NOA Episode 9.2 Past, Present and Future of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Africa

Host: Angela (UCL Asiatic Affairs) 

Podcast Participants (in order of appearance): Larissa (UCL Africa Conference), Stephen (UCL Africa Conference), Lisa (UCL Africa Conference) and Min Jing (UCL Asiatic Affairs) 

Angela: Hello everyone. Welcome to the second episode of our collaboration between UCL Africa Conference and UCL Asiatic Affairs. As part of our mini-podcast series on China-Africa relations, in our second episode, we will be looking further at China's Belt and Road initiative, or BRI for short, and its implications for Africa. 

I’m Angela. Publications Officer at UCL Asiatic Affairs and second-year European Social and Political Studies student at UCL, and I will be the moderator for this discussion. Joining me today is Min Jing, one of the writers from the Writers’ Group at Asiatic Affairs and I'm joined by Larissa, Stephen and Lisa from the UCL Africa Conference.

If I could ask you all to please introduce yourselves.

Larissa: Hi, I'm Larissa. I'm a second-year law student at UCL and I am part of the logistics team at UCLAC, and I'm from a Cameroonian background. 

Stephen: Hi, I'm Stephen. I'm currently a second-year mechanical engineering student at UCL. I'm from Nigeria originally, and I'm the co-executive of the Africa Conference. 

Lisa: Hi, I'm Lisa. I'm a second-year law student and I'm also co-executive of UCL Africa Conference and I'm also of Nigerian descent. 

So the aim of the UCLAC or UCL Africa Conference was really to discuss the development of Africa. The theme this year, the first-ever conference and theme, is ‘Invest in Africa’. Do come along and support us. We'll be discussing things alongside China and other ways that investment can be done in a more sustainable way.

Min Jing: Hi, I'm Min Jing. I'm a first-year English student and I'm a writer with Asiatic Affairs. 

Angela: Alright, thank you, everyone, for joining me today. As mentioned, in our second episode we'll be discussing the impact of China's BRI program in Africa: it's past, present, and also future for the region. 

The China-Africa project is one of the many projects that China has been working on for over the last 10 years. How does the China-Africa project compare with other projects that China has been working on, and what do you guys understand as China's Belt and Road initiative?

Stephen: Looking at the Belt and Road Initiative at a high level, I think, in terms of economic sense, it makes sense. Why not include economies in the world together? So going through Asia, going through Africa, and getting to Europe? So it makes sense from an economic perspective, but I'd say the methods that they use, in terms of reaching their goal, are quite subjective. 

Larissa: I mean, China did not actually erect that many ports in Africa. I think there are three or two. There is definitely one in Kenya and one in Djibouti. It's actually more focused on the East African and Southwest Asian regions. But still, this one port in Kenya is of high economic significance, because it basically helps this maritime road to decrease the transport time of goods by more than 100%, or about 100%, so it takes half as long as it did before, and that really ties Africa very closely to that port. The goods are transported all over the country roads, all over Africa, and so that really ties them closer together. 

Whether it will necessarily make African countries more dependent on China itself, I think does not necessarily follow, but it will definitely get them into a closer relationship. Thus China will decrease the competition by other countries, and by other Western countries, so that collaboration, as we said before, is the term that should be used with care and these relationships would seek to increase that.

Min Jing: Yeah, and I think China's presence or the BRI projects that are being carried out in the African region, we talked about this, I think the previous podcast, but just to bring it back, I think there will be improved interconnectivity and logistics. With that, there might be a promotion of intra-regional trade, and perhaps also global trade will follow. 

But in terms of things like technological and skills transfer, I think that's something that's a bit more questionable because we know that a lot of labor, a lot of manpower, they come from Chinese corporations, they come from China. Projects are not actually being fully worked on with local manpower. In terms of these benefits, well, it's a bit more questionable here, but I think there are still other positive impacts of the BRI projects in that region. There'll be greater investments and they also raise the profile of these countries for investments which might result, in the best-case scenario, fast-tracked growth and development in the region.

Larissa: That is definitely true. I would agree that it would also lead to development, but I think what is important to note is that these are not just ports, China officially uses them as a strategic strong point. It is not only for them the possibility to use them as military bases to station navy ships but that was really envisioned from the beginning on and that is one of the main aims, or thoughts, behind creating these ports. 

And as you said, most companies use Chinese workforce and so for them, it's really about increasing their influence in the region and I think that is something that should concern us. One difference, I would say, between Chinese investments and European investments is that European investment was mainly focused on economic aid and investments but not necessarily a military force, apart from the UN army’s navy. It is kind of questionable what exactly they are trying to attain with that military employment in Africa.

