Africa should be mindful of debt trap danger when accepting China aid

FEW would have been surprised that President Xi Jinping found robust defenders of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) at last week's China-Africa Summit.

After all, Africa had been promised US$60 billion in the form of assistance, investments and loans. The figure includes US$15 billion in grants, interest-free loans and concessional loans, US$20 billion in credit lines, US$10 billion for development projects and US$5 billion to buy imports from Africa. Beijing intends to send 500 farm experts to Africa and provide scholarships for vocational training. The pledge comes on top of the 2015 promise to provide African countries with a similar sum - US$60 billion - in funding that Mr Xi said had either been delivered or in the pipeline. As well, Mr Xi promised that US$10 billion more would come from private Chinese investors.

So, despite widespread criticism that Beijing is in Africa only for its raw materials and that its development loans are designed to trap recipients in unsustainable high debt, African leaders such as Rwandan President Paul Kagame, the rotating chairman of the African Union, singled out China as a country that treated African nations as equal partners. South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa was equally effusive and refuted the view that "a new colonialism is taking hold in Africa, as our detractors would have us believe". Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta was pleased about China's projects in his country. African leaders from countries that have done well from China's largesse are certainly entitled to their views.