Libya: China to Begin Reconstruction in Flood-Ravaged Derna

Ali Sidi, infrastructure minister in Libya’s eastern government, said Monday that China will take the lead in rebuilding the flood-ravaged city of Derna, where thousands were killed after two poorly maintained dams collapsed during a powerful storm on September 11.

Sidi told Radio France Internationale (RFI) that an international reconstruction conference will be held on October 10, but his government has concluded China is the only party with both the ability and willingness to begin reconstruction work on the city quickly.

“We are aware that China is today the effective power that could build bridges, infrastructure and roads in a very short time,” he said.

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“We have received an official document from the BFA coalition, a coalition that links China to Libya. So I have the agreement to inaugurate the reconstruction of the disaster zone in partnership with China,” he said.

BFA is the Boao Forum for Asia, a Chinese-founded organization created to give Beijing influence over Asian trade with the rest of the world. China has used the BFA to push propaganda about its supposedly exemplary handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its miraculous economic recovery.

No one claims China has a booming economy anymore, but Sidi’s government is apparently convinced the Chinese can still loan it significant amounts of money and get reconstruction projects moving.

Sidi claimed to RFI that China is “financing a $30 billion project in Libya to build metros through the BFA consortium,” a revelation he described as “exclusive information that nobody knows except my ministry and the parties involved in the agreement.”

China might be more willing to work with Sidi’s ministry rather than other reconstruction partners because Sidi works for the wrong government. The international community recognizes Libya’s western government based in Tripoli as the legitimate national administration of Libya, but Derna is controlled by the eastern Tobruk-based parliament and its military leader, Khalifa Haftar.

There are signs that Derna’s desperate population might be ready to turn against the Tobruk government, so moving in fast with Chinese funding, equipment, and personnel might be the best way for the eastern parliament to quell public discontent and reassert control over the city.

China has heavy oil investments in Libya and has cultivated economic relationships with many factions in the shattered country, including both the eastern and western governments. 

Beijing nominally supports the unification of Libya under the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and hopes to fold the GNA into China’s international Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but it has made deals with Haftar’s government and even supplied his military forces with drones. At its peak of production, Libya supplied about three percent of China’s oil, and the fossil-fuel-hungry Chinese industrial machine wants to restore that supply.