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Why an early Belt and Road Initiative East Africa hub? Economic, demographic and security factors

Lauren Johnston (Institute for International Trade, School of Economics and Policy, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia)
Joseph Onjala (Department of Economics and Development Studies, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya)

Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign Trade Studies

ISSN: 1754-4408

Article publication date: 21 March 2022

Issue publication date: 27 May 2022

438

Abstract

Purpose

This purpose of this paper is to explore China’s choice to focus early Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Africa outreach on Eastern Africa. The BRI specifically seeks to achieve ten economic and policy objectives, as outlined in the two launch speeches of 2013. In terms of realising these, the economic development and digitisation levels, that progress of the demographic transition, and the important security context of the sub-region, logically make East Africa relatively important to BRI in continental context. Kenya specifically is important in being an African frontier therein, and, also, because it shares a few important borders with landlocked countries, including Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda, alongside a strategic coast and ports. From this lens, as well the fact that in the Ming Dynasty Chinese fleets reached what is modern-day Kenya, China’s early BRI outreach to Africa having had a historical precedent in initially focusing on Eastern Africa, might be usefully understood.

Design/methodology/approach

To realise that aim a comprehensive survey of related literature and policy documents, in Chinese, English and Swahili, was undertaken and relevant data compiled and analysed.

Findings

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, first, this paper is the first to argue that the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa may build on abstract long-run logic in terms of economics, demographic change and security. This provides a contrary perspective to the pre-existing established “debt trap diplomacy” and no consistent logic narratives. Second, it is the first to offer a synthesised analysis of the BRI in Africa, East Africa specifically, looking across economic, demographic and security angles.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is a synthesis of development and regional economics literature that forges some prospective rationales only. It is not an empirical research paper drawing very specific and definitive conclusions.

Practical implications

Amid widespread geo-economic tensions and uncertainty, around the Belt and Road Initiative in particular, this paper offers a new economic development-oriented logic for the choice of an important node of the China's Belt and Road Initiative, that of East Africa, Kenya especially. This may impact existing related narratives and policy responses.

Social implications

Equivalently to the above this may then have an impact on the ground in East Africa and beyond.

Originality/value

The first such or even close to synthesis.

Keywords

Citation

Johnston, L. and Onjala, J. (2022), "Why an early Belt and Road Initiative East Africa hub? Economic, demographic and security factors", Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign Trade Studies, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 125-149. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCEFTS-09-2021-0049

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

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