotically and unified principles that connects China to 67 foreign countries across Asia, Europe and Africa through the following means: the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ comprising of network of roads, railways, power grids and gas pipelines that flows over land from mainland China in Xi’an, through the capital Shanxi Province and onward to Central Asia, down to Mosco, Rotterdam and Venice, which interconnectivity is dubbed EURASIA . And the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) that entails erection of network of seaports in the South China sea, Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean that will basically link South East Asia, Oceania, East Africa and North Africa through the Mediterranean. It will basically target 4.4 billion people in those 67 countries representing 63% of the global population. According to Varlare and Putten (2015—cited by ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016, p. 11) the central pillars of the BRI are “promotion of policy coordination, facilitating connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people to-people bonds.”. Kenya, Djibouti and Egypt are the BRI’s main target in Africa (ZiroMwatela and Changfeng, 2016). The initiative has two main sources of fund: the Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank (AIIB, USD$ 100 billion) and the Silk Road Fund (SRF) with a funding portfolio of USD$ 40 billion to be bankrolled entirely within the belt and road (Cheung & Lee, 2015—cited by ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). An additional fund from China’s foreign exchange reserve (USD$ 7 trillion) and its sovereign wealth fund (USD$ 220 billion) are also going to be utilized. Meanwhile, its biggest committers are the China Development Bank and the Export Import Bank of China (Exim Bank) with USD$ 1 trillion commitment made.

What is in this for Africa?

So far, 50 Chinese state-owned companies are engaged in 1,700 infrastructural projects across the strategic areas the BRI is covering valued at about USD$ 900 billion (Nantulya, 2019). Xi is also remarked to have highlighted how Africa will benefit from the initiative noting that “inadequate infrastructure is the biggest bottleneck to Africa’s development,” a rhetoric clamored by many of his counterparts in Africa (Nantulya, 2019). By now, 40 out of 55 African States have signed an MOU with China for the BRI with hope to complement their effort in strengthening infrastructural advancement, attract foreign direct investment to stabilize their economies and create jobs, open up to marketing opportunities, and ultimately tackle poverty (Dahir, 2019). Efforts have already been made to upgrade the Mombasa port, and the capital of Nairobi extending to landlock neighbouring countries like South Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Burundi to create a chain of connectivity for business ease (ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). Other remarkable benefit of this programme includes a 2,600 Mega Watt (MW) hydropower scheme in Nigeria; USD$ 3 billion worth of telecom equipment to Ethiopia, Sudan, and Ghana; and badly needed railway connections in Nigeria, Gabon, and Mauritania (Riberg, n.d). In general, the initiative will invest USD$ 170.7 billion into construction activities across sub-Saharan Africa that is hoped to accelerate both interstate and intercontinental trade boom (OECD, 2018). In a survey conducted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, result shows a potential increase in Africa’s exports by up to USD$ 192 million per year (Nantulya, 22^nd March, 2019). Meanwhile, China has also taken over the US as Africa’s single largest trading partner as per volumes from a trivial sum of USD$ 1 billion in 1980 to USD$ 200 billion in 2014 stock exchange worth (ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). As at 2017, for instance, China buys 95% of crude oil produced in South Sudan; 61% of mineral export from Angola; 36% from Sierra Leone, to name but a few (Dahir, 2019). Several other sectors have received boost, too. More Africans are gaining scholarship opportunities to study technologically advanced courses in China. Medical expertise from the Republic have also been providing support across the region when needed the most. In general, supporters of the initiative are with the view that this will help redefine global political and international order, and provide Africa its badly needed infrastructural gap to help enhance interstate and intercontinental trade that will ultimately unleash the continent’s full economic and development potentials (Looy, 2006). In a study conducted by Mukwaya and Mold (2018), results shows that BRI can substantially benefit East African countries by reducing the export and imports trade margins by 10%, increasing GDP in the subregion from 0.4 to 1.2 per centage points. They also argued that the initiative would also boost regional welfare of nearly USD$ 1 billion while also increasing net exports of countries in the continent by USD$ 192 million through intra-regional trade.

The neocolonial undertone of the initiative

Despite the assurance of non-interference on political affairs of partner states given by China (as opposed to the Marshall Plan of the West), critics of the initiative are showing no hesitation to declare the BRI a neocolonial drive to advance China’s military and political expansionism agenda that will further destabilize economies in Africa whilst leaving the region entrapped in debt burden to China. For instance, the decision to establish a military facility in Djibouti (East Africa) where major powers like the US and France are also based, have raised concerns over the genuineness of the intent of China’s initiative (Dahir & Kazeem, 2018; ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). The Red Sea being a doorway to accessing the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal through which 30% of world shipping activities take place, critics cannot quite push the power struggles as being the hidden agenda for global powers such as USA, France and now, in a conning manner,  China to establish military presence in the region (ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). Security partnership has underpinned global order since 1945 (The Sun, 22^nd August, 2016). In effort to seek recognition as a major global power, China now deploys peacekeeping forces in South Sudan, Mali, Liberia, and Democratic Republic of Congo—making Africa a playground for flexing its muscular capability (Dahir & Kazeem, 2018). A French newspaper called Le Monde also released a document in 2017 accusing China of spying on the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia through a computer networking system that it gifted and programmed for the Union in 2012 (Dahir, 30^th January, 2018). Critics also fear that China is luring Africa into the so called ‘debt trap.’ They have used the experience of Sri Lanka who in 2017 had to transfer ownership of Hambantota Port to Chinese state-owned companies on a 99-year lease for failure to payback infrastructural loan. Pakistan were subjected to similar treatment on a 40 years lease with Chinese partner retaining 90% of its revenue (Nantulya, 22^nd March, 2019). In 2019, for instance, following a warning by Ugandan Auditor general over huge external debt distress incurred by the country and the risk that circumstances agreed upon for loans place on the country’s sovereign assets, neighbouring Kenya’s parliament opened an investigation into the conditions under which strategic Indian Ocean port of Mombasa would have been used as collateral for loan granted to its government by China’s Exim Bank to construct the Mombasa to Nairobi railway (Nantulya, 22^nd March, 2019).

Conclusion

Like any other development intervention, we can see that the gives and takes of the BRI are quite compelling a political and economic debate. In conclusion, with critical examination, one could see a bit of a discord between the rhetoric regarding the BRI and the agenda to provide Africa with an alternative pathway to genuine development different from its experience with Western hegemonic powers that has reduced the continent to barely resource producing and loan seeking and debt accruing continent with no sovereignty.

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