Month: April 2021
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Deals, Deals & More Deals. China’s Tech Giants Expand in Africa & the Middle East
2021 has been a busy year so far for China's technology giants as they look to expand their international operations and appear to have their sites set on expanding in both the African and Arabian markets. JD, Didi, iQiyi, and Tencent ...
Unpacking African Agency
Today the South African Institute of International Affairs is holding a webinar featuring new work focusing on African agency in the face of Chinese power. How much power African actors have to shape their engagement with China is one of the field’s most ...
Between the Cut in Chinese Lending and COVID, 2020 Was a Tough Year for East Africa’s Infrastructure Development
The financial crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic combined with a curtailment in Chinese lending contributed to a 35% drop in the number of infrastructure construction projects in East Africa, and a 47% plunge in the value of those projects, according to Deloitte's ...
CSIS’s Judd Devermont Has Two Recommendations For How the U.S. Should Meet the Challenge of China’s BRI in Africa
Judd Devermont is the Africa Program Director at the Center for Strategic Studies, one of Washington's most influential think tanks, and recently spoke with Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, Director of Research from the German Marshall Fund about how to "re-imagine U.S.-Africa policy."
Chinese Embassies, Ambassadors Stay Largely Quiet on the China CDC Director’s Vaccine Efficacy Controversy
China's normally bombastic diplomatic Twitter accounts in Africa were uncharacteristically silent on Monday with regards to the controversy that broke out over the weekend when Gao Fu, the director of the China CDC, acknowledged that Chinese vaccines are not as effective as the Pfizer and Moderna jabs. ...
Columnist: Ghana President Akufo-Addo’s “Beyond Aid” Campaign Apparently Doesn’t Include Donations From China
For years Ghana's president Nana Akufo-Addo has touted his "Ghana Beyond Aid" agenda. Back in 2017 during a visit with French President Emmanuel Macron, the Ghanaian leader said "we have to get away from this mindset of dependence." Well, GhanaWeb columnist Kwesi ...
DRC Take Note: China’s BYD Says It’ll No Longer Used Cobalt in Its Electric Vehicles
Shenzhen-based electric vehicle giant BYD (aka Build Your Dreams), the world's second-largest EV-maker, recently made a stunning announcement that it will no longer use cobalt in any of its vehicles. Instead, the company is going all-in on LFP (lithium-iron-phosphate) batteries in place of ...
Africa Check (Again) Tries to Debunk Misperceptions About Nigeria’s Debts to China
Concerns over Chinese debt sustainability in Nigeria have resurfaced recently due to the government's jump-starting the construction of a $5.3 billion standard gauge railway that will be built and financed through concessional lending by the Chinese government. Also, a ...
China CDC Director’s Vaccine Efficacy Admission Could Have Profound Implications For Africa
Gao Fu, the head of China's Center for Disease Control, appeared to have inadvertently set off an international controversy when he admitted, for the first time by a Chinese official, that China's vaccines are less effective than the messenger RNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech ...
Controversy? What Controversy? Somalia Enthusiastically Welcomes the Arrival of Chinese Vaccines
While the controversy over the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines raged back in China and online, Somalis seemed either blissfully unaware or simply unconcerned when a shipment of 200,000 Sinopharm jabs arrived at the airport in Mogadishu on Sunday. (@CHINESESOMALIA).
Building an Alternate BRI Will be High on Japanese PM Suga’s Agenda When He Meets With Biden on Friday in DC
The Japanese Prime Minister's office is indicating that infrastructure and building an alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative will be high on the agenda when Yoshihide Suga visits Washington on Friday for talks with U.S. President Joe Biden.
U.S. Senate Proposal to Fund “Independent Media” to Report “Negative Impact” of BRI in Developing Countries Generates Some Giggles in Washington
The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee wants to give a lot of money to local media in BRI member countries "to raise awareness of and increase transparency regarding the negative impact of activities related to the Belt and Road Initiative."