When East and West Meet in Africa

Boosted by the Belt and Road Initiative,infrastructure construction in Africa hasachieved remarkable progress with theparticipation of Chinese companies, a trend thatis grabbing increasing world attention.The newly built Mombasa-Nairobi Standard-Gauge Railway in Kenya, put into use in May, isone such example. The 471-km line is meantfor passenger and cargo transportation be-tween Mombasa, the largest port in East Africa,and Kenyan capital Nairobi. It is the fi rst phaseof an ambitious railway project that aims to con-nect Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.While most Africans have welcomed theseinfrastructure projects, some in the Westernmedia have different opinions.

What will Chinese investment in infrastruc-ture bring to the African continent The boostto the economy is one of the benefits. Moresignificantly, these infrastructure projects willhelp African countries in their nation-building,promoting political stability and improving do-mestic governance, laying the foundation forbecoming successful countries.

The price of colonialization

While to many, Africa still evokes images ofpoverty and famine, it is not a poor continentas one might have imagined. On the contrary,it has abundant natural resources though theyhave brought not prosperity, but turbulence.Fundamentally, Africa’s problems can be attrib-uted to the dearth of a mature nation-buildingmodel.

Until modern times, most of sub-Saha-ran Africa remained in a stage of primitivecivilization. While civilizations in Eurasia weredeveloping for thousands of years, especially innational integration and state establishment,Africa was still at an early stage.

Its development process was interruptedby European colonialists who flocked into thecontinent. Though they brought their advancedtechnologies and institutional experience duringtheir colonial rule of Africa and built infrastruc-ture, such as the Uganda Railway, promotingconnectivity, it was not based on a naturalprocess. Instead, everything that the colonialistsestablished in Africa was to serve their own in-terests Territories and populations were dividedinto different states not according to ethnicityor religion but by the will and contest of the co-lonial powers. After the independence of Africancountries, such divisions created developmentbarriers and have been followed by confl ict, tur-bulence, civil war and even genocide.

Since African countries couldn’t get ridof what they had inherited from their colo-nial period, they had to accept reality andpursue development on the basis of the ex-isting conditions. Under such circumstances,it is more challenging for African countriesto build their nations. In other countries, itusually took centuries or over 1,000 yearsto finish the process of ethnic and culturalintegration, unify the domestic market andestablish an effective government and statesystem. In Africa, the process was manipu-lated within a much shorter time, causing aseries of chain reactions.

To build a country, the most fundamentaland important condition is infrastructure. Inancient China, as early as the rule of the QinDynasty (221-207 B.C.), there was a unifiedmeasurement system and a large-scale roadnetwork across the country was built. The samegoes with the Roman Empire It managed tomaintain control over its vast territory via itsextensive road network. The United States be-came an integrated society after it was linked bythe transcontinental Pacifi c Railway connectingCalifornia on the Pacifi c coast and cities on theAtlantic coast.

After achieving independence, infrastruc-ture construction in many African countriescame to a standstill, which became the biggestimpediment to development. The future ofAfrica must start with infrastructure construc-tion. Then it would be possible to realize a unifi ed domestic market, social integration andmodernization, and finally finish the nation-building process.

Redefining ‘condition’

The Western therapies for African countriesafter the Cold War have proved ineffective.While many African countries are strugglingwith fostering social cohesion and unifying theirdomestic markets, the West is engaged in plant-ing the so-called “liberal values” in the continentand confi ning it to the end of the global valuechain. While Africa needs to concentrate onpoverty reduction, the West is indoctrinating thecontinent with the mantra of limiting the powerof the government and developing numeroussocial organizations. Though Africa is weak inpolitical order and public security, the West isexporting the so-called democratization whichis derived from “mob rule” in ancient Greece.Africa, in exchange for foreign aid, has toaccept the political preconditions attached byWestern countries. The Western interferencehas been backed by grandiose theories, suchas non-governmental governance and theWashington Consensus—10 American policiesthat are touted as necessary for reform in crises-torn developing countries. All this has steeredAfrica on the wrong path.

In recent years, with more and moreChinese companies investing overseas, somemedia outlets have started complaining aboutChinese presence in Africa. They argue thatChina offers assistance and loans with no stringsattached, leaving many Chinese wonderingsince when respect for sovereignty has becomea problem.

Regardless of Africa’s development stageand Africans’ interests, the West has been im-posing political preconditions on Africa to knit asafety net for its own capital.

China, however, emphasizes a different kindof precondition the prerequisites for the devel-opment of a country, including infrastructure.Chinese history, as well as the history of all suc-cessful countries, shows that creating necessarydevelopment conditions is paramount for all-around development of any nation.

As an old Chinese saying goes, it is betterto teach a man to fi sh than to give him a fi sh.A philanthropist fi gure like Mother Teresa mayhelp save several or even several hundredsof people, but a railway can benefit tens ofthousands of people or even millions. A hu-man rights program may change the destinyof the children of a village, but a single marketsupported by infrastructure can provide morechildren with incredible opportunities. A civil organization may claim legal rights for a few ora community, but a successful country can bet-ter safeguard the rights and interests of all of itscitizens.

China is trying to work with Africa to devel-op on a fundamental level and on a large scale.China respects the objective conditions andhistorical process of African countries during itsinvestment and assistance. It is willing to helpAfrican countries enter a new nation-buildingprocess on the basis of equality and mutualbenefi ts. If African countries have an interest inlearning the Chinese way of promoting socialand economic development, they are mostwelcome; if not, China will not walk away andwill remain committed to its cooperation withits African counterparts.

Alongside the Mombasa-Nairobi railwayline lies an old track designed by the British co-lonialists. The new standard-gauge and the oldmeter-gauge rail lines are symbols of two differ-ent times, standards and development patterns.When Eastern African countries shift to the newstandard-gauge railways, they choose a newdevelopment pattern.