Words from on High: The Impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on Chinese Investment in Sub-Saharan Africa

As China increasingly asserts itself as a global superpower, western academics and policymakers have grown evermore wary of the nation’s actions abroad. One particular field of concern has involved the perception of a growing Chinese footprint in Sub-Saharan Africa, financed and directed by the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Using open-source research, this paper attempts to determine if, indeed, Chinese investment in Africa is growing. Additionally, this paper attempts to determine if and to what extent Chinese investment in Africa is the result of the BRI. Ultimately, this paper concludes that Chinese investment in Africa has – counterintuitively – decreased since the introduction of the BRI. This paper attempts to establish how the faulty perception of increased Chinese presence in Africa could come to be so commonly accepted, and why this might be the result of western readers unwisely taking the words of Chinese officials at face value.