Day: September 16, 2021
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In a Potentially Troubling Development for Africa, Sinovac Did Not Perform Well in Early Test Against Omicron Variant
Researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) found that people inoculated with two doses of Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine did not produce sufficient detectable levels of antibodies needed to fend off the new highly-infectious Omicron variant.
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Sinovac’s Limited Distribution in Africa May End Up Being a Blessing if Omicron Spreads
Distribution of Sinovac's CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine remains relatively limited in Africa, according to data from Bridge Consulting's weekly vaccine tracker report. So, if the vaccine is not able to effectively counteract the Omicron variant, the overall impact will be limited.
Even Though More Countries Have Received Chinese Vaccines, Distribution Remains Highly Unequal
There does not appear to be any pattern to the inconsistent distribution of Chinese vaccines in Africa over the past 12 months. For much of the year, North African countries accounted for the bulk of deliveries, but that started to change as deliveries increased to southern African ...
Iranian Security Service Buys Advanced Video Surveillance Technology From China
One of China's largest video surveillance companies, Tiandy, is reportedly selling large quantities of sophisticated AI-enabled cameras with facial recognition technology to Iran's Revolutionary Guard and other Iranian security services, according to a report published earlier this month by surveillance research group IPVM.
China’s Communist Youth League Asks “Who’s Better For Africa? China or the U.S.?” (Guess Who They Picked?)
The Central Committee of China's influential Communist Youth League (CYL) published a rather comical (unintentionally of course) comparison between U.S. and Chinese engagement in Africa that made the case as to why China, not surprisingly, is the more optimal partner for the continent.
Positive Perceptions of China Hold Steady in Africa, Says New Polling Data
The overwhelming majority of residents in 34 African states believe that China's influence in their country is largely positive, according to the latest survey results from the independent, non-partisan public opinion research agency Afrobarometer. Two-thirds of respondents told ...
Two Prominent Africa Scholars in China Analyze Blinken’s First Trip as Secretary of State to the Continent
Africa-watchers in China are closely following U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's first trip to the continent as Secretary of State. Blinken arrived in Kenya on Monday and will also travel to Nigeria and Senegal before heading back to Washington at the end of the week.
“America Will Never Oust China From Africa by Blaming Africans, but by Improving Its Own Policy to Africa.”
Rama Yade, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council think tank dedicated her regular "Africa's Time Has Come" video post on Twitter to the subject of Chinese engagement in Africa and what she feels the U.S. needs to do to effectively compete on the continent. ...
FOCAC PERSPECTIVES: If China Wants to Improve Its Standing With African Publics, It Should Promote Transparency and Insist on the Publication of Loan Contracts
Every day leading up to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation conference on November 29th and 30th, CAP will feature perspectives from journalists, academics, activists, and business leaders about what they hope will emerge from the FOCAC event in Dakar. If ...
President Samia Suluhu Hassan Inaugurates Tanzania’s New Chinese-Financed/Built National Defense College
China's campaign to build critical government infrastructure in Africa (aka "Building Diplomacy") marked another accomplishment on Sunday when Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who also happens to be the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, commissioned the new National Defense College in Dar es Salaam.
Chinese Trucks, Buses, Cars, SUVs, Vans… Gas Powered, Electric Powered… You Name It, They’re Coming to Africa
Chinese automakers have set their sights on the Africa market and are moving fast to grab market share from legacy players in the combustion engine side of the business and to snag the first-mover advantage on the EV side as well. ...
Week in Review: Xi Opens COP15, Zambia Takes Action Against a Chinese Mine & SA Busts Chinese Abalone Ring
The UN's biodiversity convention, known as COP15, opened on Tuesday in the southern Chinese city of Kunming. President Xi Jinping delivered the keynote address and announced that China will commit $230 million to help developing countries protect endangered plant and animal wildlife. Even as China is currently bingeing ...
The EU Launches “Global Gateway” as the Latest Challenger to China’s Belt and Road Initiative
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a new initiative aimed squarely at challenging China's dominance in building infrastructure throughout the Global South. Von der Leyen unveiled the "Global Gateway" plan on Wednesday during her annual "State of the European Union" address before ...
