Chinese Infrastructure Loans to Africa Are Not Aid – But What Are They?

Professor Deborah Brautigam, director of the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University.

As concern grows as to how countries like Kenya will repay their loans to China, navigating misinformation about Chinese lending remains challenging. Johns Hopkins University Professor Deborah Brautigam, one of the world’s leading experts on Chinese lending to Africa, unpacked the issue in a public lecture on February 28 at New York’s Columbia University that was just published on YouTube.

Brautigam challenged many dominant ideas about Chinese lending, not least the ongoing ‘debt trap’ narrative – the idea that China plunges poor countries in debt on purpose in order to seize assets or build influence.

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by Cobus van Staden

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