On this episode of China Uncensored:
Sierra Leone is the first country in Africa
to sidestep a debt trap set by China!
Will others follow?
Hi. Welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m your host, Chris Chappell.
Sierra Leone.
A country in West Africa more or less
the size of South Carolina.
In fact, it’s kind of what South Carolina sees
when it looks in the mirror.
But unlike South Carolina,
where the average life expectancy is 77 years,
people in Sierra Leone live to an average of just 52.
Still, that’s a LOT better than in 1995,
when Sierra Leone was in the middle of a bloody 10-year civil war a
nd people barely made it to age 35.
“We were coming through town,
searching for food,
when they got all of us. T
hey captured us in an ambush.
They captured all of us.
They assembled seven of us. Six were killed.”
Luckily that’s all in the past.
Still, to this day Sierra Leone remains
one of the poorest countries in Africa.
More than half the population lives below the poverty line
of one dollar twenty five cents a day.
But recently, things seem to be looking up for Sierra Leone.
“We are a successful modern, stable democracy.
One that has evolved and matured over 20 years
from chaos and lawlessness of civil conflict.”
That was the country’s new president,
Julius Maada Bio,
elected in April.
Here he is in China…
...at the recent Forum on China-Africa Cooperation,
where Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged
$60 billion dollars of loans to Africa.
But President Bio made headlines last week
when he overturned a huge deal with China
hat his predecessor Ernest Bai Koroma…
...signed a few years back.
The plan was for a Chinese company
to build the Mamamah International Airport…
...with funding from a Chinese state-owned bank
to the tune of 312 million dollars.
A third of that was to be from a loan that Sierra Leone
would have to pay back.
Sierra Leone’s Minister of Transport and Aviation
announced the project’s cancellation in a letter,
part of which was published in the Daily Nation,
a Kenyan newspaper.
So instead of taking out a massive loan to build
a brand new airport that it doesn’t need,
Sierra Leone is going to fix up the one it already has.
That seems like a prudent choice,
given that a recent IMF mission to Sierra Leone
found that “the economic environment remains challenging”
and hailed the new government’s efforts to
“stabilize public debt and reduce it to sustainable levels,
and prioritize public investment aimed at
reducing social and infrastructure gaps.”
It also turns out that an earlier 200 million loan from China
for the same proposed new airport was cancelled
when the IMF and World Bank
did a debt sustainability analysis of Sierra Leone,
and expressed “strong concerns” about the deal.
And when a formal organization like the IMF
says it has “strong concerns”,
in normal language that means “run!”
The risk of taking a loan from China is,
let’s say,
different from taking an IMF loan.
If you can’t afford to pay back an IMF loan,
they may impose some conditions
before bailing you out with another loan.
Those conditions might include
making you adopt free market reforms,
clamp down on corruption, or strengthen rule-of-law institutions.
But those are generally things that make a country better,
and can attract future investment.
But if you owe China money and can’t afford to pay up,
well, they take their pound of flesh.
Like Djibouti.
The African country of Djibouti.
China recently set up a military base there—
likely through political pressure.
China is also helping finance the main seaport in Djibouti.
But if it can’t pay off its debt—
and that seems likely—
it may be forced to hand over its port to China.
And this means China would control
the key access point in and out of Djibouti.
The big fear is that as China hands out loans
for huge infrastructure projects around the world
as part of its Belt and Road Initiative,
it will use the loans that countries can’t afford t
o pay back as a way to take resources or territory.
But by bucking that trend, Sierra Leone
has just become the first African country to sidestep
one of China’s potential debt traps.
Some experts even say that Sierra Leone may be
the first of a series of dominos that are about to fall.
A professor at a college in North Carolina says this cancellation
is a sign that African countries are are starting to
wise up when it comes to the threat of Chinese loans.
Now after the Mamamah airport deal was axed,
China was quick to say “nothing to see here, folks.”
“I don’t think this particular project should be overblown
as an indication of problems between
the Chinese and Sierra Leone governments,”
said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang...
...and then between the lines expressed hope
other African countries wouldn’t develop
any hangups about taking Chinese money.
“When cooperating with African countries
that include Sierra Leone,
China has always adhered to the principles
of equality-based consultations and win-win cooperation.”
Of course when you see headlines like this about Sri Lanka...
or this about Zambia...
...you wonder if the Chinese regime has
a slightly different definition of win-win.
I think it means,
if you repay the loan,
China wins.
If you can’t repay,
China also wins.
Win-win.
So what do you think about Sierra Leone
canceling its loan from China?
Leave your comments below.
And before we go, it’s time to answer a question
from a fan of China Uncensored
who contributes to us through the crowdfunding website Patreon.
David Michael White asks:
“Chris, do you have a favorite creature from Chinese mythology?”
Let’s see, I’m going to say a qilin.
It’s kind of like if you combined a dragon head,
the body of an ox,
but with the skin of snake.
Sometimes they have two horns.
Other times one horn,
which has led some people to call it a Chinese unicorn.
Please. Qilin are way more majestic than unicorns.
Oh, and sometimes they’re on fire. But not always.
They may look fearsome, but they only punish the wicked.
In Buddhist thought they’re vegetarian
and fly because they don’t want to step on
even a single blade of grass.
If a qilin showed up,
it meant that there was a wise and benevolent ruler.
So I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that
a lot of Chinese emperors said
they showed up during their reign.
But my favorite story about qilins involved the Chinese.
He was the Chinese admiral in the Ming Dynasty
who sailed all the way to Africa
in his fleet of Chinese treasure ships.
For a guy who was a eunuch,
that took a lot of...guts.
Anyway, he brought back two giraffes to the emperor,
who by the way was very benevolent,
and everyone was like, oh yeah,
those are qilin, totally qilin.
If you’d like to learn more about
Chinese mythological creatures,
I’d recommend a book called
the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
You won’t find a crazier collection
of strange beasts and monsters.
Unless you read a book about the Politburo.
Thanks for your question, David.
And remember, you too can have
your question answered on China Uncensored
when you become a Patreon supporter.
Join us at Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored
and contribute a dollar or more per episode.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.
Want to know more about how the US
is reacting to Chinese investment in Africa?
Well, on our spin-off show America Uncovered...
We just did an entire episode about that.
So click here to check it out.
It’s great.