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- cross-posted to:
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Meanwhile Africa’s airplane network is on the sky.
This isn’t funny, I’ve reported this guy to Lemmy. Why do people keep up voting him?
to those downvoting google aliko dangote troll
Belt n road go chuga choo
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Why not? Africa’s goal isn’t to be a continent that constantly lags behind Europe/North America. They want to leapfrog Western countries just like China did and that’s challenging to achieve without proper infrastructure investment.
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On the other hand, the bridging and tunneling expertise developed by these projects would enable more extensive public works across other domains as well, so it’s not “wasted money”.
Also, what people miss is that Africa today lacks education across the stack. It isn’t the case that African countries have a well-educated labour pool but simply no expertise in HSR (like the US, which will spend on the order of $100 billion trying to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles with HSR), but that many African countries simply lack the well-educated labour pool in the first place. Building out these large projects is simultaneously a means of economic stimulus and a means of targeted education in core engineering disciplines.
This kind of work is essential to before there can be any hope of replacing more skilled workers with African ones. That’s also why you see a lot of foreign workers on these projects: the expertise and experience simply isn’t there domestically to ensure that the project can complete on-time and under-budget.
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Again, I think you’re misunderstanding. “Unskilled labour” by the Western definition is already considered decently skilled. This was a problem that China ran into as they industrialized and it’s a problem that African countries will also run into: there simply isn’t enough well-trained, experienced skilled labour. People are aware of this.
You can’t train a nuclear physicist if you can’t train an electrical engineer, and you can’t train an electrical engineer if you can’t train a construction worker. This doesn’t solve the problem of nuclear physicist or electrical engineer, but it should at least solve the problem of construction worker.
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Oh for sure, Western projects do tap more of the local labour pool. They’re also more likely to be overbudget and behind schedule (California HSR and most transit/rail projects in the US, etc). To some degree, that’s just a difference in management technique and there’s definitely an advantage to training more workers at the cost of time and money.
On the other hand, those “basic” tasks only seem basic because we have had a proper Western education… And that’s not something we should be taking for granted.
I don’t see why Africa would invest in outdated technology when they can have high speed rail. There’s literally zero rationale to do that.
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I think the benefits of going high speed rail now would outweigh the negatives of upgrading at a later point.
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My main concern here is this:
African countries are currently negotiating loan agreements with countries such as China while avoiding Western interests as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
China has a history of offering aggressive upfront costs on loans in exchange for a lot of influence in the region. So I’m guessing China gave the AU a sweetheart deal in exchange for cutting out competitors and potentially allowing China a lot of lenience in future investments (e.g. sweatshops and unsafe mines).
So here’s what I see the strategy as:
- give the AU a very expensive loan with an initial deferment; the leadership of the AU is happy because they can show the public that they’re doing something
- some years down the line, the AU realizes it can’t actually pay the debt, and arranges further deals with China that increases China’s influence in the area
- repeat 2 until Africa has been bled dry just as much as with European colonial powers
I don’t see this as a real long-term solution. Instead of trying to connect every African country, they should pick favorites at first, with a contract with member countries to eventually expand to everyone. As in, connect the most prosperous areas that will absolutely use the rail network, and expand once that cash flows, and do so without massive loans from countries with an economic interest in exploiting the area.
I just don’t see China’s interests aligning with the EU. This just seems likely to have heavy corruption where the AU gets short term benefits for a long term sellout of the AU to China.
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I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the actual economists in Africa have done the math here.
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Again, I have no idea why you’re assuming these countries haven’t done due diligence before embarking on a megaproject like this. A really weird premise to start from to be honest.
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If you wanted to make a serious critique then you should spend the time to actually learn about the project and criticize specifics instead of just making stuff up based on what your country does.
Im scared for the countries getting caught in Chinas debt trap. With maintenance contracts being forced (for more than 90 years!), billions in outstanding loans in each country there is no way to climb out the hole. Everyone can see these extravaganza projects are not what Africa needs, but what China wants.
Extravagant projects are exactly how China got out of it’s poverty hole (and, if you think about it, also how a lot of Europe recovered post-WW2 as well).
Only in the US is infrastructure condemned so strongly.
indeed
Extravagant projects are exactly how China got out of it’s poverty hole
Ah right I forgot those glass bridges that killed a bunch of people.
Funny.
There is no China debt trap. That’s just concern trolling western trolls invented
- https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3745021
- https://www.eurasiareview.com/01022021-chinese-investment-in-africa-has-had-significant-and-persistently-positive-long-term-effects-despite-controversy/
- https://theconversation.com/china-and-africa-ethiopia-case-study-debunks-investment-myths-177098
- https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/gild/2021/01/26/how-chinese-investment-shape-new-growth-patterns-in-africa/
- https://www.asiafinancial.com/china-debt-trap-claims-in-africa-stem-from-us-rivalry-study
- https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/chinas-infrastructure-investment-helps-fast-track-development-in-africa-expert/
African countries are foregoing Western investment because of the number of strings attached. Chinese loans are pretty straightforward: here’s some money, here’s a (very) competitive interest rate, and here’s how the infrastructure will be kept alive even if the country runs out of tax revenue to fund it. Critically, the project’s operation isn’t hindered by financial mismanagement and can keep delivering economic benefits to the region.
