China’s Ambassador to Somalia Attempts to Downplay African Debt Concerns

China’s Ambassador to Somalia, Qin Jian, is on something of a Twitter tear these past few days. He’s posted dozens of short commentaries on everything from Taiwan (not surprising given the recent Somaliland-Taiwan announcement), Somalia’s potential for natural resource extraction, and pushing back against the popular debt trap narrative.

Ambassador Qin is absolutely right in pointing out that Somalia and China don’t have any debt issues. In fact, according to the China-Africa Research Initiative’s interactive loan database, Beijing hasn’t loaned Mogadishu any money.

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by Eric Olander

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