In the 21st century, as part of Xi Jinping's global Belt and Road Initiative, China has made massive investments in Africa's growing infrastructure -- drawing some controversial claims that it may be practicing "debt trap" diplomacy.
Dr. Deborah Brautigam, author of The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa and Director of the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI) at Johns Hopkins University, explains that China has been helping to finance and build infrastructure in Africa for much longer than many realize. In this interview, she spotlights the TAZARA railway, "the most important project in the early phase of China-Africa engagement [...] a railway between landlocked Zambia, and Tanzania, which had an outlet to the sea. It was a huge project, millions and millions of dollars and the Chinese funded it pretty completely. And this was looked at as being a kind of symbol of south-south cooperation or socialist brotherhood because Tanzania was a socialist country and China was as well. And so together with Tanzanian workers, the Chinese workers built this enormous railway."
Decades on, how is the TAZARA railway perceived by both China and the African nations it traverses? Was this flagship early Chinese infrastructure project a success or a failure? And can it help shed light on the future of Chinese investment and partnerships in Africa?
This interview was recorded in 2020.
