This story by Vivian Wu and Jean Sovon originally appeared on Global Voices on November 3, 2025.
Chinese state media loves reporting about the country’s work in Africa, frequently touting positive, feel-good stories featuring solar farms glistening in the desert, hydropower dams promising prosperity, and transmission lines stretching across valleys. It is a narrative of light, progress, and friendship, in which Beijing plays a key role in helping Africa leap into a green future.
But beyond the glowing headlines lies a more complicated truth that many Chinese narratives overlook. Much of the money used to pay for these expensive development projects is financed through loans, which African countries will fund with tomorrow’s oil and cobalt, thereby trading future resources for today’s power.
It’s also unfair to blame China — as most global research papers and human rights organizations have done for decades — for looking to invest in Africa. Under a framework of win–win, China is giving loans and vowing to help African countries become more energy-friendly and follow a model of sustainable development, while also finding a lucrative market for its green industries, which have been stifled by overcapacity domestically.
This point is also supported by a new working paper from Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. The study shows that between 2012 and 2020, Chinese development finance significantly reduced energy poverty in more than 850 regions across Africa. This doesn’t look like a country trying to recolonize Africa, as many Western narratives allege. It suggests instead that China is filling a gap left by others, using its loans to bring real electricity to communities long neglected by Western aid and investment.
It’s been on international media headlines and panel discussions for years that while China is a key player in funding electrification — particularly through hydropower, transmission lines, and, increasingly, solar energy — its financial institutions are also deeply invested in extractive industries. But twelve years after China first launched its Belt and Road Initiative, its global infrastructure and connectivity project, is that still the case? How has China’s approach changed over the years?
Chinese lenders accounted for approximately 12 percent of Africa’s external debt as of 2020, making it the continent’s single largest bilateral creditor, according to the think-tank Democracy in Africa.
In 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a high-profile commitment to African leaders to facilitate greater investment in Africa. To help realize Xi’s promises, China has established many new development projects and funds in Africa, including the launch of the Special Fund for the China–Africa Green Industrial Chain (中非绿色产业链专项资金), which is meant to help finance Africa’s green energy transition.
With a total size of RMB 5 billion (about USD 700 million), the fund supports cooperation across the entire green industrial chain — from upstream to downstream — focusing on clean energy, green transport, critical minerals, and the green upgrading of traditional industries. In addition, the China–Africa Development Fund has signed memoranda of understanding with huge Chinese companies, including CNBM, Guangxi Liugong Machinery, JD Technology, Ganfeng Lithium, and Beijing Wenhua Online, signaling broader ambitions to link African projects with Chinese corporate players.
Chinese officials present the story as one of progress and partnership. At the 2024 Beijing FOCAC summit, Xi Jinping vowed to build an “all-weather China–Africa community with a shared future” (新时代全天候中非命运共同体). The Ministry of Commerce described China–Africa cooperation as “mutually empowering and complementary” (中非经贸合作双向赋能，优势互补), designed to create “a new model of global value chain cooperation” (打造全球价值链合作新范式).
Official figures also reinforce this upbeat narrative as Chinese media highlights that “China has remained Africa’s largest trading partner for 16 consecutive years” (中国已连续16年保持非洲第一大贸易伙伴国地位). The government also points out that Chinese technology exports are rising, further supporting Africa’s green transition:
In recent years, exports of new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products to Africa have grown rapidly, providing strong support for Africa’s green energy transition.
Indeed, the scale of lending is huge. In just the past few years, billions of dollars in new loans, funds, and projects have flowed into African countries. A Boston University working paper, using a panel dataset covering 2012–2020 across 850 subnational regions in Africa, also examines and proves the effectiveness of China’s overseas development finance in the energy sector in Africa, finding that “China-financed power generation capacity in Africa was effective in combating energy poverty at the subnational level.”
While politicians and some media outlets have been lauding the loans, economists are less optimistic. African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina has been outspoken about the risks:
“I think it’s time for us to have debt transparency, accountability, and make sure that this whole thing of these opaque natural resource-backed loans actually ends, because it complicates the debt issue and the debt resolution issue.”
In another warning, he said that the problem is not specific to China but the model itself: “Any country can exploit when you don’t know what you are doing … the capacity to negotiate, the capacity for debt management is very important.”
These concerns point directly to the heart of the contradictions: loans that light up clinics and schools are often traded for oil, cobalt, or other resources. The contracts are opaque, and when commodity prices fall, governments are left more indebted than before.
Dr. Poussi Sawadogo, adiplomat and teacher-researcher at the Free University of Burkina (ULB), believes that while the risk isn’t exclusive to China, the hefty loans still pose a significant risk. In an interview with the Anadolu Agency in Ouagadougou, he shared:
Chinese debt in Africa is both an opportunity and a danger for Africa, just like the debts of Western countries and international institutions. … Well managed, it will allow the countries of the African continent to develop. Undermined by bad governance, it will deprive Africa of its development potential. Whether it comes from China, France, or the United States, debt is a tool of domination.
Experts warn that if Africa’s international debt keeps mounting, some countries could face increased instability and even be compelled to transfer key pieces of infrastructure to other countries if the debt becomes insurmountable.
International organizations have widely discussed Africa’s current debt crisis. Yet China’s new promises have not completely corrected the problem. As the World Bank notes, “resource-backed loans … are often opaque: little is disclosed about their contractual terms, which means public accountability can be hard to ensure.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) also points out that “many African governments face challenges in financing clean energy projects due to public funding constraints such as high debt servicing costs.” Together, these warnings suggest that while China’s new funds may ease Africa’s energy poverty, they have not addressed the underlying risks of debt, transparency, and dependency.
The debate becomes clearer when looking at specific country cases.
Media investigations have documented how China’s loans have played out differently across Africa. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Reuters reported on cobalt-for-infrastructure deals that sparked both growth and controversy. In Nigeria, Bloomberg highlighted oil-backed loans tied to new power projects. In Kenya, the Financial Times traced how Chinese-built transmission lines helped expand the grid but raised concerns over rising debt.
Media investigations have documented how China’s loans have played out differently across Africa. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), cobalt-for-infrastructure deals sparked both growth and controversy. In Nigeria, Bloomberg highlighted oil-backed loans tied to new power projects. In Kenya, the Financial Times traced how Chinese-built transmission lines helped expand the grid but raised concerns over rising debt.
Likewise, in South Africa, Chinese state-media outlet Xinhua celebrated the launch of the TFC solar project as a milestone of “green partnership.” However, local Kenyan media painted a different story — one filled with grievances from the local community surrounding the Garissa solar project. For instance, one local resident told The China-Global South Project:
Although we have plenty of power now, my monthly bills have become very expensive, and I can’t always afford to pay them. Sometimes my supply gets disconnected because of delayed payments.
This shows that while electricity access has improved, affordability and reliability remain serious concerns.
From the DRC, affected communities around the Sicomines copper-cobalt project told NGO monitors (via AidData) that they were “deprived of their rights after polluting the environment … forced evictions … poor compensation … fields and agricultural infrastructure near the mining site were destroyed.”
Together, these examples reveal the dual logic at work — electrification on the surface, extraction underneath.
(SY)
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