Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway is now arguably the most controversial Chinese project in Africa, due to runaway rumors that debt from the notoriously opaque agreement will lead to the seizure of the port of Mombasa by Chinese banks.
This controversy prompted Professor Deborah Brautigam’s team at Johns Hopkins University’s China Africa Research Initiative to launch a deep investigation into the deal. Their report, “How Africa Borrows from China: And Why Mombasa Port is Not Collateral for Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway” has now been launched. It provides the most complete glimpse up to date of the deal’s terms and debunks many conspiracy theories.