More Details on How Germany’s Siemens Outbid Chinese Contractors to Win the Red-to-Med High-Speed Railway in Egypt
This week's news that the German company Siemens outbid Chinese and French contractors to build the new Egyptian high-speed railway that will go from Ain Sukhna on the Red Sea to the Mediterranean port city of Marsa Matruh took some by surprise, given how dominant Chinese ...
The Key Takeaway From Wang Yi’s Week-Long Asia Tour: It’s Not Easy Balancing Ties Between China and the U.S.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi wrapped up a week-long four-nation Asian tour on Wednesday in Seoul where he met with his Korean counterpart Chung Eui-yong. Wang also visited Vietnam, Cambodia, and Singapore on a trip that was expressly intended to bolster China's ties in a region that both ...
5 Lessons for China from the U.S. Failure in Afghanistan
Chinese foreign policy think tank scholars have been studying what led to the dramatic collapse of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, which culminated last month with the fall of the government and the hasty evacuation of tens of thousands of people. ...
Port Closures in China and Higher Yields in the U.S. Threaten to Batter Africa’s Fragile Economies
Many of Africa's already embattled economies are bracing for more pain as the rapidly spreading Delta variant provokes new disruptions to the global trading system and encourages bond investors to flee emerging markets for shelter in U.S. government debt. ...
With an Eye on His Legacy, Kenya’s President Pressures Chinese Contractors to Finish Road Projects Before He Leaves Office
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta is turning up the pressure on Chinese construction companies building three major infrastructure projects on the east coast to make sure they finish on schedule before the president leaves office and prior to next year's election.
China’s 500 Borehole Project Tapped Its Final Well in Zimbabwe
It took almost ten years to drill 500 boreholes in a China Aid-funded project to deliver badly-needed water to communities throughout Zimbabwe. The project drilled its final borehole in the southern Gwanda Township on Saturday marking the end of ...
Karen Bass Doesn’t Like What China’s Doing in Africa But Says Americans Aren’t in Much of a Position to Criticize
Chinese engagement in Africa is an increasingly popular topic in Washington these days amid heightened expectations that the Biden administration is going to make the continent more of a U.S. foreign policy priority. On the legislative side, one of the key players pushing the White House to ...
China Slams Vaccine Competition With West and Then Turns Around to Tell Everyone How It’s Outdoing the West
When China largely had the global vaccine market to itself, Beijing often rejected the idea that there is a competition over the distribution of COVID-19 jabs to developing countries. But now that the U.S. is ramping up its vaccine deliveries around the world, that message ...
Zambia’s New President Has a Unique Opportunity To Reset Ties With China
Hakainde Hichilema's decisive election victory to become the eighth president of Zambia in the post-colonial era is a gust of good news that Africa and the world at large badly needed. His win is an endorsement of democracy in a region where we've seen so many other ...
The Story of One Man’s Journey From Hunan Province to Driving Trucks in the Republic of Congo
Even though hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals now live in countries across Africa, very little is known about the personal stories of these individuals who've often taken significant risks to set up new lives far from home. From time to time, though, profiles of these migrants ...
Why Does China Want to Cooperate With Europe in Africa?
What’s in a phone call? Well, when it’s from China’s leader to the presidents of Germany and France then maybe it's something beyond idle chit-chat. And, when it comes on the heels of the G7 summit which Xi Jinping dismissed as international politics of the past, then ...
Q&A: Kenya’s Ambassador to China Reflects on the Current State of Ties With Beijing
China-Kenya relations are at a critical stage as the two countries face enormous challenges related to debt sustainability, a severe trade imbalance, and the public health crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, Kenya remains a strategically vital country for China as a key hub on ...
Week in Review: Minerals, Mayhem and Mediation
With most strategic mineral exports from the Democratic Republic of the Congo shipped to China through the port of Durban in South Africa, the recent closure of the N3 highway that connects the port to Johannesburg presents a potentially costly disruption to vital supply chains. Authorities were forced ...
