The man at the gas station told us to put our phones away, his directions wouldn’t show up on Google Maps. We ripped a corner off our sour cream and onion cracker box (our breakfast) and he scribbled some lines and the names of some villages so we could navigate around the road construction that would delay us getting into Lusaka by 2 additional hours. We thanked him and turned off our GPS. We turned left after the Shoprite. Then we followed the road along the train tracks past the sugar cane fields. We found the entrance to the sugar mill and turned right. We kept straight, as directed, when we saw the “private” sign. Cows and children lined the dirt road and spilled into the (hopefully) defunct train tracks. They waved as we passed and threw rocks at the cows ushering them off the street. The sugar cane trees gave way to banana trees, palm trees and mango trees. The mangos will be ripe in a months time. Right now you can see them weighing down the branches, still green and young.
We reached Lusaka two hours later, as predicted by the man at the gas station. In the capitol, the Chinese influence on Zambia was prominently on display: big billboards with Chinese characters, casinos with red dragon mascots, hotels with names like Golden Peacock and the Great Wall Inn. I’m intrigued by China’s financial influence throughout Africa - particularly in this country as I learn about Zambia’s current debt crisis. China is the largest foreign investor in Zambia, ousting the IMF, World Bank and many Western states from their ranks as the primary source of foreign income across Zambia, like much of Africa, for the last half century. China’s not providing aid as previous international donors, but instead making big direct foreign investments, largely around infrastructure. The local Zambian newspaper that I read reported a risk that China could soon own Zambia’s national electricity utility in exchange for debt relief.
In the early 2000s when handfuls of African countries, including Zambia, were offered debt forgiveness, many economists predicted this would perpetuate irresponsible and corrupt spending - essentially a “moral hazard” argument - which would land many nations once again in crippling debt. Perhaps a precinct warning, as a decade later Zambia finds itself once again in financial distress. Today, nearly a quarter of government spending goes to paying back foreign aid. Tom and I have been reading Dasimba Moyo’s book, Dead Aid. She’s a Zambian economist who posits that foreign aid (pumped into Africa since the 1940s) has been the main driver of stifled economic growth across Sub-Saharan Africa. She argues, instead of aid, in favor of direct foreign investment because that comes with the controls that stop corruption. Ironically, this actually seems to be what China is doing. So why is it failing so miserably too?
We’ve read a number of arguments as to why this may be the case: from China’s opaque “no strings attached” lending plans, to the fact that China, unlike traditional aid donors, hasn’t imposed conditionalities on their investments e.g. around democracy or good governance (though according to Moyo conditionalities don’t work either). China seems uninterested in enacting provisions to stamp out corruption so long as they have continued access to the natural resources they’re after. Another concern is that China ships it’s own laborers to Africa, thus preventing local communities from engaging in the economic growth spurred by new development projects. The general tone in the papers we’ve read, corroberated by a number of people we’ve spoken with, was that China’s presence in Zambia was the beginning of a new colonialism blooming on African soil. China is after Africa’s natural resources and can build the infrastructure in Zambia to access those resources, all the while perpetuating an unequal power dynamic as Zambia falls further into debt to China.
The main road we used to get into Lusaka was built by the Chinese. After our two hour detour on bumpy back roads, finding this road felt like a well-earned reward. Afro-Chinese politics aside, the road was a beautiful stretch of tarmac with visible white lines marking which side of the road to drive on (a rarity on this trip!). At that moment, I didn’t care what the road signified, I was just very happy it had been built.
In the early 2000s when handfuls of African countries, including Zambia, were offered debt forgiveness, many economists predicted this would perpetuate irresponsible and corrupt spending - essentially a “moral hazard” argument - which would land many nations once again in crippling debt. Perhaps a precinct warning, as a decade later Zambia finds itself once again in financial distress. Today, nearly a quarter of government spending goes to paying back foreign aid. Tom and I have been reading Dasimba Moyo’s book, Dead Aid. She’s a Zambian economist who posits that foreign aid (pumped into Africa since the 1940s) has been the main driver of stifled economic growth across Sub-Saharan Africa. She argues, instead of aid, in favor of direct foreign investment because that comes with the controls that stop corruption. Ironically, this actually seems to be what China is doing. So why is it failing so miserably too?
We’ve read a number of arguments as to why this may be the case: from China’s opaque “no strings attached” lending plans, to the fact that China, unlike traditional aid donors, hasn’t imposed conditionalities on their investments e.g. around democracy or good governance (though according to Moyo conditionalities don’t work either). China seems uninterested in enacting provisions to stamp out corruption so long as they have continued access to the natural resources they’re after. Another concern is that China ships it’s own laborers to Africa, thus preventing local communities from engaging in the economic growth spurred by new development projects. The general tone in the papers we’ve read, corroberated by a number of people we’ve spoken with, was that China’s presence in Zambia was the beginning of a new colonialism blooming on African soil. China is after Africa’s natural resources and can build the infrastructure in Zambia to access those resources, all the while perpetuating an unequal power dynamic as Zambia falls further into debt to China.
The main road we used to get into Lusaka was built by the Chinese. After our two hour detour on bumpy back roads, finding this road felt like a well-earned reward. Afro-Chinese politics aside, the road was a beautiful stretch of tarmac with visible white lines marking which side of the road to drive on (a rarity on this trip!). At that moment, I didn’t care what the road signified, I was just very happy it had been built.