EFFORTPOST China's exploitation of Mozambique

I met surveyors who worked in Mozambique before, and one curious tale which they had told me stuck with me many years later. It's that often in the few tar roads between Harbours and key resource locations, like mines, forestries and refineries there would be a feature which told a great deal about the nation's economic relationship with the world. From inland to the Indian Ocean, the lefthand side of the crumpled and overtaxed tar roads would be substantially more worn and torn than the righthand side.

You see like South Africa, Mozambique drives on the Lefthand side of the road. The mystery of the peculiar erosion of these tar roads heading into the direction of the ocean would have many 1st timers scratch their heads. I mean the whole country's road maintenance is in the gutter, Mozambique has actually worse road deterioration than RSA! So you know that's already an indictment of their dire economic situation. Yet still, why on earth was erosion always so concentrated only on one side? And always the lefthand side of the tar road, leading from inland towards the ocean. Many tourists may not have always remarked upon this, as it would be mostly foreign specialists like SA surveyors who worked in the mines or forestries, in the none-tourist regions of the country.

The mystery would be instantly resolved, the moment you saw trucks passing you and each other, to and from the Harbours and back - the trucks of all types coming from the Harbours were empty, and thus lighter; the trucks going to the Harbours were fully packed and laden with the extra weight of ore, putting that much extra pressure on the trucks, and subsequently extra pressure on the Left side of the road.....

THE BELT AND ROAD:

Greetings Dramatards!

I've talked before about our poor and absurdly unfortunate neighbours in the north of Mozambique in terms of their cataclysmic near 20 year long civil war, and its enduring consequences on the lives of Mozambique's citizens.

I've also talked before about grand drama when reckless loaning from Credit Suisse and other rogue banks to corrupt gov officials caused the country's international lending reputation to tank, when it became known that the country's loan amount was far far far larger than even the government itself was aware of, and how this crushed their credit rating, as the combined loans could not be feasibly be paid back by the country. Followed by COVID, like all of Southern Africa, they have had more than their just fair of bad luck, and are mostly in economic mire at this stage.

But one of the largest dramas regarding Mozambique tends to be its relationship with China, as it is the largest benefactor of China's Belt and Road initiative in Southern Africa.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-07-04/China-Mozambique-vow-to-advance-Belt-and-Road-cooperation-1boFjpcLWrC/index.html

For those of you who have no idea wtf the Belt and Road initiative is, basically it is Daddy Xi's equivalent of Stalin's 5 year plan, but on much much more grander and long term scale. In 2013 Xi launched his signature policy - which is basically the largest international infrastructure program ever endeavored by any one nation in recorded history. It attempts to build global infrastructure all around the 3rd world, particularly over Central and Eastern Africa, as well as between the Middle East and SEA. The idea is to recreate a modern incarnation of the old Silk Road of the middle ages. China would build or loan to these other 3rd world countries to build transport infrastructure like roads, railways and harbours, to facilitate the ability to transport goods between China, and the various 3rd world nations, thus expanding China's influence and favorable prestige from these future grateful 3rd world countries.

BELT AND ROAD SLAPS:

The Belt and Road initiative has been a perpetual slapfight between wingucks and r-slurs about whether it's actually a good thing in the long run, especially for the very poor nation states whom had gratefully accepted these loans and constructions from bid daddy Xi.

The anti-West and Anti-american wingcucks who hate burgerland and european influence basically support this blindly as a good alternative influences from a superpower capable of opposing the rancid cucks of Burgerland. The neoliberal cucks from the west opposes this as they dont trust china, and believe that any influence that China has is bad, because china is bad.

Opinion on these vast nation state sized loans are also complex and divided.

Western nations and more western oriented international organizations like the IMF have been extremely reluctant and hesitant to loan too much money or resources to places like Africa before. The largest private banks need to estimate the risks involved in any loaning endeavor, and often balk at the notion of risking loans of any substance to 3rd world dictator shitholes, or corrupt kleptocracies.