Stephen: Just to add to this point, I remember watching a video about the Belt and Road Initiative, and it's talking about one of the ports in Southeast Asia. So I remember it saying, because the country defaulted on debt for the ports, it meant that China took over the port for around 70 years and used 70% of the port, which makes no sense because you’re using someone else's port for 70 years and using 70% of the port. One may argue that they’re using the Belt and Road Initiative as a strategic way. They’re preying on those countries that default on their debts which means that they can then utilise these ports for strategic reasons and strategic rationale instead. 

Min Jing: Yeah, I think there was this thing also with Sri Lanka, it's the Hambantota port; I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly and I apologize if it's wrong. Critics and people, they're just saying that as an exchange for debt relief, China can actually use the port for their navy, but I think it has been disproven. I don't think China has actually parked their navy there officially or anything yet, but I get the anxiety around it. It's always uncomfortable to have that sort of thing looming over you.

Angela: I mean, it's open to contention right? If it hasn't been proven as actually happening in practice, then, there's a lot of room for people to discuss and to share their anxiety over the issue. I think this links quite well with our previous episode about China's foreign diplomacy in the mentioned ports and military. Would you say that Africa's role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or the China-Africa project as a whole, is much more focused on military and government policy and very politically and economically-driven? Would you say that is the case and also, what sort of social impacts has manifested (as a result)? 

Larissa: I think you're actually hinting at one of the main problems of that entire project because I think you can't say either it's focused on political aims or economic aims. The problem is that for China, it is focused on political, strategic aims, and for Africa, it’s focused on economic aims and socioeconomic development that they are trying to achieve via this collaboration. 

These kinds of different approaches and different aims would result in the project failing to a certain extent, at least for one party, and I think it is evident, and you will know if you have listened to the other podcast episodes, that that party would be Africa; African countries.

Stephen: So yeah, in terms of social aspects, I'd say that we can't really see it because we're not actually living there. But we can, I guess, we can make assumptions from social media. I remember over the summer there was a period where you go on Twitter and you'd see things like, okay, African workers aren't allowed to work on these initiatives. Like we've mentioned earlier, they wouldn't be allowed to drive the train that China has just made in Kenya. Although we can't see it physically, we can see what's happening on social media, and then we can make an assumption and guess that African workers aren’t really allowed to fully benefit from these infrastructure projects that have been installed in Africa. 

At the same time, in terms of intra-Asia relationships, I remember seeing a video where people were really relishing the relationship between China and Pakistan. A certain amount of people would say this road is really good for us, it's really going to improve our economic standpoint. Whereas we haven't really seen that from an African standpoint.

Angela: It is difficult to gauge what social impacts there are when you're not actually living there. However, you mentioned how African workers aren't able to fully utilize, fully participate and benefit from these infrastructural projects. On the ground, are these Chinese state-funded infrastructure projects welcomed in Africa? 

Larissa: I think they are welcome at first, but I think it's mostly citizens who realize the negative consequences first to - and I think one important example is physical infrastructure and most importantly, bridges. One problem is that China makes these investments and helps build these infrastructures but they are not maintaining them and the governments themselves also don't have the money to maintain them. But the governments are not using all the infrastructure, obviously themselves, it’s the citizens that in the end have to deal with unmaintained bridges which really often lead to dangerous accidents all the time. 

I think they welcome it because, at first, it's a major improvement, but in the end, it creates a lot of less visible problems that you cannot put into policy papers or legislation but that has a soft impact on the civilization. 

Angela: Yep, absolutely. I just wanted to draw out one point that Larissa made earlier about how there are different aims between China and Africa when it comes to these projects that they are doing. However, do you think that because of these different aims, is there no solution to it at all? Is there no future for BRI to be a very positive and ‘not inciting digital violence’ project in Africa? Is there any way of reconciling these differences?

Larissa: That's difficult to say I'd say because the project is still so young and one major development right now is, for example, the technological sector is advancing dramatically. The entire economic situation in Africa could generally change over the next few years and decades. Although that is not directly related to the BRI project, that could change the economic situation of some African countries and that would then, maybe, enable the governments to take a more authoritative position in the negotiations with the Chinese government in future projects. It’s really hard to say, and I think that’s also one of the problems with these projects, sometimes you have to wait and see.

Angela: And sadly that's all the time we have today. Thank you, everyone, for joining me and tuning into this episode. If you've enjoyed listening to our discussion today, do keep an eye out for future episodes released under this mini collaboration. We'll be continuing our discussion of China-Africa relations in our next episode, focusing on the wider discourse of China's neo-colonial practices in Africa and beyond.