NAIROBI, Kenya—Chinese President Xi Jinping has signed a slate of investment deals during a weeklong tour of Africa, feeding into concerns in the West and on the continent over ballooning levels of indebtedness to Beijing and its expanding political footprint.
Already Africa’s biggest single-country trading partner, China has become its biggest creditor, too. It holds at least 14% of the continent’s sovereign debt, having lent more than $100 billion to governments and state enterprises since 2000, according to the Washington-based...