Day: August 27, 2021
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In Phone Call With Macron, Xi Pursues Trilateral Development Cooperation in Africa
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in a phone call on Tuesday that the European Union should pursue greater autonomy (presumably from the U.S.) in its foreign policy. The two leaders also discussed the upcoming COP26 climate ...
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Jake Sullivan: B3W Will Show How Americans Can Outcompete China on Infrastructure
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (photo) reiterated what's has become a common talking point in Washington: that the administration's Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative is going to challenge China's Belt and Road Initiative head-on. Sullivan ...
If the U.S. is Going to Compete Against China’s BRI, Then It’s Going to Have to Mobilize the Private Sector… And That Won’t Be Easy
If the proposed B3W has any chance of rivaling China's eight-year-old Belt and Road Initiative, the U.S. government is going to have to persuade development finance institutions, private companies, and Wall Street that building infrastructure in some of the world's highest risk countries is a good investment. ...
Nairobi Commuters Will Finally Get Some Relief When First Section of New Chinese-Financed Expressway Opens This Weekend
The Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHA) finally said the words that every Nairobi motorist has been waiting to hear: the expressway is open! OK, so it's just the first section of the 27-kilometer roadway but even that will provide some badly-needed relief ...
China, DRC Sign Three Agreements to Reduce Debt and Provide New Aid
Chinese ambassador to the DRC Zhu Jing and Foreign Affairs Minister Christophe Lutundula Apala posed for a ceremonial fist-bump at the Foreign Ministry in Kinshasa following the signing earlier this month of three new accords that will provide additional Chinese aid to the DRC while eliminating some of ...
The Lives of African Youth Need to Be on the Climate Agenda in Glasgow
Our podcast conversation this week with the Kenyan economist Anzetse Were was a feast of insights. Among these was her point that there is a massive lag between financing for climate mitigation versus climate adaptation. The former refers to measures directly aimed at reducing future ...
Chinese Companies Looking to Improve Their Reputations in Africa Could Learn a Lot From What Huawei’s Doing in Kenya
Very few Chinese companies have been able to generate the kind of goodwill that Chinese telecom giant Huawei enjoys in Kenya and it’s not by chance. When it comes to local employment, the company spans a whole value chain from suppliers, technicians, charitable partners, educators, and academics ...
Q&A: What’s At Stake For China in Sudan?
China's reaction, so far, to Monday's military coup in Sudan has been reserved, especially compared to the forceful response Beijing issued within 24 hours of last month's overthrow of President Alpha Condé's government in Guinea. But China's interests in Guinea and Sudan are very different and ...
Congolese Ministers Deliver Mostly Favorable Report to President on Chinese Infrastructure
Two Congolese ministers delivered a largely upbeat assessment of the status of Chinese infrastructure projects tied to major mining contracts in a key report for President Félix Tshisekedi at the latest cabinet meeting on Friday. Infrastructure and Public ...
Tshisekedi Was the Only African Head of State That Got an Audience With Blinken, China Not on the Agenda
Senior U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, were surprisingly averse to meeting with African heads of state who were in the United States last week for the United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York. ...
Prominent Peking U Finance Professor Warns Evergrande Crisis Could Impact China’s Raw Material Suppliers
So far, shock waves from the massive implosion of the $305 billion property development group China Evergrande have not been felt abroad, but that could soon change if the crisis forces Beijing to retrench, warned a leading Peking Univesity finance professor.
Now It’s Huawei That’s in Trouble in the DR Congo
Telecom giant Huawei is now the latest Chinese company to be embroiled in controversy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The company is to appear again in the Gombe Commercial Court in Kinshasa to settle a bitter feud regarding a 2018 judgment against ...
China-Africa Trade Fair Gets Underway in the Central Chinese Province of Hunan
Rwandan President Paul Kagame (photo) was the keynote speaker on Sunday at the kick-off of the four-day China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo in the Hunan provincial capital of Changsha. The expo was also attended by China's most senior foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi, who ...
Hannah Ryder Explains Why the China-Africa Trade Expo is Important
The China-Africa trade expo that's now underway in the central Chinese province of Hunan provides a unique opportunity for African exporters of finished goods to meet directly with Chinese buyers, said Hannah Ryder, CEO of Development Reimagined, in an interview this weekend with Chinese ...
By the Numbers: New Report Breaks Down Current State of China-Africa Trade and Economic Ties
The Chinese government published a lengthy 108-page report on Saturday that details the current state of economic and trade ties with Africa. The timing of the report's release was intended to coincide with the opening of the China-Africa Trade Expo that began in Changsha on ...
CCP Quietly Bolsters Ties With Africa’s Ruling Parties
The Secretary of Uganda's ruling National Resistance Movement Party, Richard Todwong, took part in a seminar on Saturday organized by the Chinese Communist Party that is part of a broader effort by the CCP to further strengthen its ties with ruling parties across the continent.
