ABSTRACT
China’s growing commercial presence in the Indian Ocean has given rise to concerns that such a presence may be harnessed to exert growing political and military influence in the region (Peherson, 2006). China’s recent port developments on the East coast of Africa, in Kenya and Tanzania, overlap with another anxiety, namely the belief that China’s growing engagement with Africa is neo-colonial in nature. This paper takes the colonial allusion seriously insofar as it contrasts the recent Chinese port and infrastructure developments with similar such developments in Kenya and Tanzania during the nineteenth century, when British and German imperial powers gained control of these regions, respectively. Similarities are to be found insofar as in both periods actors sought to connect ports to the hinterland in order to open up markets and transport resources to port. Additionally, in both instances, large state-backed corporations have undertaken the construction of these projects. The differences, however, are equally significant. First, African states are today legally sovereign entities; rather than being the passive recipients of such projects, they now openly solicit such projects in the interests of national and regional development. In addition, the Chinese are but one of a host of investors in such infrastructural projects, with other actors coming from Europe, the USA, Asia and Africa.