China’s Vaccine Deliveries to Africa Slow to a Trickle While Shipments to Asia Soar
Chinese vaccine deliveries to Africa over the past week increased by just 500,000 doses compared to the previous week, according to the latest data from the Bridge Consulting Vaccine Tracker Report. While that's a sizable number of jabs given the paucity of vaccine shipments to ...
Alex Lo: Why China, Not the G7 is Setting the Global Agenda
Now that analysts and observers have had a few days to digest last weekend's announcements from the G7 summit in Cornwall, England, there's a growing sense that outcomes from the club of rich democracies did not rise to the challenges of the moment, specifically in their effort ...
Amid Rising Instability in a Growing Number of African Countries, the Question of Whether China Will Remain Engaged Looms
One of the original China in Africa memes that still endures today among many people on the continent is that the "Chinese want to colonize Africa" and want to "invade" the continent using a mix of debt traps, trade dependency, and immigration.
It’s Dumpling Time! Chinese Peacekeepers in the DRC Celebrate the Annual Dragon Boat Festival
Monday was the annual Dragon Boat Festival holiday in China when it's customary to eat sticky rice dumplings known as Zongzi 粽子. And even though they were far from home, a group of Chinese soldiers deployed as part of ...
Chinese Entertainment is Finding New Audiences in Africa
Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee kung fu movies have long been popular in Africa. Now, however, Chinese entertainment content is expanding beyond martial arts to include sports and even soap operas. Chinese television dramas are ...
Can Ugandan Coffee Be the Next “Coffee Success” Story in China?
Like many Ugandans, coffee has always been a huge part of my life. My earliest memories are of helping my parents tend their small coffee garden in the rural village of Kishabya, Sheema district in south-western Uganda. Hilly with rich fertile soils and a tropical rainy season, ...
How Chinese Business Practices Are Disrupting the Kenyan Fishing Industry
Chinese seafood buyers are reportedly cutting out Kenyan middlemen and working directly with local fishermen for lobsters and other fish products, according to a report in the East African newspaper. Fishermen, for their part, aren't complaining. They're getting to work directly ...
The Tesla-fication of Vaccines
175 former heads of state, Nobel Prize winners and other illustrious eminences added their support to the call for the U.S. government to mandate a relaxing of intellectual property laws to allow countries in the Global South to mass-produce vaccines without fear of being sued. One of ...
Kenya’s Treasury Chief Refutes Media Reports that the Port of Mombasa is at Risk of Forfeiture to China
Kenya's Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani denied, again, on Monday that the Port of Mombasa could be handed over to China in the event that Kenya Railways is unable to repay its SGR debt. Yattani responded to a front-page story in The Star ...
The Star Editorial Board: SGR Needs to Go Regional to Repay Its Chinese Creditors
Kenya needs to invest even more money into the embattled SGR if the railway has any chance of becoming financially self-sufficient to the point where it can repay its Chinese creditors, according to an editorial in today's The Star newspaper. For ...
MP: Rampant Corruption, Poor Planning and “Pooh Pooh” Leadership to Blame for SGR’s Woes (Not China)
Kenyan Member of Parliament for Kitutu Chache, Richard Onyonka, gave a very entertaining assessment of why the Standard Gauge Railway is facing so many difficulties which all, more or else in his view, relate to poor leadership and governance.
With Chinese Engineers Back on Site, Zimbabwe’s New International Airport is Almost Half Done
Construction of the new international terminal at Harare's main airport is now 46% complete according to Zimbabwean officials who credit the return of Chinese engineers for the recent progress. Chinese staff on the project had been unable to get back into ...
While Everyone Focuses on Vaccine Distribution, China Appears to Be Ramping Up Donations of Medical Supplies Again
Chinese donations of PPE and other COVID-19-related medical supplies to African governments appear to be picking up again. In recent months China shifted its focus away from shipping masks, ventilators, and other materials to focus instead on the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
A Chartered Air Zimbabwe Jet Took Off From China to Harare With a “Full Tummy” of Vaccines
344,000 doses of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines landed in Harare this morning on a charter flight from China. This latest shipment is part of 1.2 million doses purchase made by the Zimbabwean government. In addition to the vaccines, various supplies including syringes ...
