Day: September 16, 2020
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The Optics of Leadership in the COVID-19 Era
As 2020 crawls to its end, it's becoming clear that, all things considered, China is emerged from the year's nested crises in better shape than many expected. While Europe and Japan seem headed to new slumps, and the American recovery also ...
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Traditional Chinese Medicine Training in Mali: “A Revolution of Sorts” but Skepticism Remains
In December 2019, when the Tianjin government launched its Luban Workshop in Mali, it stood out from the Luban Workshops (named after Lu Ban, the father of Chinese architecture) in other African countries which offer courses on ultra-modern device manufacturing, high-speed rail technologies and Chinese cuisine ...
Ghana’s Thinking Small (And That’s a Good Thing)
The Bui Power Authority (BPA) in Ghana recently launched a new solar farm that's connected to a Chinese-built hydroelectric dam. The idea here is that when water levels run low and power generation dips, the solar farm kicks in to make up the difference. ...
The Once Frenetic Debate Over Chinese Debt in Africa Has All But Disappeared
China's top diplomat for sub-Saharan Africa, Wu Peng, posted a tweet today that restated China's often-repeated position about its commitment to implement the G20's Debt Service Suspension Initiative and to help "alleviate debt pressure on African countries." It's not ...
Ambassador Zhou Pingjian: China’s Tried Its Best to Meet Kenya’s Request on Loans
The Nation's Senior Diplomatic Writer, Aggrey Mutambo, sat down with China's ambassador to Kenya for a wide-ranging interview that covered access to Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines, next year's FOCAC summit in Dakar, and how Beijing will deal with Nairobi's difficulty in repaying its debts.
Wang Yi, China's Foreign Minister and S. Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs of India
In the space of 24 hours, between Sunday and Monday, the foreign ministers from both China and India laid out their respective governments’ positions on the escalating war in the Middle East. In Beijing, China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, was unsparing in his criticism of ...
Nigeria’s President Buhari Responds to Debt Critics: “We Just Have to Take Loans to do Rail, Roads and Power”
President Muhammadu Buhari finally weighed on the debate currently raging in Nigeria over the government's decision to borrow billions of dollars, including from China, to build badly-needed infrastructure. “We have so many challenges with infrastructure. We just have to take loans ...
CCP “Training Class” With Congo’s Ruling Party Highlights Deepening Chinese Party-to-Party Engagement in Africa
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is steadily making inroads with Africa's ruling parties by convening seminars like the one held earlier this month with the Republic of Congo's incumbent Party of Labor. In this virtual session, or a "training class" according to the CCP, some ...
U.S. & Chinese State-Run Media Channels Go At Each Other in a Seemingly Fruitless Effort to Sway African Public Opinion
With relations between the United States and China rapidly deteriorating, each country's state-run propaganda outlets are ramping up cynical coverage of the other in an apparent attempt to sway international public opinion against their respective rivals. Two reports published this week, ...
StarTimes’ African Voice Actors Are the Newest Faces of Chinese Soft Power
The hugely popular Chinese-owned African pay-TV service StarTimes has always tried to put some distance between itself and the Chinese government, reminding anyone who asks that it is a private enterprise. Regardless of its status, the company is nonetheless a powerful ...
Subsidies and the False Promise of Fair Trade
Towards the end of our discussion last week with Walter Ruigu, managing director of the Beijing-based trading and logistics company CAMAL Group, on the China in Africa Podcast, he shared a fascinating insight that reveals why African commodity producers are condemned to remain at ...
The Long Journey to EurAfrica
Recently I've been trying to give my brain a break from marinading in China-Africa issues by reading the biologist Merlin Sheldrake's mind-bending new book Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures. He points out that scientists in ...