Angola is a country in Central Africa with a population of 38 million. So, why did President Biden just make the first presidential visit to that country, especially with all of the other allies of the U.S. and the internal politics that took place in the U.S. during November? It's an underlying competition between two of the world's economic superpowers.
Since 2013, China has been one of the biggest world lenders. They have lent over 1.3 trillion dollars to countries for numerous reasons, most often to help infrastructure building. Their breadth of scope was initially in the Middle East to help build trade channels to Europe but it has evolved into one of the biggest foreign aid programs in the world.
One of the main reasons that China has spread its economic influence into less developed countries is to gain a better position in the global political sphere. They want to create strong political and economic ties with countries to help spread political ideology and benefit their economy. The United States already has strong ties to North America, Europe, and many Asian countries, so China leveraged and spread its influence into other countries, such as Angola.
There is evidence of this working by a first-person quote from a woman in Angola. When asked if she knew about President Biden, she expressed confusion, but when asked about China she knew about the projects they had funded such as buildings and roads. This is just one example of how influential the Belt and Road Initiative has been in less developed countries. Every day people are aware of the large infrastructure investments from China, a country thousands of miles away. This is significantly more well-known by the citizens compared to many of the United States Aid and Infrastructure programs.
The fight over infrastructure and foreign aid in Angola is just a current example of the competition for spreading the United States and China’s influence across the world. The Belt and Road initiative is unlike any other. It created and strengthened ties through money lending for infrastructure programs between Eastern Europe, Africa, The Middle East, South America, and China; there are Belt and Road initiatives in 147 Countries.
Such a large development project may seem like a positive thing, but it has been a cause for concern. The United States is afraid that the project will also give China significant geopolitical power. This is a major concern as tensions between the United States and China are very high. They will worsen when Donald Trump, a Republican who is often strict on trade with China, takes office in 2025. He may cut funding to countries that have existing ties with China or funnel extraneous amounts of money to combat them.
The Belt and Road Initiative was one of the driving factors behind President Biden's championing of the Build Back Better World Initiative with the G7. Similar to the Belt and Road Initiative, its purpose is to help infrastructure development across less developed countries worldwide.
In Angola, the United States will be partly funding and supporting an 800-mile railway project called the Lobito Corridor. According to The EU, another large investor and ally in the Lobito Corridor project, it will connect Angola, the DRC, and Zambia, fostering trade between the countries and increasing exporting possibilities for all the countries. Such advancements in trade will positively impact the economy as many more jobs will be available.
Although all of these Infrastructure programs have positive messages, there are often underlying themes of self-interestedness by the funding countries. For example, the Lobito corridor while potentially boosting the economy and introducing many jobs also is very advantageous for the United States. Angola and the surrounding countries that would be connected by the Lobito Corridor are some of the sources of rare minerals used in battery production. Investing in such a channel would reduce costs through both ease of access and favorable connections with the county.
The position that the investing country gains is both the biggest critique of such programs and also why an international infrastructure investment competition between the United States/EU and China has developed.
The United States took advantage of the situation as China has decreased its Belt and Road Initiative programs because of internal needs. Additionally, The U.S. competition with the Belt and Road Initiative limits the amount of influence China can have, eventually causing countries to choose between China or the West, seen in Angola specifically by their President, João Lourenço choosing the U.S. to fund the Railway project.
The competing infrastructure projects give clues to wider geopolitical conflicts in the world. Infrastructure is the battleground as small developing countries accumulate debt to China and the U.S. In the future the infrastructure and debts that small countries have could put them in unfavorable positions, relying on another country for funding. Even further less developed countries' governments could be coerced into joining alliances militarily or economically because of the infrastructure funding from said countries.
Even though the presidency may change during the project’s financing, for the reason above, president-elect Trump may also be supportive of the project, although probably using more anti-Chinese rhetoric.
The landscape of foreign infrastructure investment is a complicated one that is slowly turning into a competition between China and the “West”. Although many of the less developed countries' economies are benefiting, they are being put into precarious situations, owing billions of dollars in debt. The competition for infrastructure development benefits the developed countries more than they let on, gaining political control through debt owed to them, and social control through citizens understanding and appreciating where the money is coming from.