Two Events in China and the DR Congo Illustrate Why the Race for Cobalt Supplies is So Important
Soaring demand for electric cars and trucks is sparking a buying frenzy for the critical ingredients used to make the batteries in those vehicles, namely cobalt. Prices for the metal are up 65% this year alone, the highest since 2018, at $53,000 a ton. ...
BlackLivity’s Láikàn (来看) Series Portrays a Nuanced, Complex View of Black Life in China
BlackLivity, the independent community-based media platform dedicated to showcasing Black life in China, launched a new video this week that highlights the site's compelling Láikàn series that provides first-person stories about the African diaspora experience in and about China.
Why the Debt Trap Narrative Won’t Die Soon (or Ever)
Recent reports of the debt trap’s death might have been exaggerated. Like a vampire that just won’t die, we keep burying it, but it keeps rising from the coffin. This week we saw reports that Kenyan politicians had to clarify again that the Mombasa port itself ...
China’s Domestic Vaccine Drive Falls Behind as Beijing Exports More Jabs Abroad
China appears to be prioritizing international distribution of COVID-19 vaccines ahead of inoculating its own people, according to new data compiled by the South China Morning Post. The Hong Kong-based newspaper estimates that as of Monday, China has ...
With Chinese-Made Jabs in Hand, Zimbabwe to Kick Off National Vaccination Drive
200,000 doses of donated Chinese COVID-19 vaccines landed at Robert Mugabe International Airport in Harare on Monday, providing a badly-needed boost for the Zimbabwean government in its battle against the rapidly spreading virus. Another 600,000 doses are expected ...
Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama Reflects on Ties With China: We Are Not “Blind and Gullible”
Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama is the latest senior African stakeholder to push back against the accusation that China is taking advantage of Africa in general and his country in particular. "It is not totally accurate to make it sound as if we go into these relationships ...
China’s Commerce Ministry Formally Congratulates Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on Her Appointment as New WTO Head
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Monday officially congratulated Nigerian-American Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on her appointment to become the next Director-General of the World Trade Organization. This was widely expected given that Beijing was among Okonjo-Iweala's more enthusiastic supporters, particularly ...
How Mauritius Fits Into China’s “Small State First” Global Trade Strategy
China is targeting small states like Mauritius, Iceland, and New Zealand to strike free trade agreement and other trade pacts rather than larger, more politically cumbersome regional deals with more powerful entities like the European Union, according to a new article by Lauren Johnston ...
Ren Hanjun, a visiting professor at Peking University, posted a commentary on WeChat that was shared tens of thousands times entitled "Wars are easy to start, difficult to end."
The following is a transcript of a commentary posted on WeChat by Ren Hanjun, a visiting professor at a Peking University think tank who also posts video commentaries on international affairs on his WeChat channel 老任财富故事会 (Lao Ren’s Wealth Stories). This particular post about the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran went viral ...
The EU Launches “Global Gateway” as the Latest Challenger to China’s Belt and Road Initiative
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a new initiative aimed squarely at challenging China's dominance in building infrastructure throughout the Global South. Von der Leyen unveiled the "Global Gateway" plan on Wednesday during her annual "State of the European Union" address before ...
More Details on How Germany’s Siemens Outbid Chinese Contractors to Win the Red-to-Med High-Speed Railway in Egypt
This week's news that the German company Siemens outbid Chinese and French contractors to build the new Egyptian high-speed railway that will go from Ain Sukhna on the Red Sea to the Mediterranean port city of Marsa Matruh took some by surprise, given how dominant Chinese ...
The Key Takeaway From Wang Yi’s Week-Long Asia Tour: It’s Not Easy Balancing Ties Between China and the U.S.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi wrapped up a week-long four-nation Asian tour on Wednesday in Seoul where he met with his Korean counterpart Chung Eui-yong. Wang also visited Vietnam, Cambodia, and Singapore on a trip that was expressly intended to bolster China's ties in a region that both ...
5 Lessons for China from the U.S. Failure in Afghanistan
Chinese foreign policy think tank scholars have been studying what led to the dramatic collapse of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, which culminated last month with the fall of the government and the hasty evacuation of tens of thousands of people. ...