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China’s Aid Push and COVID-19 Revisionism Rankles the U.S.

The U.S. President and his supporters in conservative media are determined to link COVID-19 with China by insisting on referring to it as "Chinese" or "Wuhan virus" over the objections of the World Health Organization who work hard to avoid using locations or countries in the official ...

China Leveraging Its Deeply-embedded Media Ties in Africa to Tell its COVID-19 Aid Story

The Chinese government is leveraging its vast content distribution network in Africa to tell its story about its rapidly expanding anti-COVID-19 relief effort that's now underway. Articles written by Xinhua and other state-run media outlets are popping up across African news websites this week to showcase the ...

China Leveraging New Aid Push to “Flip the Script” on the COVID-19 Story Says China Scholar

The highly coordinated Chinese COVID-19 relief effort that is underway around the world is in part intended to provide badly-needed supplies to countries in need but also to shift the narrative about China's role in the entire COVID-19 saga. Now that ...

China Launches Massive Global COVID-19 Aid Campaign in Africa

Over the past several days China has rapidly escalated relief efforts in Africa and elsewhere around the world to help governments to contain the spread of COVID-19. Chinese state-run media outlets, official social media accounts and third-party media partners across Africa (see below) are flooded with stories ...

Reflections on Lin Songtian’s Reported Departure from South Africa

18-hours before the story broke on The Daily Maverick website, we heard rumors that China's outspoken, high-profile ambassador to South Africa, Lin Songtian, had been recalled. "Holy ^%#*$! That's huge!" I said to myself when I first heard about the news.

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

2026: Africa-China Relations in a World Shaped by North-South Geopolitics

When talking about Africa–China relations, one is always moving along a sliding scale. There are myriad interactions with Chinese entities that concern only individual African countries, segueing into trends affecting the whole continent and sliding further into global dynamics shaping the developing world, of which Africa is the heart.

The Africa-China relationship is its own thing, but Africa’s fate can’t easily be separated from factors affecting the wider Global South, ...

Daily Maverick: China’s Brash Outspoken Ambassador to South Africa “Recalled”

Chinese Ambassador to South Africa Lin Songtian is reportedly being recalled to Beijing according to a report in the Daily Maverick newspaper. The article quotes unnamed sources within South Africa's Department of International Relations and Co-operation (DIRCO) suggesting that Ambassador Lin will leave as soon as Monday.