Critics question why China has spent billions in Africa
$124B sent to Africa would be better used at home, they say
BEIJING — China has promoted its huge global infrastructure plan, the Belt and Road Initiative, with dancing children singing a propaganda pop song, an animated rap and TV bedtime stories with tinkly background music on how “it helps everyone.”
But lately the government’s big spending in Africa and elsewhere faces a growing domestic backlash.
“Why is China, a country with over 100 million people who are still living below the poverty line, playing at being the flashy big-spender?” a Tsinghua University law professor, Xu Zhangrun, wrote in a wide-ranging critique of President Xi Jinping in July.
China has put more than $124 billion into Africa since 2000. It has spent $500 million on Belt and Road projects in dozens of countries globally. The spending comes, many Chinese note, while there’s a doctor shortage, rampant pollution and people struggling to buy medicines or get a decent education at home.
The projects and spending from China take many forms — sometimes infrastructure built by Chinese state-owned companies, sometimes by private firms. The funds tend to be distributed through low-interest loans.
Chinese officials have been on the defensive lately about criticisms, including Western accusations, that Belt and Road projects could snare nations into unsustainable debt, and a raft of senior officials from Xi down have been at pains to defend the plan andpromoteitsbenefits.
Domestic criticisms come at an awkward time, with dozens of African leaders in Beijing for a summit that began Monday. At the last China-Africa summit, in 2015, Xi promised $60 billion for development projects, and many African leaders are probably hoping for more this year.
China has built roads, railways, airports, stadiums and electricity systems in Africa, lending money without questioning governments about human rights, a policy that makes China an attractive partner to African leaders.
Chinese activity in Africa expanded significantly since around 2000 far surpassing the U.S. and opening up access to African resources. In 2013, an official of the Export-Import Bank of China estimated that by 2025, China will have provided Africa with financing, including direct investment, soft loans and commercial loans, totaling $1 trillion.
But critics warn that African nations could be sinking into unsustainable debt, like the debts to Western and multilateral lenders in past decades that many African countries still bear. In recent years, many African nations have rapidly expanded their debts, prompting recent warnings from the International Monetary Fund of debt distress in 15 African countries.
Details of China-Africa loans are usually kept secret by both parties, but critics say the deals often involve African nations mortgaging their mineral and oil resources as collateral. U.S. officials have warned that African countries risk losing their sovereignty because of Chinese debt.
The Chinese government has responded harshly to critics of its spending overseas.
Last month during a live radio interview, Sun Wenguang, a retired professor from Shangdong University, was criticizing Xi’s spending in Africa and arguing that the Chinese president was overlooking China’s own poverty when six police officers barged into his apartment.
“There are so many other things for him to take into account,” Sun said in the Voice of America’s Mandarin service interview. “China has got a huge population, and there are still so many destitute people. If you don’t actually have the capacity to meet the scale of things you China’s President Xi Jinping delivers a speech Monday during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing. are trying to do, just don’t do it. (If ) you still choose to throw money at other countries, a domestic backlash is almost guaranteed.”
The police officers forced himoff air and took himfrom his house. He could be heard protesting: “Ordinary people are poor. Let’s not throw our money away in Africa. Throwingmoneyaroundlike this doesn’t do any good for our country or our society.”
The Belt and Road Initia- tive is a “brand” designed to boost Chinese leaders domestically, according to Merriden Varrall, a China analyst at the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney.
“This vast web of projects and deals around the world is less about China attempting to attain global domination than about desperately promoting, among Chinese people, Xi and the Chinese Communist Party’s right to rule,” Varrall wrote recently.