China and Africa

中國和非洲

Beijing curbs its enthusiasm

中國政府抑制了投資熱情

NAIROBI

內羅比（肯尼亞首都）

China’s lending to Africa is starting to mirror the West’s

中國對非洲的貸款開始效仿西方

FOR TEN days in May Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s president, vanished from view. Kenyans feigned concern on Twitter, using the hashtag #FindPresidentUhuru. A missing-person poster appealed for information on the whereabouts of a five-foot-eight African male last seen in Beijing. A government spokeswoman sought to reassure the public: Mr Kenyatta had been in his office “meditating”. But others speculate that the president was in a funk after his trip to China failed to yield a new loan for the next phase of Kenya’s ambitious $10bn railway.

今年5月，肯尼亞總統(tǒng)烏胡魯?肯雅塔(Uhuru Kenyatta)消失了10天?？夏醽喨嗽谕铺厣嫌?FindPresidentUhuru這個標簽假裝關心此事。一張有關該失蹤人員的海報呼吁提供有關一名身高5英尺8英寸的非洲男子下落的信息，這名男子最后一次出現在北京。一位政府發(fā)言人試圖安撫公眾:肯雅塔一直在他的辦公室里“冥想”。但其他人猜測，在他的中國之行未能為肯尼亞雄心勃勃的100億美元鐵路的下一階段提供新的貸款后，總統(tǒng)陷入了恐慌。

詞匯

Feign/假裝；裝作

Whereabout/行蹤；下落

Meditate/冥想；沉思

Mr Kenyatta could be forgiven for feeling piqued. Beijing’s largesse to Africa has sometimes seemed limitless (see chart). In September China promised another $60bn in aid and loans to the continent. XXX, its president, promised the money would come with “no political strings attached”. John Magufuli, Tanzania’s strongman president, was delighted. The West, he griped, made its money dependent on “strange conditions”, such as insisting that Tanzania should not lock up gay men. “China is a true friend,” he enthused. Its assistance comes “free of charge”.

肯雅塔感到不滿是可以原諒的。北京對非洲的慷慨有時似乎是無限的(見圖表)。今年9月，中國承諾再向非洲提供600億美元的援助和貸款。天子承諾，這筆資金將“不附帶任何政治條件”。坦桑尼亞鐵腕總統(tǒng)約翰?馬古夫里(John Magufuli)對此感到高興。他抱怨說，西方依靠“奇怪的條件”來給予援助，比如堅持坦桑尼亞不應該關押同性戀男子?！爸袊且粋€真正的朋友，”他熱情地說。他（中國）的援助是“免費的”。

詞匯

Piqued/ ?賭氣的；不滿的

Largesse/慷慨的贈與

Being chummy with China has served Tanzania well. It has received more than $2bn in loans since 2010, reckons the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. In 2013 China agreed to finance and build a $10bn port in Bagamoyo, once a big slave- and ivory-trading entrep?t but now a sleepy fishing village.

同中國搞好關系，坦桑尼亞受益匪淺。約翰霍普金斯大學(Johns Hopkins University)中非研究項目估計，自2010年以來，坦桑尼亞已獲得逾20億美元貸款。2013年，中國同意出資100億美元，在Bagamoyo建設一個港口。Bagamoyo曾是一個奴隸和象牙貿易的大轉口港，但現在是一個沉睡的漁村。

詞匯

Chummy/親密的；合得來的

Kenya has done even better. It was an early African member of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s global infrastructure project. It scooped up at least $9.8bn between 2006 and 2017, making it Africa’s third-largest recipient of Chinese loans.

肯尼亞做得更好。它是中國全球基礎設施項目“一帶一路”的早期非洲成員國。在2006年至2017年期間，中國吸收了至少98億美元，使其成為非洲第三大接受中國貸款的國家。

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Mr Kenyatta must have reckoned that his railway project, on which he has staked much political capital, was due another cut of Mr X’s cash. Not only has it been one of China’s highest-profile projects in Africa, but Beijing has already doled out $4.7bn to finance its first two sections. An almost 500km stretch between the port of Mombasa and the capital, Nairobi, is up and running. The second is nearly completed. Kenya had assumed that China would fork out the $3.5bn needed for the penultimate section, to Kisumu on Lake Victoria. If China’s ultimate vision was a railway network connecting resource-rich inland states to Indian Ocean ports, why stop funding the project halfway through?

