Quote from Ndubuisi Ekekwe on August 26, 2019, 2:01 PM

In just over two decades, China has become Africa’s largest trade partner, its largest infrastructure funder, and its fastest-growing source of foreign direct investment. All of that brings China deep influence and opportunity on a continent with a burgeoning population, rapid urbanization, abundant resources, and some of the world’s fastest-growing economies.  Quartz has a special report on China in Africa - a few things that stood out in the reporting:

• Chinese financiers hold 77% of Djibouti’s debt, raising concerns about whether new and future projects can generate sufficient revenue to meet debt service requirements.
• In his 2014 book China’s Second Continent, journalist Howard French put the number of Chinese citizens who have moved to Africa at around 1 million.
• Last December, the Trump administration unveiled its Africa policy that was all about countering China’s influence. While there’s been a longstanding competition for influence between superpowers in the region, the implication of the new US policy is that African governments need to choose between the US and China. Forced to choose, which way will they go?

 

(Source: Quartz newsletter)