Political economy of Sino-African infrastructural engagement: the internationalisation of Chinese state-owned companies in Kenya

Abstract

Since the turn of the 21st century, the development of infrastructure on the African continent has assumed a prominent role in national, regional, and continental developmental agendas. The increasing focus on infrastructural development in Africa has coincided with a push towards internationalisation given by the Chinese government, in an attempt to address the national overcapacity crisis. As such, Sino-African infrastructural development is a process influenced by many Chinese and African actors, which cannot be reduced to 'China' and 'Africa'. The fragmented nature of the relations amongst the Chinese state and its state-owned companies echoes in their overseas engagement, which, in turn, is (re)shaped by the agency of African actors and their (diverging) agendas. Nevertheless, these two aspects of Sino-African infrastructural engagement have rarely been put in conversation. Through the lens of embeddedness, this thesis explores the multi-layered dynamics amongst the actors involved in the development of Sino-African infrastructure. This research is based on qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews, textual analysis, and ethnographic observations conducted during extensive fieldwork research in Kenya and China. The thesis draws from the case of Lamu port in Northern Kenya - financed by the Kenyan government and built by the Chinese state-owned contractor China Road Bridge Corporation ² and other Chinese-built and Chinese-funded projects in Kenya, and beyond, to explore the intersection of different trajectories in the development of Sino-African infrastructure projects. Throughout the decades of economic reforms, Chinese state-owned companies have gained substantial autonomy with regards to their overseas activities, and the quest for market expansion is thus closely linked to the companies' embeddedness in the contexts in which they operate. The reframing of Kenya's political economy around infrastructural development is conducive to the spatial expansion of Chinese companies, but also to the profiteering of Kenyan political and business elites. As infrastructure gains political prominence, it also becomes yet another site for contestation and dispossession, highlighting the proliferation of African actors and their diverging agendas. This thesis argues that the internationalisation of Chinese state-owned companies in Africa is not only reliant on spatial expansion through Chinese state incentives, but also on market expansion through non-Chinese funded business opportunities.