China Builds Ambitiously In Africa As US Sounds The Alarm; Africa Should Avoid Forfeiting Sovereignty To China Over Loans — Tillerson

In this photo provided by China's Xinhua News Agency people gather before a red banner written in English and Chinese set up for the opening ceremony of the African Union Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Jan. 28, 2012. The sleek, green-and-white trains glide past the congested, ragged streets of Addis Ababa along the city's new light rail — built and financed by China. The towering silver African Union headquarters here was built by China, too. So was the new ring road system around the city. And the new railway connecting landlocked Ethiopia to Djibouti. (Ding Haitao/Xinhua via AP)

The sleek, green-and-white trains glide past the congested, ragged streets of Addis Ababa along the city's new light rail - built and financed by China.

Associated Press report continues:

The towering silver African Union headquarters here was built by China, too. So was the new ring road system around the city. And the new railway connecting landlocked Ethiopia to Djibouti.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, America has noticed.

From Ethiopia to Djibouti, Kenya to Egypt, the United States is sounding the alarm that the Chinese money flooding Africa comes with major strings attached. The warnings carry distinct neocolonial undertones: With Beijing's astonishing investments in ports, roads and railways, the U.S. says, come dependency, exploitation and intrusion on nations' basic sovereignty.

"We are not in any way attempting to keep Chinese investment dollars out of Africa. They are badly needed," U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday in the Ethiopian capital. "However, we think it's important that African countries carefully consider the terms."

Those terms lead to deals in which Chinese workers, not Africans, get the construction jobs, Tillerson and other U.S. officials warn. They say Chinese firms, unlike American ones, don't abide by anti-bribery laws, fueling Africa's pervasive problems with corruption. And if countries run into financial trouble, they often lose control over their own infrastructure by defaulting to a lender that historically has not always been forgiving.

Some African countries now owe sums of up to 200% of their annual economic output, the U.S. has said, with most debt owed to China.

There are obvious reasons why the United States would want to cast itself and its companies as a more favorable alternative to China, the geopolitical rival and economic competitor whose influence is also on the rise in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

But there's a problem, African politicians and economists say: China, unlike the United States, is showing up on the continent with a generous checkbook in hand. Given the unpredictability involved in investing in poorer countries, China is often the only one willing to take the risk.

And African nations realize that China's investments don't come with the same nagging about human rights and good governance that often accompanies U.S. assistance.

"They're ready to basically do business," said Brahima Coulibaly, a former Federal Reserve economist and Africa scholar at the Brookings Institution. "They're ready to partner with any country that is also willing to partner with them in a way that it makes sense to them and furthers their agenda."

China vehemently disputes that its enterprises in Africa or elsewhere are exploitive, arguing instead that its generosity illustrates its commitment to the rest of the world's economic and social development.

"No one dominates, and all parties participate on an equal footing," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in his annual news conference Thursday. "There is no secret operation, but an open and transparent operation - no 'winner-take-all,' but all see mutual benefits and 'win-win' results."

The eye-popping investments through China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, believed to run into the trillions of dollars, form just one part of the Asian power's bid to promote a new global system in which Beijing is at the centre. Equally alarming to the U.S. are China's military designs.

In Djibouti, where Tillerson will visit Friday, China has built its first overseas base along the key shipping route that links Europe and Asia. Its "string of pearls" plan calls for building a network of ports stretching from China to the Persian Gulf. Beijing has also been busy building artificial islands and then taking steps toward militarizing them in a bid to expand its control over waters far from its coast.

China's new base in Djibouti, another country immensely indebted to Beijing, is just miles away from the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa. Though it's China's only African base so far, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa Command, predicted this week that "there will be more."

"We are not naive to think that some of the activities the Chinese are doing in terms of counterintelligence there - they are taking place," Waldhauser told the House Armed Services Committee. "But it just means that we have to be cautious, we have to be on guard."

For better or worse, U.S. suspicions about China's ambitions are playing out far beyond the confines of Africa. Chinese companies are building or financing power plants in Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan, managing a port in Greece and launching railway projects in Thailand and Tajikistan, with aggressive plans to expand into Latin America.

