China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Infrastructural Relations in East Africa Region: Case Studies of Kenya and Uganda

Abstract

This study analyzes China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and infrastructural relations in East Africa Region using case studies from Kenya and Uganda. In Kenya, the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET Corridor) and the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) were selected, while in Uganda, the Entebbe Express Highway and the Karuma Hydropower Project were selected. Indeed, infrastructure deficit renders both Kenya and Uganda unable to minimize commercial expenditures and compete with the rest of the international community for FDIs. This study shows how Africa’s infrastructure relations with China make interdependence relations inevitable because the gaps to be addressed by the developing countries (Kenya and Uganda) are too expensive for them. The study appreciates a nexus between infrastructure relations and distance decay where, the closer the BRI is to developing states (Kenya and Uganda), the higher likelihood that the foreign policies of the latter will guide them to address existing infrastructural gaps through capitalizing on their relations with China. Consequently, this informs the infrastructural economic interdependence between China and the Eastern African states. Kenya and Uganda are benefiting from infrastructural relations with China because of the distance decay between them and the BRI. Said differently, the closer the Chinese aspirations are to those of poor African countries, the higher likelihood that the latter will ‘look East’, and hence the intensification of infrastructural relations. China’s global strategy in the BRI is to link Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe; domestically it will economically open up her North Western marginalized frontiers, while politically deterring secession movements. As seen throughout this study, China’s ambition thus resonates with the strategies of both Kenya and Uganda to minimize their domestic distance decays by tapping their dead capitals into their respective economies.