Im scared for the countries getting caught in Chinas debt trap. With maintenance contracts being forced (for more than 90 years!), billions in outstanding loans in each country there is no way to climb out the hole. Everyone can see these extravaganza projects are not what Africa needs, but what China wants.
African countries are foregoing Western investment because of the number of strings attached. Chinese loans are pretty straightforward: here’s some money, here’s a (very) competitive interest rate, and here’s how the infrastructure will be kept alive even if the country runs out of tax revenue to fund it. Critically, the project’s operation isn’t hindered by financial mismanagement and can keep delivering economic benefits to the region.
Indeed, and China also does a lot of loan forgiveness because they want to establish long term mutually beneficial relationships as opposed to just strip mine these countries the way the west does.
African countries are foregoing Western investment because of the number of strings attached
What strings?
here’s a (very) competitive interest rate
IMF loans are cheaper. Every person with two braincells will realize corrupt officials will take the chinese loans with higher interest rates because of the bribes. A 90 year maintenance contract is nonsense and you cant defend it.
IMF and World Bank loans in years past have had strict rules regarding economic liberalization and cutting government spending.
IMF loans are cheaper. Every person with two braincells will realize corrupt officials will take the Chinese loans with higher interest rates because of the bribes.
Rescue loans are not the type of loans being used to build these railway networks lol. It’s pretty funny watching someone not understand the problem they’re talking about.
Also, the US fed rate is 5% right now… That means loaning money to the safest and most stable economy in the world pays 5% today. Even in your (misguided) context, 5% is a fucking bargain.
A rescue loan is not a loan used to build infrastructure. They’re used to cover for existing debt, not to take on new debt.
The interest rate of loans is dependent on the international market. A loan with an interest rate of 5% is charity because China could get that exact same return from the US (which is much more stable, etc. etc.)
A 5% interest rate loan isn’t predatory in this economic environment. It’s a fucking donation. Ever heard of risk-adjusted returns?
A risk-adjusted return is a calculation of the profit or potential profit from an investment that takes into account the degree of risk that must be accepted in order to achieve it. The risk is measured in comparison to that of a virtually risk-free investment—usually U.S. Treasuries.
We were talking about this. I said IMF loans are cheaper than china loans. And you proved me correct so the next best thing was nitpicking my comments? Who cares if a loan directly or indirectly benefits a nation.
Go grab some tea, revisit your nonsense and write a proper reply. Im not going to do the same thing as last time in which you refused to read the article everyone except you was discussing.
African countries aren’t taking IMF loans to fund this project lol. That’s the misunderstanding I think you have. They would be taking World Bank loans.
My home country has one of those loans, and I have no idea whether it’s beneficial or not since it’s classified for 30 years as is the Russian nuclear power plant contracts or the money we spend on our oligarchs.
China doesn’t give money to countries to build these projects. The money is given directly to Chinese State Owned Enterprises to build the projects. That can be a great way to keep costs low, but it also means there is no transfer of knowledge for building these of projects to locals.
Chinese deals are for a very long time, with some going for 100 years. China may also write the deals to trade for commodities instead of money, so there is risk that the commodity price goes up and China makes money on the deal.
Also, China makes a lot of these deals for China’s best interests. It could align with the host country’s interests, but not always. Of course, it isn’t like Western countries don’t do the same, but it is something to look out for.
I can see why countries would choose China as a partner to finance and build infrastructure, but it is important to know the fine print of the deal, or in this case, several deals.
Nobody’s forcing a country to sign a deal. Why does it matter that the project aligns with China’s best interests? The fact that the deal is signed means that both parties agree that it’s mutually beneficial… People aren’t running a charity.
And again, people assume transfer of knowledge like it happens between China and the US (two very well-educated countries)… But frankly, a lot of African countries are at the stage China was in right after the Cultural Revolution. You can’t simply transfer the knowledge of complex HSR technologies when most people don’t have the education needed to become a construction worker. There’s also the issue of experience: even the US, a country with an extremely highly-educated workforce, can’t build proper HSR (see: California HSR’s ballooning budget). It’s a difficult problem and African countries don’t have $100 billion dollars to spend on connecting Merced and Bakersfield.