On the other hand, we've seen what happens when nefarious banks loan recklessly to those who didn't have the capacity to pay back in the 1st place. When Credit Suisse fricked over the country by overloaning to corrupt officials who spent the loans on personal gratification, instead of investing in public infrastructure, it made the IMF balk at future loans which even further fricked the country's interest rate and currency conversion rates, worsening their poverty. Cuz a country needs to maintain its image as a reliable partner for trade and a loaner who pays back his loans, especially a developing country who will always always always have need for future loans for itself or its local businesses to economically develop.

Thus, basically the rich 1st world have done very little comparitively when it came to financing African countries via economic loans, as the risks were always seen as outweighting the rewards.

But the Chinese have had no such qualms.

Here a basic wingcuck comment regarding the west and being unable to "stop countries from trying to better themselves." It's representative of how there is resentment towards Europe as post-colonizers, and burgerland for never having risked into african infrastructures for example.

Meanwhile China has shown support for many African nations since the 1960s, both as mutual cooperation between communist factions, and as a way to curry favour between other developing nations. Thus you can already see the political feelings between African nations people who criticize the Belt and Road initiative as nothing more than salty european cucks trying to keep them from finding their own prosperity.

POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES OF THE BELT AND ROAD:

Since 2013, China has spent 931 Billion $ worth on the project - 561 Billion$ on construction projects, and 371 Billion $ on investments. This has been spent on needed infrastructures like roads, electricity stations, airports, railways and hospitals

https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/314276.html

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/what-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-bri

The Belt and Road has changed lives for the better for hundreds of millions of people, this is undeniable, bike like an oily shadow, there has also followed a sinister underbelly regarding the grand project in its wake.

For all the good and needed infrastructures like roads and hospitals built by chinese investments in countries like Kenya, there has also been frivolous and questionable projects funded by Chinese loans. Shit vanity projects like sports stadiums and jank skyscrapers. Garbage projects that give tenures to good friend, but don't do anything to develop the economy of that Developing Nation which will help facilitate the offset to the interest of the loan in the 1st place.

https://www.scmp.com/sport/soccer/article/2061186/how-china-fuelling-african-cup-nations-through-stadium-diplomacy

https://www.nyasatimes.com/malawi-china-sign-loan-agreement-to-construct-new-stadium/

CHINESE DEBT TRAP DIPLOMACY - REAL OR FAKE?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-trap_diplomacy

This contrast of China being willing to loan money to nations with the lowest credit score on the planet where Eurocucks balk at, has prompted the view that China has been deliberately loaning out money to nations incapable of paying back loans in order to deliberately trap them in debt, so as to proc alternative concessions from these governments so that China may write off their loans - such as allowing China to directly stripmine mineral resources without input from that nation itself, thereby gaining ownership of fricking land in other countries, or forcing nations give up control of harbours, or force them to agree to house chinese military bases or something equally strategic. The idea being that China can easily afford to write of the loss of the defaulting debt, as it means them obtaining strategic or political concessions the host nation would never have agreed to in the 1st place no matter the financial incentive.

https://thediplomat.com/2018/06/chinas-debtbook-diplomacy-how-china-is-turning-bad-loans-into-strategic-investments/

The greatest example of this is when Shri-Lank literally leased a port built up with Chinese loans, to china for 99 fricking years after their loans defaulted. This make NATO shit bricks, as they saw it as China having skillfully turned a bad deal, into a geo-political strategic truimpth. This makes burgers believe than the entire Belt and Road Initiative is one giant mega conversion project where the aim is not to finance a modern Silk road, but for China to slink in its slimy tendrils into all of the world's developing nations, and basically catch them offgaurd to wrestle important infrastructure from these nations foolish enough to do deals with them!!!

Others view the Debt-Trap to be more complicated, and that the detractors of the Belt& Road initiative are hystericals.

https://archive.ph/81ENz

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/

"Our research shows that Chinese banks are willing to restructure the terms of existing loans and have never actually seized an asset from any country, much less the port of Hambantota. A Chinese company’s acquisition of a majority stake in the port was a cautionary tale, but it’s not the one we’ve often heard. With a new administration in Washington, the truth about the widely, perhaps willfully, misunderstood case of Hambantota Port is long overdue."

