Gyude Moore, the former Liberian public works minister and now a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development joined prominent China scholar Damien Ma, director and co-founder of MacroPolo, the in-house think tank of the Paulson Institute in Chicago, for an online discussion that took aim at many misperceptions about China-Africa relations that are still widely believed in Washington, D.C.

Key Highlights From the Ma-Moore Discussion on “China, Africa and Beyond”

[8:30] DEBT TRAP: “There’s never really been any evidence that China was intentionally ensnaring its partners into debt and in the event they can’t pay the Chinese would take over flagship infrastructure in the country. It’s just never been any evidence for that. But it’s a good story to tell. China is now a peer competitor to the United States and building infrastructure across the world has been a significant Chinese strength. So, if I was the Americans, I would definitely try to craft a narrative that would make that strength a weakness, and I think to a large extent that’s what it’s become.