The length of these deals is also not exactly the strong “gotcha” you seem to think it is. It’s a fact that a lot of African governments are rather unstable. With an outsourced maintenance scheme, the project remains viable through regime change. Plus, even stable governments like the US have shown that they have a tendency to aggressively underfund rail (see: Amtrak’s tens of billions of dollars worth of maintenance backlogs). The project is useless if it isn’t maintained, so why shouldn’t these countries sign that maintenance into effect now while they still have the power to do so?
The US has shown how to completely destroy a domestic passenger rail industry… People aren’t super keen on replicating that model with short maintenance contracts and “America First” policy.
And I never claimed that. I’m just saying that the negotiations may need to keep this in mind.
You can’t simply transfer the knowledge of complex HSR technologies when most people don’t have the education needed to become a construction worker.
I said that in direct response to someone saying it would be good to go for monumental design as it will train the workforce in construction. That is why I would recommend starting with trying to keep costs low in building out a new system.
The length of these deals is also not exactly the strong “gotcha” you seem to think it is.
A lot can change in 100 years. People who aren’t born now will be subject to that agreement. This includes China being able to project power enough to keep these farflung businesses in operation. I’m not treating to as a “gotcha”, just that it is risk.
The US has shown how to completely destroy a domestic passenger rail industry…
The USA also used to have the best rail industry in the world 100 years ago, including building some alignments that would be near high speed standards today. But even then, I never suggested that the US build the rail network described now.
I don’t disagree with all of your points, I’m just claiming that short maintenance contracts and onshoring all production might not be feasible in the volatile environments that these countries are in.
Fact is, China has a more stable government than a lot of African countries (and a decent track record of maintaining their own HSR) and there’s no reason to expect significant backtracking on China’s economic liberalization.
Other fact is, onshoring has a pretty strong record of blowing through budgets and timelines for minimal net gain (especially since Chinese companies aren’t actually making that much money off the top). Massachusetts tried to onshore subway train manufacturing and ended up with trains riddled with manufacturing defects. California tried to do HSR development and, well… Stuff happened. Britain is still struggling to get their HSR project off the ground and it’s already blown through the budget.
It might make a project in 20 years 20% cheaper, but it’ll make the current project maybe 500% more expensive. I don’t think that’s worth it.
I can’t imagine they’re actually planning to tunnel through mountains for an initial HSR network, right? That shit is insanely expensive and it would make much more sense to just run flights+a roundabout HSR route for that connection.
Africa has plenty of well educated people in a variety of fields, what they don’t have is economic opportunities. Sure, Africa probably couldn’t sustain the entire project all at once, but they could very likely provide enough educated people to handle several lines.
Africa has a brain drain problem. Anyone well off enough to get a decent education but isn’t well connected enough to get into one of the few opportunities that exist immigrates to another country. India used to be the same way, but they’re finally starting to create opportunities to keep their people in the country, and the solution wasn’t mega projects funded and completed by a foreign country, but direct investment in local jobs. That’s also how China is doing it.
So if Africa wants long term prosperity, they don’t need a high speed rail service to be built for them, they need to build one themselves, and perhaps hire an outside firm to oversee it. If that means the can only build part of the system, that’s what they should do. It’ll take longer, but it’ll provide jobs and build expertise in the meantime and result in less total debt. They should focus on the most economically important links, and build the rest later.
The problem is that Africa isn’t a single entity. I’m absolutely sure that across the entire continent you could build a dream team of engineers… But in each country? That’s a bit more challenging, especially when your goal is to connect the continent.
This is even true in Europe, where each country has a different railway power standard that makes connecting their HSR systems very complicated.
But they can all agree to outsource it? Surely it’s not that much more work to convince member countries that DIY within the continent is better than outsourcing.
But then you get a bunch of political issues between countries. Hell, different US states can’t even agree on anything and they’re in the same country.
Outsourcing is easier because everyone wants to get closer to China’s economic engine.
I don’t see why they want to get closer to China though. From my perspective, China wants access to cheap natural resources, so they have no incentive to actually help Africa prosper.
Hopefully they can form something more similar to the EU where cross-country agreements can work. Relying on China to fill in the gaps will likely just lead to more imperialism.