Indeed, and China also does a lot of loan forgiveness because they want to establish long term mutually beneficial relationships as opposed to just strip mine these countries the way the west does.
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Nobody’s forcing a country to sign a deal. Why does it matter that the project aligns with China’s best interests? The fact that the deal is signed means that both parties agree that it’s mutually beneficial… People aren’t running a charity.
And again, people assume transfer of knowledge like it happens between China and the US (two very well-educated countries)… But frankly, a lot of African countries are at the stage China was in right after the Cultural Revolution. You can’t simply transfer the knowledge of complex HSR technologies when most people don’t have the education needed to become a construction worker. There’s also the issue of experience: even the US, a country with an extremely highly-educated workforce, can’t build proper HSR (see: California HSR’s ballooning budget). It’s a difficult problem and African countries don’t have $100 billion dollars to spend on connecting Merced and Bakersfield.
The length of these deals is also not exactly the strong “gotcha” you seem to think it is. It’s a fact that a lot of African governments are rather unstable. With an outsourced maintenance scheme, the project remains viable through regime change. Plus, even stable governments like the US have shown that they have a tendency to aggressively underfund rail (see: Amtrak’s tens of billions of dollars worth of maintenance backlogs). The project is useless if it isn’t maintained, so why shouldn’t these countries sign that maintenance into effect now while they still have the power to do so?
The US has shown how to completely destroy a domestic passenger rail industry… People aren’t super keen on replicating that model with short maintenance contracts and “America First” policy.
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I don’t disagree with all of your points, I’m just claiming that short maintenance contracts and onshoring all production might not be feasible in the volatile environments that these countries are in.
Fact is, China has a more stable government than a lot of African countries (and a decent track record of maintaining their own HSR) and there’s no reason to expect significant backtracking on China’s economic liberalization.
Other fact is, onshoring has a pretty strong record of blowing through budgets and timelines for minimal net gain (especially since Chinese companies aren’t actually making that much money off the top). Massachusetts tried to onshore subway train manufacturing and ended up with trains riddled with manufacturing defects. California tried to do HSR development and, well… Stuff happened. Britain is still struggling to get their HSR project off the ground and it’s already blown through the budget.
It might make a project in 20 years 20% cheaper, but it’ll make the current project maybe 500% more expensive. I don’t think that’s worth it.
I can’t imagine they’re actually planning to tunnel through mountains for an initial HSR network, right? That shit is insanely expensive and it would make much more sense to just run flights+a roundabout HSR route for that connection.
Africa has plenty of well educated people in a variety of fields, what they don’t have is economic opportunities. Sure, Africa probably couldn’t sustain the entire project all at once, but they could very likely provide enough educated people to handle several lines.
Africa has a brain drain problem. Anyone well off enough to get a decent education but isn’t well connected enough to get into one of the few opportunities that exist immigrates to another country. India used to be the same way, but they’re finally starting to create opportunities to keep their people in the country, and the solution wasn’t mega projects funded and completed by a foreign country, but direct investment in local jobs. That’s also how China is doing it.
So if Africa wants long term prosperity, they don’t need a high speed rail service to be built for them, they need to build one themselves, and perhaps hire an outside firm to oversee it. If that means the can only build part of the system, that’s what they should do. It’ll take longer, but it’ll provide jobs and build expertise in the meantime and result in less total debt. They should focus on the most economically important links, and build the rest later.
The problem is that Africa isn’t a single entity. I’m absolutely sure that across the entire continent you could build a dream team of engineers… But in each country? That’s a bit more challenging, especially when your goal is to connect the continent.
This is even true in Europe, where each country has a different railway power standard that makes connecting their HSR systems very complicated.
But they can all agree to outsource it? Surely it’s not that much more work to convince member countries that DIY within the continent is better than outsourcing.
African countries are foregoing Western investment because of the number of strings attached
What strings?
here’s a (very) competitive interest rate
IMF loans are cheaper. Every person with two braincells will realize corrupt officials will take the chinese loans with higher interest rates because of the bribes. A 90 year maintenance contract is nonsense and you cant defend it.
IMF and World Bank loans in years past have had strict rules regarding economic liberalization and cutting government spending.
IMF loans are cheaper. Every person with two braincells will realize corrupt officials will take the Chinese loans with higher interest rates because of the bribes.
[citation needed]
I like how you wont comment on the maintenance contracts.
So… No citation, right?
First result in Google. You cant even Google so im pretty sure you dont know what the hell you are talking about lol.
I like how you ignored the part in which chinese companies force the governments to sign 90+ year maintenance contracts. Convenient as it isnt part of the loan, just part of the bribery.
