Day: November 24, 2021
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FOCAC PERSPECTIVES: Relieve the “Pressure Points” in China-Africa Ties By Expanding Trade and People-to-People Ties
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 you ...
Related Posts
Letter to the Editor: Contrary to Widespread Misperception, China Has Restructured Some of Its Commercial Loans in Africa
Hi Eric and Cobus, I’m writing to follow up on a statement about Chinese debt relief you made in a recent column: …the fact is that China has canceled some zero-interest loans that only ...
Finally, Some Good News For Kenya’s Embattled Standard Gauge Railway
While Kenya struggles to repay billions of dollars of loans to the China Exim Bank used to build the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the government is getting a badly-needed boost from higher cargo and passenger volumes. Kenya Railways this week reported ...
Chinese Mining Companies Move Forward With Two Huge Deals Worth More Than a Billion Dollars in Ghana, DRC
The economic turmoil brought on by the ongoing pandemic has done nothing to stem the appetite of Chinese mining companies looking to expand their presence in Africa. This week alone, Chinese mining giants Zijin and Chifeng Jilong both received approval this week to proceed with deals that total ...
China Ramps Up Criticism of Blinken’s New Africa Policy
China escalated its criticism of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Washington's new foreign policy approach towards Africa that downplays Beijing. Whereas the initial reaction to Blinken's three-nation tour emerged on Monday in two columns in the nationalist tabloid Global ...
Here’s a Headline You Don’t See Very Often, If Ever, On a U.S. Government-funded Media Channel
Normally the Voice of America's coverage of Chinese engagement in Africa focuses on the threat posed Huawei, Chinese "debt traps", or Pentagon assertions that Beijing wants to build new bases on the continent.
Huawei’s Training Session in Mozambique Highlights Three Important Trends
China's ambassador to Mozambique, Wang Hejun, personally handed out certificates of completion on Monday to dozens of local government officials who finished a technology training course led by tech giant Huawei. This particular program was unexceptional in that it's just one ...
FOCAC 8 Preview: The Trade Agenda
Trade issues are widely expected to top the agenda at next week's Forum on China-Africa Cooperation ministerial conference in Dakar. African countries will be looking for China to further widen its market to agricultural and processed raw materials and China is ...
Ethiopia, China and the Future of African Conflict
Ethiopia is giving us a glimpse of a set of dynamics that could come to shape African life in complicated ways. Last week, the Biden administration announced new sanctions aimed at reducing violence in the Tigray region, where conflict between the forces of President Abiy Ahmed and ...
Week in Review: Debt, Arrests and Market Expansion
Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema will head to Washington soon to meet with officials from the IMF and World Bank in an effort to secure a new financing package. The Zambian leader spoke at the UN this week and met with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in New York.While President ...
Is China Exporting Authoritarianism Around the World?
The Chinese and U.S. Presidents spoke on the same day this week at the United Nations General Assembly with each offering a different vision for the future. Joe Biden challenged critics who contend that democracy is in retreat while Xi Jinping ...
African Oil Exports to China Plunge in July
China's crude oil imports from Africa fell sharply last month with demand expected to remain flat through the third quarter. Overall, shipments from African exporting countries fell 5.1% from June and but plummeted 41.5% compared to the same time last year. ...
Ethiopia Moves to Restructure SOE Debt, No Word Though On China Loans
The Ethiopian Ministry of Finance (MOF) is bundling together the debts of six of its largest state-owned enterprises and will transfer the liability for these debts from the firms to the MOF itself. No mention, though, was made at
China Begins to Distribute More Vaccines Beyond MENA to Sub-Saharan African Countries
China shipped 1.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to African countries last week, with total deliveries across the continent now at 53.9 million, according to the latest Vaccine Tracker Report data from the Beijing-based health advisory firm Bridge Consulting.
WeChat Currency Scams Are Widespread Within the Chinese Expat Population in Africa
Last week we told you about how Chinese expatriates in Ghana were getting scammed by fraudsters posing as currency exchange dealers on WeChat. Now, victims of similar schemes from the Chinese diaspora in other African countries are gathering on various WeChat forums to share how ...
Ethiopia Seeks to Follow China’s Example By Creating Its Own Social Media Apps as Alternatives to Facebook and Twitter
China's nationalist model of cyber sovereignty received another endorsement in Africa on Monday when Ethiopian officials unveiled new ambitions to "replace" U.S.-made social media and communications apps with local versions that can be regulated and censored.
Nigeria-Based, Chinese-Backed Mobile Money Platform OPay Raises $400 Million From Softbank-Led Round
The Nigeria-based, Chinese-owned mobile payment platform OPay closed its latest funding round with $400 million of new investment in a deal that values the company at an impressive $2 billion. This latest fundraising round marks was led by Japanese ...
