In his speech at the 3rd Congress of Angolanistics, which took place in Lisbon, Rui Verde referred that the Chinese President and his administration "have developed a persistent and intense fight against corruption in their country".
And he recalled that the current Chinese law on corruption is found in the Penal Code of the People's Republic of China approved in 1981, revised in 1997 and reinforced at least in 2015 and 2021.
Therefore, according to that rule, all activities that "involving corruption relating to foreign rulers are crimes for which the Chinese courts have jurisdiction".
Thus, "since May 1, 2011, illicit payment to foreign officials is a crime".
Therefore, "currently, the Chinese Penal Code acts beyond its borders, so corrupt payments, the 'odious debt', already have to be considered by the Chinese authorities when they make their assessments of situations", he defended.
"This means that for reasons of domestic law, China is obliged and must analyze the debt that may have been incurred for corrupt purposes or for illegitimate benefit," he said.
And in this context "Angola's debt must be thoroughly reviewed, in this perspective", he advocated.
For that reason, he believes that this "type of debt should be subject to a special consensual procedure between China and Angola that would follow several stages", which he briefly described.
In a first phase, following the thesis of Angolan journalist and activist Rafael Marques and Thomas Duesterberg, a consensual audit of the debt should be carried out by an entity chosen by China and Angola.
Afterwards, according to what that audit established, the part that was considered to be a debt diverted from public purposes should see its payment suspended and a collaborative process of asset recovery initiated.
In that context, the assets that were recovered should be handed over to China.
Finally, in relation to that part of the debt for which no assets were found for payment, "an arbitration committee would be created to decide its fate, whether it be annulment, payment extended over time in a secular manner or another mitigating measure", he concluded.
All of this, he recalled, because in the summer of 2022, the Attorney General's Office (PGR) in Angola produced an intense criminal prosecution order against some of the most relevant dignitaries of the times of President José Eduardo dos Santos (1979-2017) such as the generals Manuel Vieira Dias Júnior "Kopelipa" and Leopoldino do Nascimento ("Dino"), stressed the researcher from Oxford.
"Interestingly, the aforementioned order also introduced as the main actor of the alleged crimes, Manuel Vicente, former vice president of the Republic, although apparently respecting a supposed immunity [which we always understand would not be verified] and did not include him in the list of defendants", added.
In essence, however, "it is perceived that apparently under the coordination and supervision of Manuel Vicente, who in Angola was respectively chairman of the board of directors of Sonangol, minister of State for Economic Coordination and vice president of the Republic (1999-2017) a sophisticated formula was devised according to which a good part of China's loans and payments for public purposes were appropriated by private entities," said Rui Verde.
That legal and financial architecture was based on the creation of Angolan private companies, with some participation of Chinese entities, such as China Sonangol or the Chinese Investment Fund (CIF), through which large amounts of money went out to private persons, when objectively the funds should have been transmitted to the treasury or companies in the public sphere, he explained.
"Rough accounts in this process alone could reach more than two billion dollars diverted from public interest objectives to private appropriation", he estimated.
According to data from the National Bank of Angola (BNA), at the end of 2022 the 'stock' of Angola's public debt to China was around 20 billion dollars, by far the largest.
Rafael Marques and Thomas Duesterberg clarify that the debt to China "represents around 40 percent of the entire 'stock' of public external debt" and that "servicing this debt absorbs almost half of Angola's annual budget", underlined Rui Verde.
"Consequently, we have a high Angolan public debt to China, about which it can be estimated as probable that 50 percent was fraudulently appropriated by private and non-public entities", he stressed.
"Should Angola pay China the part of the public debt that was illicitly 'privatized'?" questioned.
As in the case of China and Angola one is not "faced with regime changes, state successions or even the repudiation of previous debts", one has to "leave the scope of the strict theory of 'odious debt' and find other avenues", he considered.
In the case of part of the Angolan debt to China, which "was illegally appropriated by private entities, one of the conditions is certainly verified: that the purpose of the loan was contrary to the interests of the population in general", he pointed out.
"It is more difficult to prove that China, at the time the loans were issued, knew that they were not going to be used for lawful purposes," he added.
According to Rui Verde, the history of Sino-Angolan relations after 2002 "to a certain extent was based on a certain privatization of the Angolan State, fragmented by years of civil war".
And the main actors of the Angolan rapprochement "were intermediaries like Pierre Falcone or Helder Bataglia, which allowed, from the outset, on the Angolan side, the creation of confusion between sovereign operations and private operations", he explained.
"However, on the Chinese side, the situation is more ambiguous. If it is true that official institutions such as the Exim Bank of China appear, Chinese figures also appear, and it is not clear whether they are official or mere private agents. The most significant example is that of Sam Pa, who is both identified as a businessman and a member of the Chinese security services, never quite understanding in what position he acts", he said.
To that extent, he defended: "The Chinese position ends up creating or allowing ambiguities that were exploited by private entities for their own benefit".
