At Kenya’s Miritini Railway Station, near the coastal city of Mombasa, a statue of legendary Chinese explorer Zheng He sits on a plinth greeting passengers, more than 600 years after his voyage to the town of Malindi, further up the coast.
The statue’s plaque explains the ties between Kenya and China that began with Zheng’s visit in 1418, saying: “Zheng’s fleet paid four visits to Mombasa, enhancing mutual understanding between China and Kenya and strengthening Kenya-China friendly exchanges.”
It is part of a mega plan to recreate an ancient Silk Road under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative. After starting in 2013 to boost global trade and commerce by improving infrastructure and connectivity with Asia, Africa and Latin America, the Belt and Road Initiative has seen China spend more than US$1 trillion across the last decade.
But China has denied the “debt trap” allegations. Instead, it has pointed the finger at multilateral financial institutions and commercial creditors which account for more than 80 per cent of the sovereign debt of developing countries. “It certainly appears that large infrastructure loans from Chinese policy banks have peaked in terms of their global volume, and that the Chinese government has increasingly highlighted the merits of smaller-scale projects,” Strange said.
Tim Zajontz, research fellow at the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, said Beijing will continue to try to align the initiative with changing economic realities as well as with geopolitical developments. According to Kanyi Lui, an international project finance lawyer and head of Pinsent Masons’ China offices, the belt and road plan is a partnership based on mutual interests, and Chinese investments and financing are provided in response to needs identified by the host government and local conditions.
Xi Jinping’s third term: After a decade of building the Belt and Road, where does China go from here? Bagwandeen agreed that future belt and road projects are likely to be “small and beautiful”, less costly, and more likely to use commercial loans instead of concessional loans or grants.
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