Europe benefits more from China than Africa - Kikwete

THE theory being popularised by the western media that China is allegedly laying a debt trap for Zambia and other African countries lacks substance, former Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has said.

According to a statement released to the media by the First Secretary for Press and Public Relations at the Zambian Embassy in Berlin, Kellys Kaunda, President Kikwete said the stark economic reality, based

on verifiable studies, infact showed that the West benefits

more from China than the entire African continent when it comes to Foreign Direct Investment or FDI.

“Studies show that more billions, in terms of investment from China, have gone to Europe than to Africa,” said the former Tanzanian president when he spoke at the EAZ summit in Livingstone last week.

President Kikwete gave a

ball park figure of 30 billion

pounds which he said had been invested in UK alone in recent years by China as

compared to only 60 billion

pounds for the entire African continent of 54 countries over the same period.

This confirms the concerns

of many pundits that feel

China’s relationship with

Africa regarding debt or investment are often mischaracterised or skewed in the western media.

President Kikwete, amidst nods of agreement at the EAZ conference, could not be

drawn into rebuking China’s

relationship with Africa.

Last year, President Edgar Lungu cautioned against

‘malicious media reports’

aimed at creating a rift between China and Zambia over debt or FDI.

President Lungu said, “Zambia will choose its friends on its own terms” not based on foreign media theories of

‘debt traps and dishonesty.’”

Zambia, like Tanzania, had enjoyed a 55-year undisrupted relationship with China from building the TAZARA in the

1960s to currently completing

the ultra-modern Kenneth Kaunda International Airport plus thousands of kilometres of roads in Zambia today.

Criticism abound from the Western media regarding the China-Zambia relationship but President Lungu has remained unequivocal

about Zambia’s international

relations.

According to the statement, the hype is that Africa was getting huge amounts of development money from China while the studies showed the exact opposite is the reality, with the West actually getting a lion share of China money.

The “Big Three” EU countries, and not Africa, got most of Chinese money in

2018 alone: United Kingdom

bagged 4.2 billion euros, Germany 2.1 billion euros and France 1.6 billion euros.

In fact the same study from Rhodium Group and Mercator Institute of China studies or MERICS says the two

‘new top recipients’ of huge

Chinese money now are still not Africa or from Africa but are Sweden and Luxembourg.

A Forbes study shows that, contrary to popular belief, China money is not even as far out spread in Africa as it is in the west, with for instance Chinese investment in Africa being lower on average than in other regions away from Africa.

Forbes study says Chinese investment in Africa averages

1.78 people for every

$1million compared to 2.24 people for every $1 million in regions other than Africa.