Week in Review: Doses, Detainees and Diplomacy
Interpol has canceled the red notice arrest warrant requested by China for Uyghur activist Yidiresi Aishan, who was detained in Morocco last month. The red notice flagging Aishan as a member of “terrorist” organizations, and issued at China’s request, led Moroccan authorities to detain the 33-year-old computer ...
China’s Tech Lead in Africa Highlights B3W’s Biggest Problem
When Joe Biden took over from Donald Trump, many predicted that Trump’s foreign policy would soon follow him out the door. A few months down the line, it’s become clear that they agreed more frequently than expected even if their styles are very different. One example is ...
New Trends in Chinese Energy & Development Finance
U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry will be in China next week to pressure the government to renounce all future financing of coal power plants around the world. Although China generally does not respond well to foreign demands like ...
Two Day U.S.-Africa Business Summit Kicks Off Today As Part of White House Push to Revitalize Trade With the Continent
After years of sitting on the Africa summit sidelines, the United States is getting back in the game with the start of a two-day online business forum that starts on Tuesday. The gathering is organized by the business lobby group Corporate Council on Africa. ...
The U.S. Has a Lot of Ground to Make Up If It Wants to Compete With China and Europe on Trade With Africa
While U.S. corporate and political elites meet virtually this week with African stakeholders to discuss revitalizing trade between the two regions, it's worth noting just how much work there is to be done, especially in relation to Africa's other major trading partners in China and Europe.
The Conservative Argument as to “Why Americans Should be Concerned About Communist China’s Influence in Africa”
The President of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, D.C. published a scathing column today in the right-wing newspaper Washington Times warning Americans about why they need to be concerned about China's growing influence in Africa. It's ...
Howard French Isn’t Very Impressed With the G-7’s Build Back Better World Initiative
Journalist and author Howard W. French is among the most thought-provoking U.S. scholars on Chinese engagement in Africa and Beijing's rapidly evolving global presence. French recently joined Brookings Institute Senior Fellow David R. Dollar on the Brookings Trade Podcast Dollar & Sense to discuss how ...
76% of All Chinese Vaccine Distributions in Africa Have Gone to Just Four Countries
Chinese vaccine distributions in Africa remain highly distorted, favoring a small group of mostly North African countries that account for 3/4 of all deliveries on the continent, according to the latest figures from Bridge Beijing's independent vaccine tracking report.
China’s New Man in Djibouti
China's new ambassador to Djibouti Hu Bin presented his credentials to Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf on Monday. https://twitter.com/ChineAmbDjibout/status/1419718652463566854?s=19 Hu is the second ...
TRANSLATION: My Kenyan Employee Who Just Disappeared
The following is a translation of an article published on the Bobu Africa (波布非洲 )WeChat page on July 20, 2021. The purpose of translations like this is to provide English language readers with a more informed understanding of the civil society discourse about China-Africa relations that is ...
African Food Bloggers Are Finding Large Audiences Live Streaming on Chinese Social Media
The following article is a summary of a longer version of this story by Shu Xiong (薯熊) that was published on the 公路商店's WeChat channel. The original, Chinese-language article is available here. From Rwanda to Guinea, from the Democratic Republic ...
Chinese Companies’ “Eat Bitter” Management Style Just Doesn’t Work in Africa
Forget debt traps, Huawei ‘back-doors' and vaccine diplomacy. They might be the disputes that define our current polarized moment. But I’m willing to bet they won’t have the staying power of the one – the original – dispute that has haunted Chinese engagement with Africa since the ...
OPay Seeks to Raise $400 Million For Expansion Signaling Chinese VCs May Be Ready to Return to Africa
The Chinese-backed African fintech platform OPay is reportedly in talks with investors to raise as much as $400 million at a valuation of more than $1.5 billion, according to a report in The Information. That valuation, by the way, is three times higher than the ...
This Picture Should Be Quite Worrying to Every Australian Politician
Colin Ding, president of the Chinese mining company Kingho Energy Group, paid a visit to the State House in Freetown on Tuesday to meet with President Julius Maada Bio about the company's new port and rail lease agreements that will be used to ramp up iron ...
Chinese vs. COVAX Vaccine Deliveries to Developing Countries
China has shipped three times as many COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries as the global COVAX alliance, according to the latest data. Chinese vaccine deliveries, as of this week, totalled 213.2 million doses, with almost 20 million sent to African countries,
JAMA’s Findings on Sinopharm’s Efficacy Will Allow Public Health Officials in the Global South to Sleep Better at Night
The prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association published results on Wednesday of new phase 3 clinical trials of Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine and confirmed that the jab's efficacy rate is between 72-78%. More importantly, the trials ...
