Day: May 25, 2021
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Why African Countries Can’t Rely on China to Fix The Trade Imbalance
It is beyond doubt that two-way trade will feature heavily in next week’s FOCAC ministerial meeting in Dakar, Senegal as China has already announced plans to further open its market for more African products. While this is a welcome move that will go a long way in ...
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Cobalt Clarifies Everything
We’re at one of those moments when everyone suddenly remembers that Africa exists. Right through the pandemic, the debt crisis, and climate talks, the continent and its needs were seemingly invisible. But nothing sharpens the eye like an upcoming FOCAC summit. ...
How Will China Respond to the Coup in Sudan?
The pre-dawn military coup in Sudan on Monday presents the latest challenge for China on how to respond to the toppling of governments in Africa where it has sizable economic and strategic interests. Normally, the Chinese Foreign Ministry tends to be ...
COVID Flare-Ups in China Threaten to Disrupt What’s Otherwise Been a Strong Year For China-Africa Trade
While global trade experiences unprecedented disruptions of major supply chain networks, that turbulence does not appear to have had much effect on the volume of Chinese trade with African countries, at least so far. Chinese ...
One Kenyan Entrepreneur’s Cautionary Tale About Replacing Chinese Imports With a Locally-made Alternative
Kenya's gaping trade imbalance with China is typical of many African countries that import significantly more than they export to the Chinese market. This has prompted calls going back years for Africans to reduce their dependency on Chinese imports and manufacture more at home, particularly in the ...
Fishermen conduct abalone management and protection operations at sea in the waters of Xiaocheng Town, Lianjiang County, Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, China, on March 14, 2026. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto) (Photo by CFOTO / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP)
"China's financial commitments are simply more tangible and easier to grasp than those of Europe," one delegate from an island state remarked to me on a bright spring day in late March, as we both gazed out at the East River from the United Nations Headquarters. Behind us, in airless ...
Even If the DRC is Able To Re-Negotiate Its Mining Contracts With The Chinese and Others, It’s Still Not Going to Help Ordinary People, Says Expert
A leading Congolese mining expert wants to dispel the notion that President Félix Tshisekedi's efforts to renegotiate foreign mining contracts is going to benefit ordinary people. "It is, of course, a first step," acknowledged Jean Pierre Okenda, a well-known expert in DRC mining issues and head of the extractive ...
Almost a Third of the World’s Cobalt, Mostly From the DRC, Went to China Last Year
32% of the world's cobalt output went to China, according to the latest annual report published by The Cobalt Institute, an industry-financed organization. In addition to being the largest consumer of cobalt, China is also the dominant producer of refined cobalt that is used ...
China’s Role in the Complex, Brutal History of Cobalt Mining in the DR Congo
The New Yorker magazine published a sweeping long-form article in its latest edition that delves into the painful history of Congolese cobalt -- a metal that is now indispensable for any consumer who owns a mobile phone and a strategic resource that is in the ...
China Controls 90% of the World’s Manganese Market, Another Strategic Ingredient for Electric Vehicle Batteries
Governments and automakers in the U.S., Europe and Asia have become steadily concerned in recent years over China's dominance of the strategic minerals and metals supply chains that are used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles. Their primary concern ...
With Iron Ore Mines in Guinea and Sierra Leone Now Coming Online, China is Making It Clear That It Wants to End Its Dependence on Australia
The Chinese government is signaling both through its actions and propaganda messaging that the days of being overly reliant on Australian iron ore are coming to an end. When precisely? Well, no one knows for sure, but given the burst of ...
Chinese Officials and Environmentalists Exchange Fire Over That Controversial Fish Port in Sierra Leone
China's ambassador to Sierra Leone, Hu Zhangliang, paid a visit on Monday to the Foreign Ministry to rally support with the government for a controversial development project to build a fish port in the environmentally pristine Black Johnson beach area. After the meeting, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Mamadi Gobeh ...
The Other Side of Agency
Last week I ran into a friend who’s a media studies scholar. We caught up about our work – she’s busy with a paper about the media representation of face masks. What am I working on? A paper on China’s provision of coal-powered electricity in Africa. Oh, ...
The China-Mediterranean Observer: Mixed Feelings in Iran and China About Strategic Cooperation Deal
We start this issue of the ChinaMed Observer with the debate in Iranian media over the signing of the Iran-China 25-year Cooperation Program. In this regard, Abolfazl Olamayifar, Director of the China Desk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from the pages of the economic newspaper Donya-ye ...