Italy has announced its formal withdrawal from the Belt and Road Initiative after joining the China-centered infrastructure and investment project in 2019.
The timing of the announcement that Rome won’t renew its BRI commitment is notable. It came only a day before the EU-China summit, which kicks off on Thursday. The summit will likely be more contentious than usual, with European leaders expected to push China on the treatment of EU firms amid discussions ...
Day: February 2, 2022
Nigeria’s Transport Minister Just Said the Quiet Part Out Loud: China’s No Longer Funding Large-Scale Railways in Africa
Nigerian Transportation Minister and likely presidential candidate, Rotimi Amaechi, publicly acknowledged what's been widely known: that China is no longer in the business of financing massive, multi-billion railway projects in Nigeria. “We are stuck with lots of our projects because we ...
Influential U.S. Group Calls on China and Other Creditors to Be More Transparent About Emerging Market Debt
An influential group of scholars and finance leaders in the U.S. appealed for a new "global consensus" on debt transparency in developing countries and described China's involvement as "critical." The Bretton Woods Committee said in a report ...
A Rare Long-form Discussion in the United States Media on China-Africa Relations
It's extremely rare in the United States for a national broadcast media outlet to feature a nuanced discussion on China-Africa relations. In most instances, as was the case last year on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah, the issue is often framed using outdated ...
“Fishermen Are Suffering, Families Are Starving” Due to Illegal Overfishing by Chinese Trawlers in Sierra Leone, Says Report
Illegal overfishing by Chinese trawlers in Ghana's coastal waters has been well documented, but now stakeholders in other West African countries including Sierra Leone are sounding the alarm. “The Chinese fleet has been taking the profits of the fisheries for 30 ...
Does the Flurry of Chinese Mideast Diplomacy Point to a Shift in Policy and a Tilt-Away From Africa?
The frenetic pace of Chinese diplomacy with Persian Gulf countries in 2022 is prompting widespread speculation that Beijing is placing a higher priority on its relations with Mideast countries, possibly at the expense of Africa. Contrasting views on this issue emerged ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Awkward Timing as Italy Withdraws from BRI
Fact-Checking a Claim That Nigeria Threw Away More Than a Million Doses of Chinese Vaccines
The investigative team at the Chinese news site The Paper.cn published a fact-checking report that debunked accounts circulating on Chinese-language Twitter that Nigeria had destroyed more than a million doses of Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines. Last December, Nigerian authorities did, in fact, ...
The Hidden Debt Problem Extends Far Beyond China
The global discussion of the growing debt crisis in some Global South countries has been frustratingly slanted around the assumption that Chinese lending is particularly opaque. This is not to say that Chinese lending isn’t opaque – it is. In fact, some Chinese loan contracts are so ...