Zambia is a country of contrasts. A majority of its 17 million people live in poverty, yet according to the CIA’s World Factbook, Zambia had “one of the world’s fastest growing economies for the ten years up to 2014, with real GDP growth averaging roughly 6.7 percent per annum.” And alongside crisis-level degrees of HIV and AIDS, high infant mortality rates, and shockingly low life expectancy, Zambia has nonetheless enjoyed relative political stability since it gained independence from Britain in 1964. That alone makes Zambia stand out among African nations.
Zambia is also one of China’s oldest diplomatic partners in Africa. Zambia recognized the People’s Republic of China just five days after gaining its own independence.
Note, Zambia is rich in key resources, in particular copper, which has made it a target for mining interests from the days of European colonialists until the present. Many now claim that China is Zambia’s newest colonialist power, leading the nation into a stranglehold of debt from which it can never recover.
Most of the digital infrastructure projects in Zambia, like the more visible airport terminals and highways, are being built and financed by China, putting the country at what the International Monetary Fund calls a high risk of debt distress. It’s also given rise to fears that what has long been a thriving and stable multiparty democracy is veering toward a Chinese model of repression.
We have sold Ourselves to the Chinese,” says Gregory Chifire, the director of an anti corruption organization who fled the country after being sentenced in November to six years in prison on what Amnesty International calls trumped-up charges. “People’s freedom to express themselves—their freedom of thought, their freedom of speech—is shrinking by the day.”
Zambian government officials defend their reliance on Chinese technology and deny it’s being used for political purposes. “The government has the responsibility to invest in infrastructure,” says Dora Siliya, the information minister. “Zambia’s model for development is neither the West’s nor China’s but an attempt to take the best from both. We have a Zambia model.”
What’s playing out in Zambia is part of a larger contest between the U.S. and China for dominance over the future of technology and global influence. Companies from both countries sell tech products around the world, but Chinese businesses are offering a wide range of gear and relatively cheap financing in countries from Zimbabwe to Vietnam. They have an advantage in developing nations such as Zambia, which are looking to modernize their technology infrastructure.
China, for its part, refutes any allegations of impropriety in Zambia by claiming that, on the contrary, it is Chinese citizens who are being victimized in Zambia.
Reports late last year that China had bought Zambian state enterprises led to an official complaint from the Chinese government that Chinese nationals were being targeted for xenophobic attacks in Zambia.
And Chinese President Xi Jinping himself has categorically stated that Chinese investments in Africa as a whole have “no strings attached.”
ZAMBIA ESCAPE ROUTE FROM CHINA
Hopefully, the current alarmism from all concern countries mostly the USA will not cause the country to default. But if it does, the biggest losers will be the Zambian people. A default could trigger a chain reaction and bring down other African economies that borrowed heavily through eurobonds and are struggling with debt repayments.
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| Zambian and Chinese Police in Zambia |
What Zambia needs is debt cancellation and a strong state that takes back control of strategic national resources such as mining and agricultural land, as used to be the case at the height of former President Kenneth Kaunda's socialist rule from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Thanks to his nationalisation policies, Kaunda was able to make significant progress on reverting Zambia's colonial legacy and redistributing national wealth across society.
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