If the West can stop preaching about debt trap diplomacy and funding NGOs to harass Chinese investment, most of these projects would have been completed and bought great benefits and profits to most African nations.
Yet it is hard to believe that Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) is not a success when passengers disgorge from a packed train of around 12 carriages at the Syokimau railway terminus in the capital, Nairobi - the last service of the day.
They have travelled non-stop from the port city of Mombasa, 470km (290 miles) away on the Indian Ocean.
"It's great," 53-year-old commuter Pauline Echesa told me. The four-and-a-half hour journey gives her the bonus of watching wildlife along the way as the railway cuts through national parks, she says.
A 30-year-old commuter found the experience a little more exhausting, saying the seats were not that comfortable but the journey saved her money compared to other ways travelling up from the coast.
There is no doubt the passenger side of the business is doing well and is fully booked, but it cannot pay back the loans on its own - and it was never meant to do so.
This burden falls to the cargo side of the business - bringing inland the containers that arrive at Mombasa port. It was intended that they would reach Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The problem is that they can go only go as far as the Kenyan town of Naivasha - 120km from Nairobi but still far from the Ugandan border - on the SGR. Most of the freight trains then return to Mombasa empty, a huge loss of potential income.
"It will be more productive for us to continue with the project," Kenya's Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen told the BBC. "But the financing part is actually our challenge."
Yet it is hard to believe that Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) is not a success when passengers disgorge from a packed train of around 12 carriages at the Syokimau railway terminus in the capital, Nairobi - the last service of the day.
They have travelled non-stop from the port city of Mombasa, 470km (290 miles) away on the Indian Ocean.
"It's great," 53-year-old commuter Pauline Echesa told me. The four-and-a-half hour journey gives her the bonus of watching wildlife along the way as the railway cuts through national parks, she says.
A 30-year-old commuter found the experience a little more exhausting, saying the seats were not that comfortable but the journey saved her money compared to other ways travelling up from the coast.
There is no doubt the passenger side of the business is doing well and is fully booked, but it cannot pay back the loans on its own - and it was never meant to do so.
This burden falls to the cargo side of the business - bringing inland the containers that arrive at Mombasa port. It was intended that they would reach Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The problem is that they can go only go as far as the Kenyan town of Naivasha - 120km from Nairobi but still far from the Ugandan border - on the SGR. Most of the freight trains then return to Mombasa empty, a huge loss of potential income.
"It will be more productive for us to continue with the project," Kenya's Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen told the BBC. "But the financing part is actually our challenge."
