Free gift? China extends influence in Africa with $32M grant for regional HQ
Africa Union building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was also a gift from China. It cost $200 million to build and was handed over in 2012.
China raised eyebrows this month by announcing it will give the Economic Community of west Africa (ECOWAS) a $31.6 million grant to build a new headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria.
African, right, and Chinese workers, left, build railway track sections for the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line in Tsavo, Kenya.
Earlier this year, a published report in the French daily, Le Monde, alleged that Beijing spied on the African Union through the computer systems it helped install. Citing anonymous sources, Le Monde reported that data was transferred from the AU systems in Ethiopia to its servers in Shanghai. China's foreign ministry called the Le Monde report "groundless accusations." The AU called the report "baseless."
Why did ECOWAS accept?
ECOWAS was established in 1975 to foster economic integration and collective self-sufficiency in West Africa.
Its 15 member states include one of Africa's biggest economies by GDP, Nigeria, causing Taylor and others to ask why ECOWAS isn't self-funding the facility. Had the members split the bill, it would have cost just over $2 million each.
Currently, ECOWAS' operations are spread across three buildings in the Nigerian capital, which both Taylor and Olayoku say are "outdated" and not fit for purpose. The China Development Bank Corporation will work with "an ECOWAS designated authority" to "verify records of account payments at regular intervals" throughout the construction process, according to ECOWAS.
No such thing as a free gift'
Gambia's President Adama Barrow with China's President Xi Jinping at the end of a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on December 21, 2017. The two countries re-established diplomatic relations in 2016.
While Beijing defends its aid practices on the grounds they are neutral and respect recipient nations' sovereignty, Chinese money is not wholly unpolitical.
China becoming an aid power
As China grows as a world power, its aid programs in general are expanding globally, too. A study published last year by AidData, a research lab at the College of William & Mary, found the size of Chinese aid assistance to be much larger than previously believed.
Chinese employees of the new railway which will link Addis Ababa to Djibouti take pictures in front of the Chinese-made Ethiopian trains in Addis Ababa on September 24, 2016.
"We are now seeing China being a responsible nation, with peacekeeping forces in Darfur and Mali," he says. "So I can see where financing ECOWAS is a step forward in that responsibility."