Yup, so I certainly wouldn’t expect them to rush into any deals with Western countries. I’m just saying that cash mimick the structure of the EU when they start building the rail system.
Oh, yeah for sure. I do imagine that this deal looks more promising to Africa (than any Western one) solely because of China’s lack of hard power in the region. China can’t project power because their navy is tailored specifically for operation in the South China Sea. China’s blue water fleet can’t do shit. China knows this and Africa knows this. China only has soft power in Africa, so there’s a strong incentive to keep everyone happy because they can’t just pull an Iraq if someone doesn’t pay.
Perhaps. But has the US or anyone in Europe ever actually done that? Usually an invasion is due to terrorism, human rights violations, or violation of international law, not because of unpaid dues. If you look at pretty much every country the US has invaded, the US invested a ton into rebuilding and then left (some cases were handled better than others). I don’t think anyone in either region really wants to inherit Africa’s problems.
All major powers want access to natural resources, so Africa should recognize the position it’s in and be very hesitant to give up anything other than guaranteed trade agreements (i.e. allow sponsors first dibs on X% of total production for Y years or something) in exchange for assisting them in building their own infrastructure (i.e. Africans run the project, sponsors merely share knowledge).
So I sincerely hope the deal between the AU and China (or any other countries they’re courting) are beneficial to Africa and not just beneficial to the people in charge.
Yeah, and it’s a mess for a host of reasons. It’s a classic case of the US expanding the scope of a mission far beyond what’s necessary. What should’ve been a quick operation to neutralize a terrorist threat became an occupation with the stated intent being “spread democracy” in a region where centralization really hasn’t been a thing.
At no point was the goal ever to establish a colony or create a trading partner, the US just wanted one less place for terrorism to breed.
On the other hand, Iraq is doing a lot better now. It’s hard to compare whether it’s better than with Saddam Hussein, but the region is seeing a lot more stability and local investment. It’s possible we’ll look back and consider Iraq a messy success story. I’m still don’t think invasion was justified, but things have more or less worked out. And then you look at Japan, Korea, and Europe, which are shining success stories of US interventionism. It’s very much a mixed bag.
So I understand countries being nervous about working with the US and Europe, but at least they’re more of a known quantity. China can be very unpredictable, but it’s clear that they’re trying to extend their influence. That alone should make them very hesitant to get involved. Just look at when the USSR did something similar; the main difference is that the US eventually left. If China gets a foothold, will they eventually leave or try to expand their control in the region? I think that remains to be seen, but the history with Tibet and reigning in autonomous regions isn’t promising.
I like how you ignored the part in which chinese companies force the governments to sign 90+ year maintenance contracts. Convenient as it isnt part of the loan, just part of the bribery.
Extravagant projects are exactly how China got out of it’s poverty hole (and, if you think about it, also how a lot of Europe recovered post-WW2 as well).
Only in the US is infrastructure condemned so strongly.
Does Africa need full high speed rail now? Can it get away with designating the corridors, designing the geometry, and then designing cheaper rail? I feel like going straight to high speed, especially if it is mainly for freight connectivity, isn’t worth it.
Looking at Nairobi to Mombasa as an example, it looks like Nairobi to Kyumvi and Makindu to Mombasa could be designed and built as high speed rail as the terrain looks relatively flat.
However, there is a set of hills between Kyumvi and Makindu that will make the geometry of the rail a lot trickier. The cost of viaducts and tunneling through those hills could be significantly more costly than the rest of the project combined. For the expensive part of the rail, it may be better to build that part at a lower design speed that can get upgraded later.
China built a great high speed rail system, but a lot of people in China still use the traditional rail system due to ticket cost, and the population in China is wealthier than the average African. You also have the African rail system being designed to operate with freight, which is something that the Chinese high speed rail network wasn’t really designed to handle as much of.
The economics don’t seem to favor high speed rail now, so it may be better to design the system so that it doesn’t preclude high speed rail in the future.
The summary isn’t detailed to go through how the system gets implemented. I also noted in another comment that it is would be wise to design the geometry of some segments to high speed rail standards if the cost increase due to tighter geometry requirements are negligible.
