Letters | 6 September 2018

Chinese burn

Sir: Your leading article last week ended up saying ‘It is unrealistic to expect that we can achieve what China has in Africa over the past decade.’ If we were to have done that, I for one would wish to resign my British nationality. What they have done there for the past 30 years is to systematically rape and pillage the continent.

China has insidiously worked its way into Africa by establishing ‘private’ contractors who then bid for building work and underbid all local opposition by being state-funded. Many local firms were thus put out of business.

Their ‘aid’ projects — starting with the ill-fated TanZam railway — were funded not by grants but by loans accepted by weak and venal governments. One more recent such project was the complete relaying of the railway through Botswana. This was carried out using Chinese designs, Chinese engineers, Chinese machinery, Chinese labour and Chinese materials.