THE CHINESE PLAYBOOK

INFRASTRUCTURAL REVOLUTION GIVES WAY TO NEW GLOBAL POWER

- AVISHA PAWAR

At this moment, every child born in Angola owes money to the Chinese government. Angola, Africa’s second-largest oil exporter owes more than $20 billion to a number of Chinese entities as listed debt. But Angolans aren’t the only ones reeling under a foreign debt, they share this crisis with many of their African comrades. Quite simply, Beijing, as we are told, coaxes underdeveloped nations into taking loan after loan to build infrastructure that they simply cannot afford otherwise, and will almost certainly not yield any proportionate economic benefits from it. At the end of this dysfunctional cycle, the ultimate objective is for China to take control of these assets. This concept has been defined as ’debt-trap diplomacy, an overly hackneyed term introduced in 2017 and quickly oversold by the Western world, especially in the context of the much-touted Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

China has been funding infrastructure in the African continent since the 1960s, even in the thick of the Cultural Revolution, Beijing invested nearly $500 bn for the Tazara Rail line, yet no one noticed. It was only after 2006 that the West began quivering about China’s expansion, even going to the extent of calling them ‘a new imperial power’. However, the question still remains whether this negative bias projected towards the Chinese is grounded in facts or just baseless political rhetoric. This article intends to study both the positive and negative consequences associated with the fairness and sustainability of Beijing’s acts.

Money And Muscle Take Over