Why an early Belt and Road Initiative East Africa hub? Economic, demographic and security factors

Purpose - This purpose of this paper is to explore China’s choice to focus early Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Africa outreach on Eastern Africa. The BRI specifically seeks to achieve ten economic and policy objectives, as outlined in the two launch speeches of 2013. In terms of realising these, the economic development and digitisation levels, that progress of the demographic transition, and the important security context of the sub-region, logically make East Africa relatively important to BRI in continental context. Kenya specifically is important in being an African frontier therein, and, also, because it shares a few important borders with landlocked countries, including Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda, alongside a strategic coast and ports. From this lens, as well the fact that in the Ming Dynasty Chinese fleets reached what is modern-day Kenya, China’s early BRI outreach to Africa having had a historical precedent in initially focusing on Eastern Africa, might be usefully understood. Design/methodology/approach - To realise that aim a comprehensive survey of related literature and policy documents, in Chinese, English and Swahili, was undertaken and relevant data compiled and analysed. Findings - To the best of the authors’ knowledge, first, this paper is the first to argue that the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa may build on abstract long-run logic in terms of economics, demographic change and security. This provides a contrary perspective to the pre-existing established “debt trap diplomacy” and no consistent logic narratives. Second, it is the first to offer a synthesised analysis of the BRI in Africa, East Africa specifically, looking across economic, demographic and security angles. Research limitations/implications - The paper is a synthesis of development and regional economics literature that forges some prospective rationales only. It is not an empirical research paper drawing very specific and definitive conclusions. Practical implications - Amid widespread geo-economic tensions and uncertainty, around the Belt and Road Initiative in particular, this paper offers a new economic development-oriented logic for the choice of an important node of the China's Belt and Road Initiative, that of East Africa, Kenya especially. This may impact existing related narratives and policy responses. Social implications - Equivalently to the above this may then have an impact on the ground in East Africa and beyond. Originality/value - The first such or even close to synthesis.