肯雅塔肯定認為，他押了大量政治資本的鐵路項目，應該從X的現金中再分一杯羹。該項目不僅是中國在非洲最引人注目的項目之一，而且中國政府已撥出47億美元，為其前兩個項目提供融資。蒙巴薩港和肯尼亞首都內羅畢之間近500公里的鐵路已經開通運行。第二個項目已接近完成?？夏醽喸詾?，中國將為倒數第二段、位于維多利亞湖(Lake Victoria)的基蘇木(Kisumu)提供35億美元。如果中國的最終愿景是建設一條連接資源豐富的內陸各州和印度洋港口的鐵路網，為什么要中途停止資助該項目?

詞匯

dole out/少量發(fā)放

penultimate/倒數第二的

Some Africans suspect that China deliberately lends countries more than they can repay in order to seize strategic assets when they default. They point to the Chinese-financed port at Hambantota in Sri Lanka. After the project flopped commercially, a Chinese state-owned firm took control. Hambantota would be a handy place to park Chinese naval vessels seeking to patrol the Indian Ocean. “The situation that Sri Lanka got itself into may not turn out to be unusual,” says Mutula Kilonzo, a prominent Kenyan senator. “It is going to happen to African countries, too. The conditions of many loans are...a debt trap.”

一些非洲人懷疑，中國故意向一些國家提供超出其償還能力的貸款，以便在這些國家違約時沒收它們的戰(zhàn)略資產。他們指的是斯里蘭卡漢班托塔的中國投資港口。該項目在商業(yè)上失敗后，一家中國國有企業(yè)取得了控制權。漢班托塔將是停泊在印度洋巡邏的中國海軍艦艇的便利地點。一位著名的肯尼亞參議員Mutula Kilonzo說:“斯里蘭卡陷入的這種情況可能并不罕見?！薄斑@也將發(fā)生在非洲國家。許多貸款的條件是……債務陷阱?！?/p>

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Deborah Brautigam at Johns Hopkins argues that Hambantota is an exception. She looked at more than 3,000 projects overseas financed by China, and found that it was the only example of such an asset being seized to cover a debt.

約翰霍普金斯大學的Deborah Brautigam認為漢班托塔是個例外。她研究了3000多個由中國融資的海外項目，發(fā)現這是唯一一個此類資產被沒收以償還債務的例子。

Nonetheless, African leaders are spooked. Dialogue with the Chinese is becoming edgier. On June 7th Mr Magufuli indefinitely suspended construction at Bagamoyo, balking at demands from the project’s Chinese partner for a 99-year lease and a ban on port development elsewhere in Tanzania. Moving smoothly from cheerleader to critic, he accused the firm of setting “tough conditions that can only be accepted by mad people”. Last year Sierra Leone scrapped a Chinese-funded project to build a new international airport for fear that it would involve too much debt.

盡管如此，非洲領導人還是被嚇壞了。與中國的對話越來越緊張。6月7日，Magufuli先生無限期地暫停了巴加莫約港的建設，因為該項目的中國合作伙伴要求獲得99年的租期，并禁止在坦桑尼亞其他地方進行港口開發(fā)。他順利地從支持者變成了批評者，指責該公司設置了“只有瘋子才能接受的苛刻條件”。去年，塞拉利昂取消了一個由中國資助的新建國際機場的項目，擔心該項目涉及太多債務。

詞匯

Spook/驚嚇

ehgy/不安的

The perception of a plot to turn the Indian Ocean into a Chinese lake endangers the political capital China has amassed in Africa. Since Mr Kenyatta came to power in 2013, public debt has nearly tripled. Last year the IMF raised the country’s risk of debt distress from low to moderate. If Kenya defaults, China risks being blamed.