A continental high speed rail network is a great goal, but there are ways to implement the system that can yield faster benefits to Africans than just building the whole system to high speed standards at once.
Again, I have no idea why you’re assuming these countries haven’t done due diligence before embarking on a megaproject like this. A really weird premise to start from to be honest.
I’m assuming the same due diligence my country puts into these kinds of projects. Hell, there are large parts of the Internet that critique projects like this in general, no matter who builds it.
If I’m willing to critique developed countries in infrastructure projects, why shouldn’t do the same for developing countries?
If you wanted to make a serious critique then you should spend the time to actually learn about the project and criticize specifics instead of just making stuff up based on what your country does.
And my critique is based on the experience of Chinese High Speed Rail, which I noted in other comment. All you did was ask me by what right I can critique them, and I responded that I will critique any of these types of plans, including plans in my country.
Why are you saying I’m being defensive when I’m simply pointing out that what you’re saying is unsubstantiated, and it’s not really possible to have a meaningful discussion without knowing the actual details of the plan. If there’s something specific you want to criticize then that would be an interesting discussion, but simply claiming high speed rail is a bad idea because reasons is just noise.
This post doesn’t have that detail. I’m only critiquing the project based on the information at hand which you provided. If there is noise, it is because the resolution of the plan as detailed is allow you are going to only get noise as part of the discussion. I don’t know if the planning has been gotten to my discussion points yet.
You had also said several times asking if I thought the African economists did their jobs competently. It sounds like an appeal to authority to not talk about what is known. I’m looking at this project as being planned by experts and I haven’t said anything to suggest otherwise. However, people can still critique experts.
I know the post doesn’t have the details, hence it doesn’t really much make sense to make extrapolations you’re making based on the content of it. The post just says that Africa is building high speed rail, which I think is an interesting development. Whether there are going to be problems or not remains to be seen but to me this is clearly a positive development.
It is a positive development, and it is good that they are looking at it from the continental point of view to ensure compatability between countries. Europe really dropped the ball on compatability.
You are following me around and making vapid comments that add nothing of substance to the discussion. That’s what trolling actually is. You appear to be upset that you’re exposed to opinions and views that come outside of the echo chamber you live in. That’s entirely a you problem.
I’m not following you. You are a ubiquitous, low effort troll. You are not representing causes in any persuasive way.
Your whole argument is the West and especially the US is bad. I’m sympathetic to many points, but you broad brush people, turn dismissive, condescending and just… mean.
Don’t call my stuff vapid when you’re posting vomit emoji and othe glib stuff at potential allies.
That’s the thing. All you see are enemies. All you make are enemies. You’re safe hiding on a server that disallows downvotes but you’re pissing people off - because you keep lashing out and trolling.
Groups I’d enjoy, you’re killing the vibe and the discussion. We have similar interests but you’ve never considered it. I was a bad person for being born in the US from the first time we talked.
You are following me and making vapid comments that are just personal attacks and contribute absolutely nothing. The fact that I live rent free in your head is kind of adorable, but all you do is just add noise to the conversation. You are noise.
Out of all the federation of Lemmy servers there are literally a handful of trolls, such as yourself, who follow me around and are very mad about my opinions. I have lots interesting and productive discussions with other people. You’re not representative of the community. You’re just a toxic individual with an agenda who can’t stand seeing views you disagree with. Yet, you’re not able to make any actual points of your own, so all you do is make personal attacks. It’s kind of sad really.
African countries are currently negotiating loan agreements with countries such as China while avoiding Western interests as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
China has a history of offering aggressive upfront costs on loans in exchange for a lot of influence in the region. So I’m guessing China gave the AU a sweetheart deal in exchange for cutting out competitors and potentially allowing China a lot of lenience in future investments (e.g. sweatshops and unsafe mines).
So here’s what I see the strategy as:
give the AU a very expensive loan with an initial deferment; the leadership of the AU is happy because they can show the public that they’re doing something
some years down the line, the AU realizes it can’t actually pay the debt, and arranges further deals with China that increases China’s influence in the area
repeat 2 until Africa has been bled dry just as much as with European colonial powers
I don’t see this as a real long-term solution. Instead of trying to connect every African country, they should pick favorites at first, with a contract with member countries to eventually expand to everyone. As in, connect the most prosperous areas that will absolutely use the rail network, and expand once that cash flows, and do so without massive loans from countries with an economic interest in exploiting the area.