"For a conflict-torn country that struggled to generate tax revenue, the terms of the loan seemed reasonable. As Saliya Wickramasuriya, the former chairman of the SLPA, told us, “To get commercial loans as large as $300 million during the war was not easy.” That same year, Sri Lanka also issued its first international bond, with an interest rate of 8.25 percent. Both decisions would come back to haunt the government."

The article goes at length to explain that the Chinese loan for the Shri-Lanka port had been sincere since the onset, and that it was mismanagement of the Port's finances by its government which tanked its viability.

"Steep payments on international sovereign bonds, which comprised nearly 40 percent of the country’s external debt, put Sirisena’s government in dire fiscal straits almost immediately. When Sirisena took office, Sri Lanka owed more to Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank than to China. Of the $4.5 billion in debt service Sri Lanka would pay in 2017, only 5 percent was because of Hambantota. The Central Bank governors under both Rajapaksa and Sirisena do not agree on much, but they both told us that Hambantota, and Chinese finance in general, was not the source of the country’s financial distress."

"There was also never a default. Colombo arranged a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, and decided to raise much-needed dollars by leasing out the underperforming Hambantota Port to an experienced company—just as the Canadians had recommended. There was not an open tender, and the only two bids came from China Merchants and China Harbor; Sri Lanka chose China Merchants, making it the majority shareholder with a 99-year lease, and used the $1.12 billion cash infusion to bolster its foreign reserves, not to pay off China Eximbank."

In other words two separate Chinese banks bid for the port, and Shri-Lanka chose the one which gave the most favorable deal - that's a lot less evil chinese cartoonish strongarming the hapless locals.

The article also goes on to explain how the port is in a military strategic sense very shit, and was obtained solely from a business sense:

""Before the port episode, “Sri Lanka could sink into the Indian Ocean and most of the Western world wouldn’t notice,” Subhashini Abeysinghe, research director at Verité Research, an independent Colombo-based think tank, told us. Suddenly, the island nation featured prominently in foreign-policy speeches in Washington. Pence voiced worry that Hambantota could become a “forward military base” for China. Yet Hambantota’s location is strategic only from a business perspective: The port is cut into the coast to avoid the Indian Ocean’s heavy swells, and its narrow channel allows only one ship to enter or exit at a time, typically with the aid of a tugboat. In the event of a military conflict, naval vessels stationed there would be proverbial fish in a barrel.""

Additionally, if the Chinese had been persueing a debt trap policy, then it would have been a monumental waste of finances because China is currently in its own economic crisis Post-COVID:

In summary: our boi Patrick Boyle explains that China may have overreached itself in the amount of countries it had loaned and invested in for its titanic Belt and Road Initiative, because post COVID, many 3rd world nations had their economies basically bricked into oblivion, and found themselves defaulting and incapable of paying back their loans to daddy Xi.

This has happened before, but the problem now is that nearly half of its Belt & Road debtors all went into default ALL AT ONCE. This is a big fricking problem for China, because unlike the myths, china doesn't have infinite money. China's troubles are also agrevated by their Housing Crisis, meaning China is facing the dual threat of both defaulting foreign debtors, and internal domestic recession threats.

The point here is this: that chinese do likely have a sincere objective to seem many developing nations flourish and to have their loans be used for economic growth and prosperity, not because they are altruistic angels, but because seeing 3rd worlders develop into vibrant allies is a shared interest, and helps build China's soft power and economic influence. Additionally chinese politics have always been opportunistically predatory, meaning they likely took advantage of the Shri-Lanka port as it suited them when their opposing colleague was at their weakest and could be more easily influences, but it was also done with Chinese firms and banks bidding towards the Shri-Lanka gov, not exactly completely draconian.