Global Leadership Stories
The United States’s hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan revealed the messy space where the discourse about international leadership meets leadership on the ground. Even as many are criticizing the role that various Western fantasies of nation-building/democratization/containment/management have played in the debacle, it’s still unclear what a Western reckoning ...
Climate Suffering and Its Complications
This week, the climate crisis became a lot more concrete. Heatwaves and fire across North America overlapped with massive floods in Germany and China. I say ‘concrete’ but of course climate change has been pretty concrete for millions of climate refugees across the Global South for a while ...
Nigerian House Representative Endorses Chinese-Style Social Media Regulation
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is getting support from his ruling party allies in the House of Representatives to further the crackdown on social media and introduce even stricter "Chinese-style" regulations. "In China, social media is being regulated and such a thing ...
Seychelles Doubles Down on Chinese Vaccines Amid Rising Infection Rates and Efficacy Concerns
A new batch of Sinopharm jabs landed in the Seychelles on Tuesday, highlighting the government's loyalty to the Chinese jab, even amid resurgent infection rates in the Indian Ocean island country. The Seychelles, more than almost any other country, took an early ...
The Powerful Symbolism of The Huawei-Built Data Center Deal in Senegal
U.S. and French media were surprisingly quiet about yesterday's inauguration of a new national data center that was built with Chinese financing and equipped by Huawei. The new facility, located in Diamniadio outside of the capital Dakar, marks an important milestone in Africa. This is the first time ...
New CSIS Report Examines Huawei’s Burgeoning Cloud Services Business in Emerging Markets
While so much of the attention about Huawei's role in emerging markets like Africa focuses on the company's 5G technology, the reality is that the Chinese telco equipment giant is now expanding far beyond hardware, to offer a number of new services that are becoming increasingly popular ...
Be Wary of All Those “Hyperbolic” Reports Warning of the Dangers of Chinese Technology
The fear that China is going to export digital authoritarianism and repression to Africa is way overblown and oversimplified in Western media reports and think tank analysis cautions Iginio Gagliardone, a media scholar at Wits University in Johannesburg and one of the world's foremost scholars ...
With One Eye on the U.S., Xi Jinping Pledges $3 Billion in New COVID Aid for Developing Countries
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a new $3 billion aid package to help developing countries in their battle against the health and economic impact of COVID. The President made the announcement on Friday at a virtual G20 Global Health Summit. ...
Egypt Poised to Begin Vaccine Manufacturing After First Batch of Raw Materials Arrived From China
Egyptian Health Minister Hala Zayed and Chinese ambassador Liao Liqiang were at Cairo's international airport on Friday to witness the arrival of 1,400 liters of vaccine components that will be used to produce 2 million doses of Sinovac vaccine before the end of June.
Ghanaian Lands Minister Assures Chinese Ambassador Rights of Chinese Nationals Arrested in Mining Crackdown Will be Respected
China's ambassador to Ghana, Lu Kun, went to the Lands and Natural Resources Ministry on Friday to express his concern directly to the minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor, about the fate of any Chinese nationals arrested in the ongoing military operation against illegal mining, a practice known ...
Why You Should be Wary of the U.S.-China Narrative in the Ethio Telecom Auction Story
For years, U.S. officials have been trying to persuade African governments to abandon their reliance on Chinese-made telecom networking equipment from the likes of Huawei and ZTE. Finally, this weekend, they got their first win. Well, kind of, ...
With Herd Immunity in Sight, U.S. Wants to Challenge China’s Vaccine Distribution Drive in the Global South
There's a newfound sense of optimism in Washington that the United States government is finally well-positioned to begin large-scale COVID-19 vaccine distribution to countries throughout the Global South and challenge Russian and Chinese dominance in the space. At a ...
The Politics of Chinese Vaccine Donations in Africa
The Chinese government insists that politics play no part in its rapidly expanding global vaccine distribution campaign. But when you look at the maps as to where Chinese vaccine sales and donations are heaviest, it just so happens to be in ...
Council on Foreign Relations Report: U.S. “Inaction” and “Withdrawal” Bolstered China’s BRI
A group of scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York published a critical report today that attributes U.S. "inaction" and "withdrawal" for creating a vacuum in the international arena that China filled with its Belt and Road Initiative. The authors detailed how ...
Momentum is Building For the IMF to Issue $650 Billion in New Capital Intended to Help Developing Countries
The International Monetary Fund may issue new Special Drawing Rights (SDR) that would provide $650 billion to its members, the bulk of which is intended to go to the world's poorest countries to help mitigate the impact of the ongoing economic downturn.
