Китайский «Один пояс, один путь» в арабских странах северной и восточной Африки

Trade between China and Ethiopia is largely based on mecha-nisms such as the Joint Ethiopian –China commission (JECC), Sino-Ethiopian Agreement for Mutual Promotion and Protocol of Invest-ment –1988, Sino - Ethiopia Agreement for trade, economic and technical cooperation - 1996 and FOCAC Sino - Af-rica at continental level, since recent times [94, p. 7].

China-built US $ 3.4 billion railroad linking Addis Ababa and the port city of Djibouti opened in October 2016. A new 750-km line, which complete-ly replaces the long-defunct French line, built in early 20th century, reduces travel time between two cities - up to 10 hours out of two to three days. The new line will provide Djibouti with unprece-dented access to the 90 million Ethiopian market [112]. The Chinese-built railway is expected to help the landlocked African country improve ac-cess to the sea and accelerate its booming industri-alization process [61].

Chinese firms have invested in a water pipe-line from Ethiopia and a new international airport [106]. China's largest footwear manu-facturer Huajian International — the world's largest foot-wear manu-facturer — entered Ethiopia in 2012 and opened its first factory in the Eastern Industrial Zone, employing 7,000 people. It was the only com-pany to produce footwear exclusively thanks to the efforts of the Ethiopians [41].

By 2012, China accounted for more than half of Ethiopia’s imports of furniture and furnishings, over ¾ of Ethiopian imports of travel goods and handbags and apparel and clothing accessories, and nearly 90% of Ethiopia’s footwear imports [93, p. 235].

In 2006, China’s ZTE was granted a monopo-ly over the market as the Ethiopian government seemed to ignore its own procurement rules re-quiring competitive bidding. А US $ 1.6 billion agreement was signed in 2013 with Huawei and ZTE to upgrade existing infrastructure [51].

A Chinese firm has signed a MoU with Ethio-pia authorities on establishing a National Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure (NAIF) in Ethiopia. The MoU was signed between Ethiopia Innovation and Technology State Minister, Sisay Tola and Chen Kuan, the founder and CEO of Chinese firm Infervi-sion Technology Corporation in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa in November 2019 [43].

The Ethiopia is China's second largest bor-rower in Africa. The external debt of the Ethiopian government is 60% of GDP, 1/3 to China, which makes the country vulnerable, and there are fears that China may have a say in its future domestic policies [95, p. 12].

China's strategic partner Addis Ababa re-ceives significant military and economic aid with-out any political strings attached. Ethiopia main-tains ties with the West, using Chinese aid as a bar-gaining chip in negotiations with European donors, and vice versa [90, p. 86].