China debt trap mantra ‘nonsense’ - Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe
China has invested massively in Zimbabwe in the past two decades, particularly in infrastructure development but Zimbabweans have been wary of what the West calls the “Chinese debt trap” on Africa.
But Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Zhou Ding dismissed the Western accusations of “debt trap diplomacy” and described it as “nonsense”.
“We have no such debt trap in Africa. It's nonsense and the Western countries account for much more of the debt in Africa than China,” he said recently in an interview.
The United States particularly has criticised China accusing it of causing unsustainable debt by financing mega-infrastructure projects whose economic viability is not guaranteed, saying, “some of the implications of the BRI [Bridge and Road Initiative] appear to be that Chinese loans will eventually cause developing countries in the Global South to default on their debts, allowing China to take control of strategic assets such as ports, railways, power stations.”
Ambassador Zhou said the whole story about China-made debt traps is nothing but a narrative created by some forces to disrupt and jeopardise China’s cooperation with other developing countries.
“First of all, this ‘debt trap’ rhetoric goes against economic common sense,” he said, adding, “As we all know, a healthy, right amount of debt is conducive to socio-economic development. Many countries take government debt as an important form of raising funds and lever for economic development. Anyone who talks about only the negatives of debt without mentioning its benefits or even portrays it as a poison for development is simply being ill-informed or amateurish.”
He said: “This debt trap rhetoric also runs counter to facts. China’s investment and financing cooperation with other countries focuses on infrastructure and production sectors and has successfully helped developing countries address the lack of funding, infrastructure, talents and other development bottlenecks and enhance their self-driven development capacity.
“Investment and financing cooperation between China and fellow developing countries is carried out in compliance with international rules, market laws and the principle of debt sustainability,” he explained.
He said a report by the US-based Boston University Global Development Policy Centre noted that the investment and financing cooperation between China and fellow developing countries could help these countries to overcome bottlenecks in development, unlock growth potential and increase global real income by up to three percentage points. “To describe development resources as a ‘debt trap’ is to call white black.”
Zhou said: “This ‘debt trap’ rhetoric wrongly pictures the will of the developing countries. Widely welcomed in the developing world, it offers a good choice for debt-laden countries to meet funding shortfalls and boost economic growth. Leaders of developing countries have noted that China shows up where and when the West will not or are reluctant to and is a true good friend. In fact, as we have seen, not a single cooperation partner has accused China of creating ‘debt traps’.”
Zhou added: “It is a handful of Western countries who have been spreading the fallacy of ‘Chinese debt traps’. The multilateral financial institutions and commercial creditors these countries dominate are the major creditors of developing countries and constitute the major source of stress for them in terms of debt repayment. They are the ones that need to make substantive contributions to easing developing countries’ debt burden.”
By 2020 total Chinese investments in Zimbabwe had topped $2 billion but are set to more than double as “Chinese companies were awarded licenses in the third quarter of 2023 that could see $2,79 billion of investment flow into Zimbabwe, mostly in mining and energy as the government pushes to develop some of Africa’s biggest lithium deposits and end power outages.”
China has refurbished Zimbabwe’s main Robert Mugabe International Airport and the airport at the main tourist resort of Victoria Falls; the former project’s total cost was $153m while the latter was built solely by the Chinese at a cost of $150 million. Other notable Chinese projects include the $1.5 billion Manhize Steel Plant envisaged to be the biggest in Africa upon completion.
China also built Zimbabwe’s new parliament building at a cost of $200 million, “as a gift” to the Zimbabwean people.
Zhou’s predecessor Guo Shaochun said in 2022: “The China-financed or invested projects in Zimbabwe mostly cover electricity, airports and communication facilities, the areas most in need of development. Such projects have boosted economic growth, increased tax revenues, created jobs and improved people's livelihood in African countries including Zimbabwe, generating tangible benefits to African people.”
China is Zimbabwe's second-largest trading partner and has remained the biggest investor in Zimbabwe for many years.
A senior Zimbabwe government official Christopher Mutsvangwa said in an interview with Chinese news agency Xinhua in June 2023, "We want more capital from China ... Because capital from China is modernising Africa. It is bringing Africa to the global economic stage which they [Western countries] never did before China."
