Will Form 843 Investing 2011-2024

China has invested billions of dollars into the continent of Africa, to build massive infrastructure projects. Much of this infrastructure is part of China's Belt and Road initiative, an estimated one trillion-dollar plan to connect the country to trade routes all over the world. African leaders like Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta have favorably compared China's investments to earlier projects built by colonial powers. While the old railway was built by force and violence against the wishes of those whose land it divided, the new railway is built by consent and partnership, both between ourselves and China, and between the governments which will prosper and profit by it. But is China's investment in the continent actually a win-win, as some African and Chinese leaders have said, or just a new form of colonialism on a continent that's experienced so much of it? In this episode, we're examining China's Belt and Road initiative and what it might mean for Africa. While China's Belt and Road initiative was only proposed in 2013, the country's first infrastructure project on the African continent was built decades ago. The Tazara railway, completed in 1976, was built to connect copper mines in Zambia to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's former capital. The Tazara railway was the first infrastructure project built on a pan-African scale. China's Belt and Road projects will be designed with this scale in mind, creating new trade routes within and between African countries. In 2017, a Chinese firm opened a railway network in Kenya, connecting its capital Nairobi to the port city of Mombasa. There are already plans to extend this network into South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. China, through its public and private sectors, has already loaned about $132 billion to African countries from 2006 to 2017. Many observers worry that African countries won't be able...