Chatham House posted on 11 January 2022 a half hour podcast titled "Africa Aware: Beijing's Vision of China-Africa Relations" with Fergus Kell and Tang Xiaoyang, Tsinghua University.
Kell discusses infrastructure-linked debt sustainability in Africa and the recent Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit in Senegal. He argues that China is moving away from infrastructure financing to more foreign direct investment.
Tang argues that China's approach towards Africa has not changed much since the outbreak of COVID-19. China will resume infrastructure loans after the pandemic has eased. Many of China's outstanding loans are commercial and should not be treated as government loans. Cancellation of loans is not the solution to Africa's debt problem.