The truth of the Debt-Trap is thus in reality very complex, and although the chinese have shown themselves to jump at the opportunity to bend the arms of nations in distress, the use of Debt-trapping states doesn't appear to have been their goal from the onset of 2013 deliberately. Again murky and complex.

VERY REAL WORLD NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF THE BRI (BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE):

We do however have many great examples of how the Chinese BRI loans have severe drawbacks, demonstrating that the BRI is done solely for the benefit of China, and not its trade partners.

Much of the criticism of the BRI had been from competing countries against China, like America, Britain and France, but much of the criticism of the BRI had also come from the trade partners of the BRI, and the countries to which the BRI development loans had been extended towards - like Kenya.

Many of the projects receiving loans from the BRI are mired in good old fashioned corruption, so that roads don't get completed, costs more than they should, or go over target construction time, thus not creating the economic development the dirtpoor nations need to oddset the future interest of the loans.

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/study-links-35-percent-of-chinese-belt-and-road-initiative-projects-to-scandals-involving-corruption-environmental-problems-labour-violations/

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-belt-road-plans-losing-momentum-opposition-debt-mount-study-2021-09-29/

https://www.csis.org/analysis/corruption-flows-along-chinas-belt-and-road

Basically the same troubles as the Credit Suisse in Mozambique had where Chinese banks make deals with corrupt officials who pocket the loans, and fricks off to leave the populace to deal with future mega debts.

Other criticisms of the BRI are that the projects are overly expensive, with the chinese construction firms basically having a monopoly since western firms sure as shit dont want to build in backwaters, and charge extreme prices

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-why-the-price-is-too-high/

"The pressure China faces over resistance to BRI-related debt has forced it to renegotiate contracts with reduced project size and financial outlays. Malaysia had originally canceled a rail link that was part of BRI and would have connected its east and west coasts. China earlier this month renegotiated that and brought down the price by a third from the original estimate of Malaysian ringgit 65.5 billion ($16 billion) to 44 billion ringgit ($11 billion)."

But the criticisms doesn't end there: many if not most of the BRI construction projects are undergone by imported Chinese workforces, specially for a specific project like building a railwal, or digging a tunnel, and thus locals of these poor countries like Kenya and Mozambique do not directly participate or benefit from these mega construction projects which do nothing for local job creation.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/who-built-labor-and-belt-and-road-initiative

"The use of Chinese labor on BRI projects has been a contentious issue. The governments and populations of host countries usually seek to increase the proportion of local hires on such projects, to increase local income and skills transfer. Chinese firms, however, seek to keep labor costs down while accommodating Beijing’s political preferences. This often results in their importing Chinese labor for BRI projects rather than relying on local workers. Railroads in Laos and pipelines in Myanmar, for instance, have been reportedly constructed with a predominantly Chinese labor force. As of 2019, there were officially about one million Chinese workers employed overseas, with many additional Chinese citizens working overseas on tourist visas or in other unofficial capacities."

"Importing labor from China, for instance, allows firms to bypass complicated legal regimes that may favor locals over foreign multinationals during labor disputes. There are also claims that Chinese laborers are more productive than locals. The president of Sri Lanka’s Chamber of Construction Industry, for instance, suggested that Chinese workers are four times as productive as Sri Lankans. Politically sensitive investments may also involve more Chinese laborers, particularly near the end of projects, as Beijing puts pressure on companies to meet deadlines."

"In other cases, Chinese firms have been happy to rely on local labor. In Cambodia, for example, BRI projects have created an estimated twenty thousand jobs. Generally speaking, however, Chinese firms primarily hire local laborers for low-skill positions, limiting the possibility of skills transfer. A 2019 survey of Chinese firms in Angola and Ethiopia found that nearly all low-skilled jobs were occupied by local workers, while many high-skill positions or management roles were reserved for Chinese workers."

Basically china only ever hires local black africans for the lowest tier manual labour, and never hire locals for high-skilled work like engineering or surveying, thus locals get no experience or interaction with building projects.

