(Mombasa) China does not trap Africa in debt, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Thursday in Kenya, during an African tour during which the latter must visit various infrastructure projects. funded by his country.
In Mombasa, on the Kenyan coast, where China is funding the construction of a new terminal at the largest port in East Africa, Wang said the loans related to the projects were of “mutual benefit. », Rejecting the idea of a trap.
“This is a discourse that was created by those who do not want to see the development of Africa,” he told reporters. “If there is a trap, it is that of poverty and underdevelopment.”
In Blinken’s Footsteps
Wang’s visit follows shortly after a visit to the continent by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in November, a trip intended in part to counter China’s growing influence in Africa.
In Washington, the spokesman for American diplomacy Ned Price also praised the “partnerships” offered by the Americans to African countries, “on the basis of mutual opportunities, mutual respect”, contrasting, according to him, with Chinese projects.
“We are not asking our partners to choose between the United States and other countries, including the People’s Republic of China. We don’t want to force them to choose, but we want to give them choices, ”Price told reporters.
Beijing is the African continent’s largest trading partner, with direct trade of more than $ 200 billion in 2019, according to official Chinese figures.
But China is often accused of using its creditor status to wrest diplomatic and trade concessions, raising concerns over the ability of many African states to meet the debts incurred.
China, a big creditor
China has thus become Kenya’s second-largest creditor after the World Bank and has financed expensive infrastructure projects in a country where debt levels have skyrocketed in recent years.
In Mombasa, the construction of the new terminal represents an investment of 353 million dollars.
Beijing has also funded the most expensive infrastructure since Kenya’s independence, a rail line costing five billion dollars.
During a visit to Kenya in January 2020, Wang described the line as a “milestone” for the New Silk Roads, a Chinese initiative that funds infrastructure projects.
Asked by AFP, economic and geopolitical analyst Alikhan Satchu, pointed out that Kenya faces high levels of interest to finance investments which do not “generate a return on investment in the near future”.
The Chinese minister met with President Kenyatta on Thursday, after meeting several Kenyan ministers and signing agreements in the areas of trade, health, security and transfers of green technologies.
“The visit is a testament to the deepening of relations between the two countries,” Kenyan Foreign Minister Raychelle Omamo said after the meeting.
Correspondent
On Thursday, Wang also announced the appointment of a Chinese special envoy to the Horn of Africa, signaling his country’s willingness to get involved diplomatically in this region plagued by various conflicts.
“We will continue to play an even greater role for the peace and stability of the region,” he said in Mandarin, translated by an interpreter.
His announcement coincides with the arrival of the outgoing American envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, who met Ethiopian Prime Minister Abyi Ahmed on Thursday in Addis Ababa, whose country has been shaken for more than a year by a war between the federal army and the rebels in Tigray, a region in the north of the country.
On Wednesday, in Eritrea, Wang expressed China’s opposition to US sanctions against the extremely closed country and to interference “in the internal affairs of other countries under the pretext of democracy and human rights.”
Washington last year imposed sanctions on Asmara over its military involvement in the conflict in Tigray, marked by massacres of civilians and mass rape.
After Kenya, Mr. Wang must have visited the Comoros archipelago.