Chinese Investment Projects, including the Belt and Road initiative (BRI), have been found to be vulnerable to environmental concerns in Africa as the Chinese infrastructural firms continue hampering the ecological balance of fragile areas in different parts of the continent, accordingt to Di Valerio Fabbri writing in Geopolitica.info. As China’s quest to take over the African continent grows large, economic aid to under-developed and developing nations in the continent has usually been a go-to strategy for Beijing all the time.
China’s state-owned companies in Mozambique had promised high-rated returns by purchasing indigenous timber however, it was later found that Chinese companies had side-stepped the process of investing in processing facilities for the extracts, Geopolitica.Info reported. Several projects led by China in underdeveloped nations have received widespread condemnation from local communities in Africa as they have accused the country of using its BRI project to destroy ecological ecosystems in their desire of extracting oil, coal, metals, and timber.
The demand to put the Chinese projects to a halt which was deteriorating the fragile regions of the continent is also raised by the communities. Another instance where in Ghana, a bauxite extraction deal was put off by the government with a Chinese state-owned subsidiary named Sinohydro Corp due to the threats it posed to the environment and local livelihoods as it was exploitative in nature.
The Kenyan government also halted a 2-billion-dollar project with a Chinese firm meant to construct a coal-powered power plant after locals and environmental groups protested that the construction would endanger a UNESCO World Heritage site, Geopolitica.Info reported. The massive investments by Beijing in the African continent are not at all derived from their motive of developing the underdeveloped continent but rather the communist nation’s strategy lies in destabilizing the host nation economically due to the ever-mounting Chinese debt that they ultimately end up relying on to complete the infrastructural projects.
Over the years, the Chinese government has tended to extend the repayment period of those troubled loans, a practice known in the financial industry as “deferral and pretense”. Over the years, China has succeeded in drawing more countries in order to expand its influence but regarding the future of the Belt and Road Initiative, a senior fellow and sovereign-debt expert at the think tank Council on Foreign Relations.