But the insult to injury doesn't end there, often the Chinese import chinese traditional food to feed their workers to the worksite - like sushi in the middle of deserts.

From our boi Patric Boyle: " This complete lack of interaction with the local economy means that there's no boost in employment in the country in question, and that there's no transfer of high-level skills to the local workforce."

CNINESE EXPLOITATION OF MOSAMBIQUE:

Which finally brings us to Mozambique specifically.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-25-the-low-road-to-economic-ruin-as-illustrated-by-a-trip-through-mozambique/

This DailyMaverick article goes into depth about how fricked the transport infrastructure of Mozambique is, and how petrol stations are not placed strategically, and how roads are a mish-mash of good and bad in terms of conditions, meaning that tourists sometimes play a risky game of travelling inland in the hope of finding proper roads and stocked petrol stations!

"At one point, in the 70km between Changara and Guro, south of Tete, only a small strip of road was open for 30km, forcing an informal stop-go arrangement – and the occasional game of chicken – with the fuel, logging and other trucks that dominate the route. Save for the very good road between the port of Beira and Chimoio on the corridor with Zimbabwe, the surface followed a predictable pattern – an okay sector for a few kilometres, followed by disintegration of the road in the dips and around the bridges, and then whole sections where the road, for reasons of age, lack of maintenance, the quality of the original construction, and the extent of rainfall, had simply fallen apart into potholes, which sometimes spanned its entire width."

Additionally to show just how fricking corrupt and dysfunctional Mozambique is, here they tell of their very real experience of frequent speed trapping of tourists by starving Traffic Police swindlers.

"In the 1,833km from Maputo to the Malawian border at Dedza, we encountered 97 police and army roadblocks, being stopped at no fewer than 64 of them. Without fail they asked for water, sometimes food. There were nine speed traps between Maputo and Tete, at which we were stopped twice and forced to pay on-the-spot fines, one for travelling at 66km/h in a 60 zone (I was going 56 according to the GPS), the other for going 82km/h in a 60 zone. With no signs, it’s virtually impossible to know what the speed limit is."

As well as typical tourism tax!

"The sergeant pretended to write down our details on a small piece of paper at Save. As he circled the car, continuously tapping on our, by now, rolled-up windows, while his colleagues peered in the back of our Land Cruiser, we pretended to ignore him. Eventually I could take no more, rolled down the window and let rip. He changed tack, rubbing his hand on his stomach while pretending to drink a bottle. A Red Bull, bottle of water and 200 meticais lighter, we were again on our way, smiles all around."

I mention this article just to show you dramatards how very dysfunctional and poor as dirt the travelling conditions of Mozambique can be, even much much more so than South Africa.

(1) China is overexploiting Mozambique forests:

https://www.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/13597IIED.pdf

This research paper goes into detail about the sustainability of Chinese lumberjacks in Mozambique forests and the danger of it not being sustainable. The mozambique gov and people are so poor that they sell the woods and vegetation beneath their feet to the Chinx at dirt cheap prices, not caring about a sustainable future, because they are poors today.

The paper is extremely long and boring, but it concludes that national and international action must be taken for mozambique communities to unwittingly sell away their own woods, as part of the lumber supply for Belt and Road projects in Mozambique itself, or places like Kenya.

https://warontherocks.com/2021/09/al-shabaab-and-chinese-trade-practices-in-mozambique/

""The al-Shabaab insurgency will continue to profit from the illegal timber trade if no action is taken, and the human, economic, and environmental situation in the rest of the province will deteriorate further. A study published in 2019 estimated that al-Shabaab gains 125 million meticais ($2 million) per month from illegally extracted timber. A local expert on Mozambique’s timber trade stated that “we were unable to link Chinese traders directly with al-Shabaab … but we know that the timber harvested in areas controlled by the militants was sent to China and Vietnam.” He explained that al-Shabaab recruits many Tanzanians and Mozambicans who make sales in safer port towns like Mtwara and Pemba. It is likely here that Chinese traders are engaged.""

