New research suggests Chinese contractors are thriving in Africa’s infrastructure sector despite a steep decline in state-backed financing from Beijing since 2019.

For most of the past 25 years, Chinese construction companies operating in Africa could count on generous financial backing from Chinese banks, note Ikenna Onwuegbuna of the University of Lagos and Joseph Ogunleye of the University of Ibadan, writing in The Conversation,

“Between 2000 and 2019, Chinese funders committed almost $50bn to African transport projects,” they write. “Six years ago, this started to change as Chinese lenders began to pull back.”

Since 2019, total commitments have fallen to about $6bn, yet Chinese companies “continue to thrive on the continent,” according to the researchers, and remain market leaders in African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana.

“The key to market expansion is firms’ ability to shift between these strategies – sometimes leaning on the Chinese state, sometimes on other multinationals, sometimes on local elites,” write Onwuegbuna and Ogunleye, who are both associated with Nigerian universities.

Their research, conducted between 2018 and 2022, combined fieldwork in China, Kenya and Ghana, interviews with company staff and officials, and four months of on-site observation.

In Kenya, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) – a China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) subsidiary – opened a Nairobi office in 1984 and later built the Nairobi–Mombasa Standard Gauge Railway, a flagship Chinese-financed project.

“State-backed loans gave the company large contracts as well as visibility and credibility with Kenyan authorities,” the authors note.

In Ghana, China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), another CCCC subsidiary, entered through Chinese-financed port agreements in the 2010s, later maintaining activity “by partnering with a consortium involving western multinationals” on West African port works.

The academics emphasised that Chinese firms are embedding themselves in local business and political environments.

“They develop individual relations with key political and business figures,” Onwuegbuna and Ogunleye observed, citing CRBC’s collaboration with Kenyan ministries to anticipate infrastructure demand and present feasibility studies “before tenders were issued.”

The authors argue that this adaptability challenges the view that Chinese contractors are merely arms of Beijing’s foreign policy.

“We show that many Chinese firms increasingly behave like their western private counterparts: competing for contracts, partnering with other international actors, and adapting to local conditions.”

They conclude that African governments now have greater influence over outcomes.

“The next phase of Africa-China infrastructural engagement will not be defined by large Chinese loan packages. It will be driven by operational contexts, various alliances, and a competitive world market.”