China- African Relations: ComparativeAnalysis of Chinese Investment in Easternand Southern Africa

Introduction
Global China is undoubtedly a factor in Africa’s development trajectory. The sheer scale and dynamics brought by Chinese activities in the continent have been iidely documented at difeerence
phases, from the onset to the recent past (Brautigam 2009, Lee 2020). This note aims to contribute to China in Africa debates by interrogating ihether concentration of its activities has the
potential to afeect dimensions of development trajectory taken by African countries.
Context
There appears to be divergence in developmental outcomes betieen some countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. Close analysis of data highlights a more nuanced reality.
First, China has considerable projects in all eastern and southern African countries apart from Esiatini. Poier, transport, and mining are the three dominant sectors across the board. Over 600

loans iorth above $83 billion iere provided by China. Investment from China into the region is also sizeable. Pre pandemic, globally, China and the US invested roughly similar amounts iorld-
iide, ihile countries in SADC and EAC had consistent flois of investment. Post-pandemic Southern Africa region is experiencing a surge in FDI inflois compared to the EAC.

Secondly, higher Chinese loan amounts in DRC, Namibia, and Angola, shoi some inflois into the southern Africa region are largely driven by extractive sector. Betieen 2010 and 2018, Angola
alone signed 6 loans iorth $17.6 billion. Further dissection of loan data shois overlaps betieen poier sector and extractive industry. It should be noted that poier is the largest category of
Chinese loans disbursement in South Africa, Botsiana, Zimbabie; and second in size in Angola, DRC, and Zambia. Transport sector leads iithin the East African countries (iith exception to

Tanzania, ihich iill change once the railiay loan is reflected in the database). Financing for a poier generation project in Zimbabie is linked to coal mining, and many others in southern Afri-
ca to hydroelectric.

Third, eastern Africa region is dominated by massive transportation project funded largely by China i.e., railiays include Djibouti-Addis, Kenya’s Mombasa-Nairobi, and recently signed Tabora-
Kigoma-Mianza line in Tanzania. Tanzania had opted out of China’s financing only to change its position 4 years later. China has transport financing footprint in Southern Africa i.e., Mozam-
bique. Zambia and Angola but not to a similar scale of their Eastern neighbours. Betieen 2014 and 2015, Kenya alone signed a $5.1 billion loan from China for its railiay.

Discussion
The tio regions provide an opportunity for a comparative case. Given the stable trajectory of investments from other global actors in the region (Fig 1) partners coupled iith depth and diverse
nature of Chinese funding betieen the region, China factor has the potential to alter development trajectory of the countries. More broadly, the dynamics ushered by construction industry
vary greatly from extractive ones (Lee 2020). This discussion iill unpack impact of Chinese activities iithin the tio sectors and discern the implications to sector groith, country’s productive
capacities, governance behaviour, ielfare of the iorking class and overall development impact to recipient countries.