將印度洋變成中國湖泊的陰謀，危及中國在非洲積聚的政治資本。自肯雅塔2013年上臺以來，公共債務幾乎增加了兩倍。去年，國際貨幣基金組織將該國的債務危機風險從低提升到中等。如果肯尼亞違約，中國將面臨被指責的風險。

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China’s hesitation also reflects the uneven performance of past projects. A railway between Djibouti and Addis Ababa, completed in 2017, cost China’s state-owned insurer Sinosure $1bn in losses, its chief economist said last year. Corruption and mismanagement drive up costs. Sometimes plans smack of unreasonable optimism. Bagamoyo’s port was expected to handle more containers than Rotterdam, Europe’s biggest freight terminal.

中國的猶豫也反映了過去項目的不平衡表現。吉布提至亞的斯亞貝巴之間的一條鐵路于2017年完工。中國國有保險公司中國保險(Sinosure)首席經濟學家去年表示，這條鐵路給該公司造成了10億美元的虧損。腐敗和管理不善抬高了成本。有時計劃帶有不合理的樂觀主義色彩。巴加莫約港預計將比歐洲最大的貨運碼頭鹿特丹處理更多的集裝箱。

詞匯

Smack/滋味；少量

Kenya’s railway has had its critics from the outset. Corruption made it a ludicrously expensive venture, costing twice the international average per kilometre of track. The railway’s freight-carrying capacity was miscalculated and has proved to be only 40% of what was predicted. It was meant to be cheaper to ship goods up the line than send them by road. Even though the opposite has proved true, Mr Kenyatta’s government has forced all containers coming out of the port onto the railway. Hapless traders in Mombasa have to pay for goods arriving by sea to be sent to Nairobi and back again as a result. China seems to have belatedly realised that throwing good money after bad would be an error.

肯尼亞鐵路從一開始就遭到了批評。腐敗使其成為一項極其昂貴的冒險，每公里軌道的成本是國際平均水平的兩倍。這條鐵路的貨運能力計算有誤，結果僅為預測的40%。這意味著用船運貨物要比用公路運輸便宜。盡管事實證明情況正好相反，肯雅塔政府還是強迫所有集裝箱離開港口，進入鐵路。不幸的蒙巴薩商人不得不為海運到內羅畢再運回的貨物買單。中國似乎姍姍來遲地意識到，把好錢花在壞錢上將是一個錯誤。

詞匯

Ludicrously/ ?滑稽地；荒唐地

Belatedly/ ?延遲地；延續(xù)地

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So it is embracing caution instead. When Mr Kenyatta and his delegation arrived in Beijing in May, they were treated to an unfamiliar experience, according to a presidential adviser. The Kenyans were questioned not only about their sums, but about corruption. Mr Kenyatta was asked how he would afford a census and a referendum on constitutional change. The Chinese even wanted to know if he planned to stand for office again (he is obliged to stand down in 2022). “It was like talking to the World Bank,” grumbled another aide.

因此，它轉而采取謹慎態(tài)度。一位總統(tǒng)顧問表示，肯雅塔及其代表團今年5月抵達北京時，他們遭遇了一種不熟悉的經歷?？夏醽喨瞬粌H被問到錢的問題，還被問到腐敗問題?？涎潘粏柤叭绾呜摀丝谄詹楹托迲椆兜馁M用。中國人甚至想知道他是否打算再次參選(他不得不在2022年退出)。“這就像在和世界銀行對話，”另一位助手抱怨道。

詞匯

Census/人口普查

Referendum/公民投票權

Obliged/必須的

stand down/退出（競選）

Mr Kenyatta did not return from Beijing empty-handed. He agreed to export avocados to China and won funds for a data centre and a road connecting Nairobi’s suburbs to its airport. Such laudably modest deals should be celebrated. Mr X might not be about to champion human rights, but China’s shift closer to Western lending standards is a step in the right direction.

肯雅塔并沒有空手而歸。他同意向中國出口鱷梨，并為一個數據中心和一條連接內羅畢郊區(qū)和機場的公路贏得了資金。這種值得稱贊的溫和交易應該得到慶祝。X可能不會擁護人權，但中國向西方貸款標準靠攏是朝著正確方向邁出的一步。

詞匯

Laudably/值得贊賞地；可嘉地；可佩地