China's Superbank: Debt, Oil and Influence - How China Development Bank is Rewriting the Rules of Finance

Chapter 3

Nothing to Lose but Our Chains

China Development Bank in Africa

With the current financial crisis, it’s very difficult to go anywhere in this world and get $3 billion.

—Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, on his country’s $3 billion loan with CDB, April 2012 interview, Beijing.

In early 2012, outside Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, as the sprawling city of congested traffic gave way to flat green fields beneath sloping hills, the China–Africa Development Fund (CADF) of China Development Bank (CDB), China’s largest Africa-focused investment vehicle, was trying to make a return on its investment. Weekenders normally came out here to drink and to eat goat in the simple courtyard hotels, but now there were the Chinese living in a row ...