China’s ambassador to the DR Congo, Zhu Jing, posted one of those anodyne tweets on Sunday about yet another Chinese-financed infrastructure project in Africa nearing completion.
These kinds of Chinese infrastructure soft power propaganda messages (aka “Infrastructure Porn”) have become so common that a tweet by Zhu about a small 200-kilovolt electric power sub-station doesn’t generate a lot of attention… but it should.
That substation, financed by a $299 million loan from the China Exim Bank and built by Shanghai Power, is the perfect example of why leaders like DRC President Félix Tshisekedi will tell anyone who wants to listen how they prefer to work with the Chinese on these kinds of projects rather than G7 countries.
Sure, when U.S., European and Japanese officials talk about the importance of implementing the highest environmental and labor standards to build infrastructure, everyone in the room nods in agreement.
But when Congolese officials give their foreign visitors the required assurances of their dedication to worker safety and protecting nature, what they’re really thinking is, “FFS, these guys just don’t get it. Everything they’re asking for is going to cost more and take longer to build which means we won’t be able to campaign on it.”
Consider that President Tshisekedi laid the cornerstone for the Kinsuka substation on July 28, 2021. Now, less than two years later, that facility is nearly completed and will transmit power to nearly two million residents in the capital Kinshasa — giving the president a full six months before the election to tell everyone he’s the one making their lives better.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that high labor and environmental standards aren’t priorities for developing world leaders. It’s just that delivering tangible results quickly and within a single electoral cycle is way more important.
Until G7 countries can build infrastructure at this pace, it’s highly unlikely they’re going to be taken seriously in Kinshasa or elsewhere… regardless of what they’re being told.