Everyone, Not Just the Chinese, Are Playing the Game of Vaccine Diplomacy Says SOAS Prof Stephen Chan
Acclaimed China-Africa scholar and University of London professor Stephen Chan pushed back on the narrative that China alone is using vaccines to gain political advantage in its foreign policy. "To be fair, everyone's playing this game of vaccine diplomacy," he said on the latest episode of the ...
Popular American YouTuber Condenses China-Africa Relations Into a Slickly Produced 15 Minute Video
Popular current affairs YouTuber American YouTuber Johnny Harris (1.42 million subscribers) dedicated a recent episode of his show to exploring Chinese engagement in Africa. For those with a more sophisticated understanding of the topic, it will be easy ...
China’s Outgoing Ambassador to Somalia Says Goodbye With a Bit of Flair
China's ambassador to Somalia, Qin Jian, is transitioning from his post and stopped by Villa Somalia this week to say goodbye to President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo in style. It's not clear where Ambassador Qin's next assignment will be.
The U.S. Tries to Repackage What’s Effectively a Zoom Call Into Secretary Antony Blinken’s “Virtual Travel to Africa”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will "embark on his first virtual trip to Africa" on Tuesday as part of an effort to reach out with young people in Kenya and Nigeria. Even though the State Department ...
Quad Queries
I’ve wondered in the past whether ‘the Quad’ – the alliance among the United States, Japan, Australia and India dedicated as a counterweight to China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region – has taken on such prominence simply because the word is so fun to say. Quad quad ...
Why African Energy Exporters Should Be Concerned About CNOOC’s Interest in a Massive Qatari Gas Deal
One of China's three major oil and gas companies, CNOOC, is reportedly interested in joining the world's largest natural gas project in Qatar. The company's CFO Xie Weizhi said CNOOC is exploring the option to invest in the $29 ...
Egypt Approves Sinovac COVID-19 Vaccine for Emergency Use
Egypt's drug authority said on Monday it had granted approval to China's Sinovac coronavirus vaccine for emergency use. Egypt has so far approved and received shipments of the Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccines and has said it is preparing to produce up ...
The Stuff That Goes Into Making a Battery For Electric Vehicles is Getting a Lot More Expensive
Prices for the key commodities needed to produce electric vehicle batteries have been rallying all year on stronger demand for new energy vehicles. They spiked in recent days, following the U.S.-led summit on climate change that took place online last week. ...
Desperate to Source COVID Vaccines, Developing Countries Jostle to Buy Chinese Jabs
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa gave voice yesterday to the growing concern in developing countries about wealthy states hoarding COVID-19 vaccines. In his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, President Ramaphosa accused rich countries of acquiring as much as four times the ...
A New Piece of Equipment in Zambia Will “Help China Get Rid of Its Over-Reliance of Imported Australian Iron Ores”
An article in today's Global Times newspaper, one of China's more bombastic nationalist tabloids, provides a glimpse into how determined Chinese officials are to "decouple" their trade with Australia, especially in the hugely valuable iron sector. Sino-Australian relations deteriorated sharply in 2020 over disputes ...
Amid a Worsening Debt Crisis, Kenya Struggles to Finance New Infrastructure and All Those Useless “White Elephants”
The Kenyan government, like a lot of African governments, is struggling to find the right balance between continuing to pay for badly-needed new infrastructure while at the same time servicing its enormous debts for older projects -- many of which are now so-called "white elephants" that were ...
New Map of the Belt & Road Reveals a Much More Intricate Chinese Trading Network
A trio of scholars in China recently published an academic paper in the Journal of Contemporary China that included a much more detailed map of China's Belt & Road trade routes in Asia than previously available. One of the key takeaways from the ...
File image of an artisanal miner carrying raw ore at Tilwizembe, a former industrial copper-cobalt mine, outside of Kolwezi, the capital city of Lualaba Province in the south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. REUTERS/Kenny Katombe/File Photo
By Maxwell Akalaare Adombila and Ange Kasongo The U.S. has made progress in its push to prise Congo's strategic minerals from China's orbit, but conflict, contested licences and compliance demands are still slowing Washington's advance into a region its rival dominates, diplomats and ...
Week in Review: Doses, Detainees and Diplomacy
Interpol has canceled the red notice arrest warrant requested by China for Uyghur activist Yidiresi Aishan, who was detained in Morocco last month. The red notice flagging Aishan as a member of “terrorist” organizations, and issued at China’s request, led Moroccan authorities to detain the 33-year-old computer ...
China’s Tech Lead in Africa Highlights B3W’s Biggest Problem
When Joe Biden took over from Donald Trump, many predicted that Trump’s foreign policy would soon follow him out the door. A few months down the line, it’s become clear that they agreed more frequently than expected even if their styles are very different. One example is ...
New Trends in Chinese Energy & Development Finance
U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry will be in China next week to pressure the government to renounce all future financing of coal power plants around the world. Although China generally does not respond well to foreign demands like ...