Loans from China helped Uganda build a new highway to its main airport. But critics say the country is now too deep in debt to Beijing. (Photo: Reuters)

Though former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused China of using “predatory loan practices,” undermining growth and creating “few if any jobs” in Africa, a US expert strongly refuted the view on China’s role in Africa as an “imperial power” is wrong.

In a report issued by the Washington Post, Deborah Bräutigam –a professor of International Political Economy and director of the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies –explained three aspects: jobs and training, lending and land use.

He quoted Lina Benabdallah, a political science professor at Wake Forest University who believes Africans are being invited to Chinese universities and China is offering scholarships.

Surveys of employment in Chinese projects in Africa repeatedly find that three-fourths or more of the workers are local, the report said. Chinese investors setting up factories in low-cost countries are not thinking about importing Chinese workers.

Scholars at Boston University and Johns Hopkins University have been collecting data on Chinese loans provided since 2000, showing that the Chinese loans were functioning usefully to finance Africa’s serious infrastructure gap, according to the WSJ report.

Over 600 million Africans have no access to electricity, and 40 percent of the Chinese loans paid for power generation and transmission. Another 30 percent went to modernize Africa’s vulnerable transport infrastructure.

China’s investments on power and transport in Africa have fueled its economic growth. And they found that Chinese loans generally have comparatively low interest rates and long repayment periods.

Responding to claims that China is a “land grabber” in Africa, Bräutigam set up a research project and spent three years tracking down the media reports saying Chinese firms have acquired or negotiated over 500 hectares of African farmland.

They confirmed that nearly a third of the stories were literally false. Instead, they found the total amount of land actually acquired by Chinese firms was only about 240,000 hectares, 4 percent of the reported amount.

Researchers at the Center for International Forestry Research concluded after their own rigorous research, saying “China is not a dominant investor in plantation agriculture in Africa, in contrast to how it is often portrayed.”

Bräutigam concluded that Chinese loans are powering Africa, and Chinese firms are creating jobs.

China’s agricultural investment is far more modest than reported and welcomed by some Africans, he said, adding China may boost Africa’s economic transformation.