Uganda Government Refutes WSJ Report That President Yoweri Museveni Received Chinese COVID Vaccination Last Year
Ugandan Health Minister June Aceng responded to a recent Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday that alleged President Yoweri Museveni and his inner circle all received preferential access to Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccinations last year, when a shipment of 4,000 doses was brought into the country ...
Rwandan President Paul Kagame Channels the Growing Outrage in Africa Over Vaccine Hoarding by Wealthy Countries
There's a real disconnect in how people in the Global North and South are framing the vaccine inequity crisis. In the U.S., Europe, and Japan, the bulk of the news coverage on the issue focuses on the impact of Chinese and ...
Spokesman: International Financial Institutions and Foreign Creditors Have More Responsibility Than China to Alleviate Africa’s Debt Pressures
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China is not to blame for the burgeoning financial problems in Africa. " Not a single African country had debt difficulties due to its cooperation with China," he said in response to a question from Hunan Radio and ...
In Africa, Chinese Diplomats Actively Promote Their Side of the Xinjiang Story — Even in Muslim Majority Countries
While in the U.S. and Europe Xinjiang is a highly contentious issue, that's not the case in most of Africa, even in Muslim-majority countries like Chad, where Chinese public diplomacy is very active in projecting Beijing's narrative on the issue. SUGGESTED ...
Ian Taylor, Pioneering China-Africa Scholar, Dies at 52
Scholars around the world are mourning the untimely passing of acclaimed China-Africa researcher Ian Taylor. The University of St. Andrews professor was widely regarded as among the most thoughtful, provocative scholars in the field. In addition to his position at St. Andrews, Professor Taylor also held appointments ...
Change in Guangzhou’s African Diaspora Community
April 11th will mark the one-year anniversary of what's become known as "the Guangzhou Incident" when dozens, possibly hundreds of African residents in the southern Chinese city were evicted from their homes and hotels. Chinese officials denied that Black and African ...
A Taliban security personnel operating an anti-aircraft gun keeps watch for Pakistani airstrikes near the Torkham border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Nangarhar province on February 27, 2026 following overnight cross-border fighting between the two countries. Photo by AIMAL ZAHIR / AFP
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif declared "open war" against Afghanistan on Friday amid a surge of fighting between the two South Asian neighbors. Pakistan said it's retaliating against Afghanistan for a series of attacks, including a suicide bombing in early February that killed at least 36 people ...
FOCAC PERSPECTIVES: Relieve the “Pressure Points” in China-Africa Ties By Expanding Trade and People-to-People Ties
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 you ...
Letter to the Editor: Contrary to Widespread Misperception, China Has Restructured Some of Its Commercial Loans in Africa
Hi Eric and Cobus, I’m writing to follow up on a statement about Chinese debt relief you made in a recent column: …the fact is that China has canceled some zero-interest loans that only ...
Finally, Some Good News For Kenya’s Embattled Standard Gauge Railway
While Kenya struggles to repay billions of dollars of loans to the China Exim Bank used to build the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the government is getting a badly-needed boost from higher cargo and passenger volumes. Kenya Railways this week reported ...
Chinese Mining Companies Move Forward With Two Huge Deals Worth More Than a Billion Dollars in Ghana, DRC
The economic turmoil brought on by the ongoing pandemic has done nothing to stem the appetite of Chinese mining companies looking to expand their presence in Africa. This week alone, Chinese mining giants Zijin and Chifeng Jilong both received approval this week to proceed with deals that total ...
China Ramps Up Criticism of Blinken’s New Africa Policy
China escalated its criticism of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Washington's new foreign policy approach towards Africa that downplays Beijing. Whereas the initial reaction to Blinken's three-nation tour emerged on Monday in two columns in the nationalist tabloid Global ...
Here’s a Headline You Don’t See Very Often, If Ever, On a U.S. Government-funded Media Channel
Normally the Voice of America's coverage of Chinese engagement in Africa focuses on the threat posed Huawei, Chinese "debt traps", or Pentagon assertions that Beijing wants to build new bases on the continent.
Huawei’s Training Session in Mozambique Highlights Three Important Trends
China's ambassador to Mozambique, Wang Hejun, personally handed out certificates of completion on Monday to dozens of local government officials who finished a technology training course led by tech giant Huawei. This particular program was unexceptional in that it's just one ...
FOCAC 8 Preview: The Trade Agenda
Trade issues are widely expected to top the agenda at next week's Forum on China-Africa Cooperation ministerial conference in Dakar. African countries will be looking for China to further widen its market to agricultural and processed raw materials and China is ...