By Benjamin David Baker
Chinese companies have a surprisingly large stake in Mali. How could this relationship unfold in the future?
There has been some speculation that China might be losing some of its oomph in Africa. According to Xinhua, Chinese investments on the continent have fallen by 40 percent in 2015. This has been due to a number of reasons, “including the slack global economic recovery, international commodity price fluctuations and the Ebola outbreak,” according to Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC) spokesman Shen Danyang.
While the MOC is optimistic that these figures will recover by 2020, Chinese businesses and citizens are facing another kid of threat as well. As both Shannon Tiezzi and myself have reported for The Diplomat, Chinese citizens recently been killed in Syria and Mali by jihadist terrorists.
The three Chinese citizens murdered at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako raise some interesting issues for Beijing’s engagement with Mali. All three, plus another four Chinese citizens who were rescued from the hotel, were senior employees with the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), a state-owned firm.
This is indicative of China’s presence in the region. Both CRCC and the China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) are involved in massive infrastructural projects in and around the region. Mali has been trying to diversify its economy from the exports of its natural resources, notably gold. A crucial part of this involves investments into Mali’s fledgling railways system. Considering Mali’s landlocked geographical position, this is especially urgent with regards to extending and repairing its rail links to the surrounding coastal states of Senegal and Guinea.
Read the full story at The Diplomat