How China’s East Africa Belt and Road Plans Came Apart

[John Ashworth]

How China’s Ambitious Belt and Road Plans for East Africa Came Apart

China’s infrastructure projects abroad often suffer from misinterpretations of the local political climate... Chinese actors typically approach BRI deals with two contradictory assumptions: First, the political leadership with whom they are dealing is either too weak or too venal to challenge contract terms that decidedly favor China; and, second, these same leaders will be strong enough to fend off resistance to ambitious infrastructure projects by opposition politicians and civil society groups while also mobilizing the financial resources necessary to sustain expensive, long term projects... In practice, few projects meet the “just right” conditions of this Goldilocks formula. Instead, conditions are “too hot” – strong leaders reject unfavorable terms – or “too cold” – weak leaders cannot defend bad deals against domestic opposition or rescue the projects once they run into trouble...