The Nanyang Technological University posted on 29 May 2025 an article titled "China Completes the Construction of the Longest Bridge in East Africa."
Two Chinese construction companies have completed the 3.2 kilometer dual highway spanning southern Lake Victoria. The Tanzanian government funded the $220 million project. China includes the project as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, but it was a commercial deal, not an aid project.
The South China Morning Post published on 25 April 2025 an article titled "China to Fund Kenyan Road and Rail Schemes as It Seeks Support in Opposing Trump Tariffs" by Jevans Nyabiage.
Kenyan President William Ruto, during his recent visit to Beijing, sought and apparently received assurances of additional Chinese funding for Kenyan infrastructure projects. Xi Jinping used the meeting to seek support for his opposition to the Trump administration tariffs.
Nairobi Wire published on 6 February 2025 an article titled "US-Backed Ksh452B Usahihi Expressway Gains Momentum" by Richard Kamau.
Everstrong Capital, a US-backed infrastructure investment firm, announced its intention to secure funding for a $3.5 billion expressway between Nairobi and the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast. The road would run parallel to the Chinese-built and financed standard gauge railway. Many Kenyan manufacturers prefer trucking over the railroad due to cost, flexibility, and the limitations of the railway system.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies published on 10 October 2024 a commentary titled "Two Railroads, One Vision" by Judd Devermont.
The US has mobilized over $4 billion to develop the Lobito Economic Corridor, including refurbishing Angola's Benguela rail line and supporting a rail line expansion between the southern DRC and Zambia. This project will improve the movement of minerals and goods to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast. China is making available $1 billion to revitalize the Tanzania-Zambia Railway built in the 1970s that terminates in Dar es Salaam in the Indian Ocean.
While these projects are being framed in the context of great power competition, they offer the possibility of serving as an example of great power cooperation and one that accomplishes a Pan-African goal for a transcontinental rail link from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic that will expand economic development throughout the region. This could be done by connecting the two projects if all parties were to agree.
Maersk posted on 12 June 2024 an update titled "Navigating Challenges in the Red Sea and Beyond."
About 30 percent of global container traffic previously travelled through the Suez Canal and Red Sea. Because of Houthi attacks on international shipping, Maersk, one of the largest users of this route, is now sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and avoiding the Suez Canal and Red Sea. This has increased fuel costs by about 40 percent, caused delays and congestion in key ports such as Singapore and Shanghai, and has reduced industry wide shipping capacity by 15-20 percent.
The Wall Street Journal published on 21 January 2024 an article titled "How the U.S. Is Derailing China's Influence in Africa" by Michael M. Phillips.
The United States is challenging Beijing's commercial dominance in oil-rich Angola, Africa's largest recipient of infrastructure loans. Angola rejected a Chinese bid to rehabilitate and operate freight service along the Lobito Corridor and granted it to a U.S.-backed European consortium. The U.S. Export Import Bank is lending Angola $900 million to buy American equipment for solar projects and a $363 million loan guarantee for an American company to sell steel bridges. The U.S. is also looking to sell miliary equipment to Angola.
Comment: While this is a major success for U.S. commercial policy, it only concerns Angola and not the other 53 countries in Africa as the title of the article implies. The U.S. still has a long way to go if it wants to challenge China commercially throughout Africa.
The South China Morning Post published on 6 January 2024 an article titled "Red Sea Attacks See Exporters Turn to China-Europe Railway Express Ahead of Lunar New Year" by Jevans Nyabiage.
Many large shipping companies, including China's COSCO, are rerouting their Europe-Asia trade around the Cape of Good Hope in order to avoid Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Some companies are also turning to the overland China-Europe Railway to move their goods between Europe and China.
The South China Morning Post published on 17 February 2023 an article titled "China Hands a Lifeline to Ethiopian Capital's Crumbling Light Rail" by Jevans Nyabiage.
With more than half of the train cars out of service due to maintenance issues, China has agreed to provide spare parts for the Addis Ababa light rail system financed and built by China. The system opened in 2015. Maintenance of Chinese-built rail projects has been an issue elsewhere in the region.
Johnny Harris recently released a fifteen minute video on You Tube titled "China's Rush into Africa, Explained."
The video explains how China has entered Africa through infrastructure projects but is now acting like any other superpower. The cleverly done piece is from a Western perspective and has been viewed by more than one million persons. It includes advertisements.
The University of London China Institute posted on 19 January 2021 a blog item titled "China's Adaptive Governance: A Tale of Two BRI Railroad Megaprojects in East Africa" by Maria Adele Carrai, New York University Shanghai.
Chinese companies involved in construction of major railroad projects in Kenya and Ethiopia faced different civil society and corporate social responsibility expectations in the two countries and adapted to the lowest common denominator in both countries.
African Studies Quarterly published in October 2020 an analysis titled "Kenya's New Lunatic Express: The Standard Gauge Railway," by Ian Taylor, University of St. Andrews.
The Chinese-built and financed standard gauge railway linking Mombasa and Nairobi and beyond has been portrayed as the center piece of the Belt and Road Initiative in East Africa. Both China and Kenya have represented the railway as a prime example of Sino-African cooperation. However, serious issues in terms of the railway's cost, viability, and practicality suggest it increasingly is seen in Kenya as an expensive white elephant beset with numerous intractable problems.