I just don’t see China’s interests aligning with the EU. This just seems likely to have heavy corruption where the AU gets short term benefits for a long term sellout of the AU to China.
The initial set of plans looks like a very high level program design, which is appropriate for this stage of planning. It is also going to be up to the constituent member nations to get this built, which is consistent with a continental system that is being planned.
This is a good beginning to a long term solution, but the costs may outweigh the benefits in the short and medium terms.
I hope that the first segments chosen are those that add the most value immediately, then expansions radiate from there so that the incomplete segments are still valuable in their smaller parts. Since they are defining technology now, the different parts should integrate easily into one large system.
My concern with picking China is that Chinese engineers are likely going to go with the expensive option no matter what; they’ve done it in China a lot and I don’t see them changing.
Why not? Africa’s goal isn’t to be a continent that constantly lags behind Europe/North America. They want to leapfrog Western countries just like China did and that’s challenging to achieve without proper infrastructure investment.
Yeah, and it makes sense to do it with certain technologies.
My concern is that focusing only on high speed rail when there isn’t any decent connectivity could mean dumping money into a short section that requires a lot of viaducts and tunnels when it may be cheaper to just get some sort of connection built and cover back later after you’ve built up more of the system and the demand is there to justify the more expensive option.
Still keep the signaling, electrification, and rail precision of high speed rail, but maybe accept that there will be a small section that isn’t high speed in order to save in bridge and tunnel costs.
On the other hand, the bridging and tunneling expertise developed by these projects would enable more extensive public works across other domains as well, so it’s not “wasted money”.
Also, what people miss is that Africa today lacks education across the stack. It isn’t the case that African countries have a well-educated labour pool but simply no expertise in HSR (like the US, which will spend on the order of $100 billion trying to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles with HSR), but that many African countries simply lack the well-educated labour pool in the first place. Building out these large projects is simultaneously a means of economic stimulus and a means of targeted education in core engineering disciplines.
This kind of work is essential to before there can be any hope of replacing more skilled workers with African ones. That’s also why you see a lot of foreign workers on these projects: the expertise and experience simply isn’t there domestically to ensure that the project can complete on-time and under-budget.
That assumes that these projects will use African labor, which may not be the case. Chinese infrastructure projects abroad are typically Chinese funded, Chinese designed, and Chinese built. Some local unskilled labor may be used, but Chinese construction companies are likely going to keep the key technical parts in-house.
This also brings a question of economic stimulus. A project can only really be an economic stimulus to a region if the project uses local labor and materials. I really doubt Chinese construction firms are going to use local rebar for production; a big reason that China is motivated to build out Africa’s High Speed Rail is that the demand for these projects has dropped in China. The apparatus to make high speed rail in China is still there while there is no longer any demand for the internal market.
Again, I think you’re misunderstanding. “Unskilled labour” by the Western definition is already considered decently skilled. This was a problem that China ran into as they industrialized and it’s a problem that African countries will also run into: there simply isn’t enough well-trained, experienced skilled labour. People are aware of this.
You can’t train a nuclear physicist if you can’t train an electrical engineer, and you can’t train an electrical engineer if you can’t train a construction worker. This doesn’t solve the problem of nuclear physicist or electrical engineer, but it should at least solve the problem of construction worker.
I know some people are aware of it, but not everyone.
Also, China is in the habit of not even training the construction worker. Chinese SOE’s have a lot of projects being built outside of China that don’t use local labor except for the most basic tasks. This is different from a lot of Western companies that will generally tap more into the local labor pool.
This isn’t a value judgement one way or another, but a statement of differences between the two.
Oh for sure, Western projects do tap more of the local labour pool. They’re also more likely to be overbudget and behind schedule (California HSR and most transit/rail projects in the US, etc). To some degree, that’s just a difference in management technique and there’s definitely an advantage to training more workers at the cost of time and money.
On the other hand, those “basic” tasks only seem basic because we have had a proper Western education… And that’s not something we should be taking for granted.
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