https://forestsnews.cifor.org/22055/surge-in-chinese-demand-exposes-cracks-in-mozambique-forest-policy?fnl=en

""Illegal activity in Mozambique’s forestry industry has increased alongside a surge in Chinese demand for Mozambican timber, leading to negative effects for the industry and for the sustainability of the country’s forests. But this could help spur timber and trade policy change, researchers say. Since China imposed a domestic logging ban to preserve its own forests in 1998, its expanding economy has steadily become hungrier for African wood. “China’s demand for timber has increased dramatically over the past 20 years, so that today, more than 80 percent of Mozambican timber exports are destined for China""

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr41/7851/2018/en/

Chinese worker gang bosses are ruthless in many african countries and have no qualms with exploiting the manual labor force of low-skilled workers. Often the workers are so poor, that dangerous and unpleasant working conditions don't deter them from signing up for our chink friends.

https://www.reuters.com/article/eni-mozambique-idINDEE92D0HA20130314

Chinese firms also suck the lifeblood of the country right out of the ground in the form of minerals or gasses.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-relations-mozambique-mixed-blessing

Even way back in 2008, there were signs that Mozambique was not an equal partner in their newest trade relationships.

"According to Daniel Ribeiro, a preeminent Mozambican environmentalist, Chinese timber buyers are targeting certain types of slow growing species due to their high value. These species are concentrated in semi arid regions, and the rate of cutting simply makes it impossible for rejuvenation to occur. These depredations, according to Ribeiro, will lead to the disappearance of large forest areas in the next 5 to 10 years. Soil erosion and the beginnings of desertification are becoming major problems in a country which was once a stranger to such phenomena."

Additionally environmentalists have warned that the deforestation of slow growing plant and tree types - which were specifically targeted by our fricked up yellow friends for furniture and luxuries - meant than desertification had already taken place in large swaths of Mozambique, which in turn also affects the agricultural capacity of certain land parcels.

"The Chinese timber traders have been so predatory that local NGOS now refer to the trade as the “Chinese takeaway.” The highly secretive manner in which many agreements are signed between the two governments further complicates issues of transparency and accountability. The Chinese did not bring corruption to Mozambique, but rather they had in many instances to adapt to the rules of the game they found there and feed the pockets of corrupt government officials"

Chinese takeaways lol, a morbid joke.

"Before the arrival of the Chinese, illegal logging was already a problem, but never in the current proportions. Unless the Mozambican government begins to act more responsibly, China’s and increasingly India’s appetite for African resources are likely to lead to more corruption and environmental damage."

"By and large, China’s assistance to Mozambique has been beneficial and has significantly diminished the country’s overdependence on its traditional western donors. Beijing’s support for Mozambique dates back to the early 1960s, when the country was fighting for its independence from Portugal. Since independence, China has provided extensive ajuda amigavel e gratuita (free and friendly aid) by building various important government buildings at the national and provincial level free of charge."

You can see there is a complex relationship between China and East africa like Mozambique - chinese infrastructure have in fact greatly aided many Mozambique people, but it comes with the unending exploitation of opportunistic chinese batards.

https://www.cadtm.org/China-s-role-in-amplifying-Southern-Africa-s-extreme-uneven-development

https://issafrica.org/iss-today/high-cost-of-having-china-as-africas-partner-of-choice

"The number of African countries indebted to China and subsequently handing over their assets or resources are in no short supply. Zambia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mozambique, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti are just some."

"Most of the projects undertaken by China are capital-intensive ventures like ports, railway lines, roads and even airports. Rarely does it invest in more basic amenities like sanitation programmes. China then reclaims and runs the assets for profit when countries default. The loans are big and the terms leave sub-Saharan Africa with little revenue of their own from commodity production while increasing their debt levels. Multilateral organisations like the African Development Bank, the World Bank and last-resort lenders like the IMF generally give loans at lower-than-market rates."

It's a tragically complex issue.

Anyways that's all I got, sorry for the anti-climax.