Already, there are cautionary tales, critics say.

In Sri Lanka, the former president suffered a surprise election defeat in 2015 after his opponent criticized him for running up some US$5 billion in debt to China to fund construction. In December, Sri Lanka's government sold an 80 percent stake in the port in Hambantota to a Chinese state-owned company after falling behind in repaying US$1.5 billion borrowed to build it.

In Africa, some of the China-funded roads have started to crumble, the U.S. has said, due to shoddy construction on the cheap. And in January, the French newspaper Le Monde reported that China planted listening devices in the US$200 million headquarters it built for the AU in 2012. China denies that claim.

Africa Should Avoid Forfeiting Sovereignty To China Over Loans — Tillerson

Reuters reports that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday that African countries should be careful not to forfeit their sovereignty when they accept loans from China, the continent's biggest trading partner.

Tillerson is using his first diplomatic trip to the continent to bolster security alliances on a continent increasingly turning to Beijing for aid and trade.

He may also seek to smooth relations after U.S. President Trump reportedly dismissed some African nations as "shithole countries" in January. Trump later denied making the comment.

"We are not in any way attempting to keep Chinese dollars from Africa," Tillerson told a news conference in the Ethiopian capital. "It is important that African countries carefully consider the terms of those agreements and not forfeit their sovereignty."

The United States is the leading aid donor to Africa but China surpassed it as a trade partner in 2009. Beijing has pumped billions into infrastructure projects, though critics say the use of Chinese firms and labour undermines their value.

Tillerson said Chinese investments "do not bring significant job creation locally" and criticized how Beijing structures loans to African government.

If a government accepts a Chinese loan and "gets into trouble", he said, it can "lose control of its own infrastructure or its own resources through default." He did not give examples.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, visiting Zimbabwe on Thursday, told reporters it was inappropriate for Tillerson to criticize China's relationship with African countries.

"It was not appropriate to criticize the relations of his hosts — when he was a guest there — with another country," he said. Many African governments enjoy close ties with both Washington and Beijing.

Kenya, for example, inaugurated a US$3.2 billion railway funded by China last year. For the last three years, Kenya has received more than US$100 million annually in U.S. security assistance.

Asked about Tillerson's criticism of China's approach on the continent, Kenya's foreign affairs minister Monica Juma said: "This country is engaging with partners from across the world driven by our own interests and for our own value."

"OPAQUE CONTRACTS"

Tillerson arrived in Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation, on Wednesday and visited the African Union headquarters on Thursday. The complex was funded and built by China and is seen as a symbol of Beijing's thrust for influence and access to the continent's natural resources.

Ethiopia is home to some of Beijing's biggest investments, from a railway to Djibouti that opened last year to factories and industrial parks.

Earlier this week, Tillerson criticized "China's approach" to Africa which he said encouraged dependency through "opaque contracts" and "predatory loan practices".

Ethiopia's prime minister resigned suddenly last month and a state of emergency was imposed but protests in the restive Oromia region have continued.

Tillerson said after meeting his Ethiopian counterpart Workneh Gebeyehu that the answer to political turmoil in Ethiopia was greater freedoms and said state of emergency should be lifted as quickly as possible.

Tillerson reiterated previous calls for African states to cut ties with North Korea.

North Korea has more than a dozen embassies on the continent. The Trump administration has said that Pyongyang earns hard currency from arms deals with African government and the trafficking of wildlife parts from Africa.

Tillerson is due to fly to Djibouti, host to military bases owned by the U.S., China, Japan, France, and Italy.

He will then visit Kenya, a key U.S. ally in the fight against al Shabaab Islamist militants in Somalia, before travelling to Chad and Nigeria, which are also battling to contain Islamist insurgents.

Analysts say Trump has focused mainly on security concerns in Africa at a time when China, Turkey and other nations are ramping up diplomatic and business links.

"When you look at the set of countries that are being visited I think it kind of reinforces the perception that security, indeed, is the overwhelming focus," said Brahima Coulibaly, the director of the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings Institution.