美国国家公共电台 NPR A New Chinese-Funded Railway In Kenya Sparks Debt-Trap Fears

A New Chinese-Funded Railway In Kenya Sparks Debt-Trap Fears

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

China has become the biggest lender to governments on the African continent over the past decade. The money has helped build ports, roads, bridges, airports and trains. These are infrastructure 1 projects that might have never happened without China. But critics say the loans are full of traps that could leave African countries mired 2 in debt and beholden to the Chinese. NPR's Eyder Peralta brings us the story of one big project in Kenya.

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE 3: I start my journey in Nairobi, where the train station is quite easily the most impressive public building in the country. It's modern with ambitious, swooping 4 lines. The train runs from the capital city to the port of Mombasa and represents the biggest infrastructure project since independence for Kenya. It was funded entirely 5 with a $3.2 billion Chinese loan. A Chinese company built it, and the Chinese will operate it for many years to come.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN HORN SOUNDING)

PERALTA: That fact is hard to forget. At the entrance of every single wagon 6 the Kenyan flag is flanked by a Chinese flag. And as soon as I sit down, I hear two strangers having a spirited argument about Chinese involvement.

FAITH KIDULLAH: Oh, now it's a Kenya thing.

PERALTA: Paul Gichango, a marketing 7 executive, says Kenyans can learn something from the Chinese. They built nearly 300 miles of rail ahead of schedule. He says he would drive past the construction site sometimes, and he saw the Chinese working nonstop.

PAUL GICHANGO: And I would see - at 6 I would see a Chinese and some people working at 6. And they're efficiently 8 working. And then late, nearly 7, they are still on the ground working.

PERALTA: It's a culture that turned a poor country into an industrial powerhouse, he says, and Kenyans would be wise to pay attention.

KIDULLAH: Let me interrupt first.

PERALTA: That's Faith Kidullah, a lawyer, interrupting. She says Kenyans do not want Chinese culture.

KIDULLAH: We are not interested in the Chinese culture. We brought these people here for their technology. So they should just bring us the technology. They can just remain with their own culture.

PERALTA: Gichango is unconvinced. Kenyans like to talk, he says. They like to take breaks. Chinese are not like that.

GICHANGO: There's no idle time. That element of idle time is what I admire very much.

PERALTA: As he talks, another lady across from him jumps into the conversation.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Can you speak my language?

GICHANGO: No, what I'm saying is...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Are you being colonized 9?

(LAUGHTER)

GICHANGO: No. No. No. No. No.

PERALTA: In case you didn't hear it, she says this guy is colonized. What you don't know is that when I rode this train, Kenyan media had been full of news stories about the railway. They had shown pictures of Kenyans being physically 10 punished by Chinese managers. They revealed that the only time a Kenyan worker had taken control of a locomotive was a year ago on opening day. They also raised questions about how costly 11 this thing had been and how Kenya may not be able to repay the Chinese. But suddenly we look out the window at the vastness of Savo National Park. And in the distance, we see elephants.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Elephants.

GICHANGO: Two of them - two at least.

PERALTA: Oh, yeah, look at that.

And the acrimony over the Chinese and over the spending - it melts.

(LAUGHTER)

PERALTA: What's happening here in Kenya is happening across the continent. The International Monetary 12 Fund says 40 percent of sub-Saharan countries are at risk of debt distress 13. And China is playing a big role. They've handed out billions for projects in places like Ethiopia, Ghana and Mozambique that no one else would touch. It means Ethiopia got a new rail line to the port of Djibouti and Ghana has an expressway. But there are also worries.

GRANT T HARRIS: By some estimates, the Chinese loans have bumped up Djibouti's debt-to-GDP ratio from 50 to 85 percent only between the years of 2014 to 2016. So we're talking about a lot of money owed to China.

PERALTA: That's Grant T. Harris, a former Africa adviser 14 to President Obama. He says these Chinese loans are also very different from other international loans because the terms are often secret.

HARRIS: What we do not have transparency on is what really is the collateral 15. And the very scary case in point is Sri Lanka.

PERALTA: Just at the end of last year, Sir Lanka found itself struggling to pay back its debt, so they handed China a strategic port on a 99-year lease. So what happens if Djibouti can't pay back its port? What happens if Kenya can't pay back its train, the SGR? Anzetse Were, a development economist 16 here in Kenya, says the problem is we don't know.

ANZETSE WERE: As a public intellectual who analyzes 17 African and Kenyan economy on a weekly basis, at no point have I come across a document that can say, oh, so that's what the SGR is about.

PERALTA: We asked the Kenyan government what happens in case of default, but they would provide no concrete answer. Were says these types of deals worked for many governments. They let them build visible projects that helped them win elections. And they are also clearly a source of income for corrupt 18 politicians and their supporters. But lately here in Kenya, there has been public outcry.

WERE: African governments may be happy with opacity 19, but African publics are not. And fundamentally, the sentiment on the ground is really going to inform how successful and how well-received their initiatives are in the country as a whole.

PERALTA: Our train makes it on time to Mombasa, a strategically important port on the Indian Ocean. We drive out of the station onto the wetlands across tall bridges on brand-new paved roads all made by the Chinese. Chinese workers zoom 20 past us on their pickup 21 trucks.

So I think those are houses, there, too...

And off to the sides, behind 12-foot fences and guard towers, we see apartments. The red lanterns tell us they are Chinese dwellings 22. We end up at the top of a bluff 23. Charles Oduour is a driver. Like a lot of others here, he thought he'd one day be working on the railroad. But these days, he says he's not even allowed in the gate to try to find work. I ask him if he's ever spoken to one of the Chinese.

CHARLES ODUOUR: I've never spoken - never, never, never.

PERALTA: Wow.

ODUOUR: Never - one year now.

PERALTA: He says the Chinese have typecast them. They think that all Kenyans are good for is to clean or to move rocks for construction.

ODUOUR: I'm feeling very bad because they're in our country, but they don't interrogate 24 with us, tell them what we can do, how we can survive or how we can know more than what they are doing there.

PERALTA: He feels like something that was supposed to bring jobs, that was supposed to bring pride instead belongs to someone else. Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Mombasa.

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CHANG: Tomorrow we continue our series on how China is changing the world. We'll visit a Mandarin 25 Chinese language school in Pakistan.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Mandarin).

UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Speaking Mandarin).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Through interpreter) I'm learning Chinese so that I could get a job helping 26 my brothers and sister to get education.

CHANG: Hear how China is making cultural inroads into Pakistan and transforming a decades-old strategic relationship between the two countries. That's tomorrow here on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

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