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Day: December 1, 2021

FOCAC 8 Concludes With China-Africa Relations Now Heading in a New Direction

Senegalese Foreign Minister Aïssata Tall Sall brought this week's Forum on China-Africa Cooperation ministerial conference to a close on Tuesday at a press briefing with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.  Sall conveyed what appears to be the consensus among attendees, both African ...

African Analysts and Scholars React to FOCAC 8 Outcomes

The Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, convened an online roundtable on Tuesday of senior-level analysts from across Africa to discuss the outcomes of this week's FOCAC conference in Senegal with a particular focus on the economic impact. ...

Did China’s FOCAC Financial Package Go Down? Stay the Same? Or Go Up? It’s Too Early to Tell

The main story from this year's FOCAC, at least according to Bloomberg and the Financial Times, is that "debt traps" and "debt concerns" prompted China to scale back the size of its financial assistance package. The ...

Surprise That China Did Not Commit More of Its IMF Special Drawing Rights Allocation to Africa

Chinese President Xi Jinping's pledge to reallocate $10 billion to African countries of its estimated $40 billion of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) that it received from the International Monetary Fund took some by surprise as being a bit, well, cheap.  "What ...

China is Going to Force Other Donor Countries to Up Their Game When It Comes to Vaccine Shipments to Africa

China's FOCAC pledge to donate 600 million COVID vaccines to African countries and to jointly produce an additional 400 million doses on the continent is going to put new pressure on other donors, namely from the U.S. and Europe, to change how they distribute vaccines in Africa. ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Q&A: Africa’s Role in China’s Global Military Expansion: Defense Expert Unpacks a Thorny Issue

The head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John Aquilino, on Tuesday added to the growing alarm in Washington DC defense circles about the global reach of China’s military. 

Speaking in front of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Aquilino said China is building capacity to seize Taiwan, and: “The PRC also seeks to establish a network of overseas military installations that would extend its reach, allowing support for an increasingly global People’s Liberation ...

One After Another, African Foreign Ministers Waited Their Turn to Meet Briefly with Wang Yi

Tuesday was an especially busy day for Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi who met briefly with at least half a dozen foreign ministers and other senior officials from across Africa on the sidelines of the FOCAC conference in Dakar. While the ...

In State of the Nation Address, Kenyatta Called For Kenya to Become the World’s Next “Asian Miracle”

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta delivered his eighth and final State of the Nation address on Tuesday and used the occasion to justify the massive expansion of the country's debt as part of his plan to accelerate economic growth, much the same way a small group of Asian ...

The Governor in the Heart of DR Congo’s Mining Belt Wants to Put Aside Differences With the Chinese Company Sicomines

Fyfy Masuka, the powerful interim governor of the DR Congo's cobalt-rich Lualaba province, wants to ease tensions with the Chinese-run mining company Sicomines. Masuka met with Senate Speaker Modeste Bahati Lukwebo and representatives from Sicomines in Kinshasa. The meeting was an effort to try and resolve some of ...

Congolese Superstar Cédric Bakambu Gets a Funny Farewell From His Beijing Team

Congolese striker Cédric Bakambu bid farewell to his Beijing Guoan teammates and the Chinese Super League to play once again in Europe, most likely with Barcelona.  The 30-year old forward made a huge impact for Beijing, scoring 58 goals in 87 games ...

FOCAC’s Powerful Optics Present a Challenge to China’s Rivals

FOCAC is for me what the Winter Olympics is for a curling fan – the one moment every few years when the world briefly shares one’s obsession. So it was interesting (and revealing) how relatively muted the coverage of the triennial meeting has been this time around. ...