Félix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, left for a trip to Beijing last week amid sky-high expectations of both new deals and the significant reworking of current agreements widely seen in his country as favoring Chinese actors. None of this happened.
Instead, he returned with a fistful of non-binding MoUs to widespread dissatisfaction back home. Since then, DRC officials have worked overtime to try and spin the trip as a longer-term ...
Day: February 15, 2022
Fresh Indication Tshisekedi Wants to Get the DRC’s Ties With Chinese Mining Giants Back on Track
There's new evidence that the once combative relationship between DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi and the large Chinese cobalt mining companies that operate in his country is getting back on track. On Sunday, the President spoke by phone ...
China Moving Quickly to Diversify Sourcing of Strategic Minerals and Metals With New Deals Announced in Africa, Asia and LatAm
With demand for the minerals and metals used to power electric vehicles far outstripping supply, China's largest mining companies are moving quickly to diversify their sourcing strategic resources including cobalt, nickel, lithium and rare earths among others. There's been a lot ...
Europe and China: Tell Us You Distrust Each Other Without Actually Telling Us You Distrust Each Other
Not surprisingly, China isn't mentioned once in the program of official events for the ongoing "Africa-Europe Week" that kicked off on Monday and will culminate in the two-day leaders' summit in Brussels. But just because China isn't on the ...
It’s That Time Again For G20 Finance Ministers to Get Together To Discuss All of the World’s Problems, Except Debt Relief
Finance ministers and central bank heads from the world's twenty largest economies will meet on Thursday and Friday in the Indonesian capital Jakarta to talk about how to revive the global economy from the COVID-19-induced downturn in many developing countries. But if the past two G20 meetings ...
It Can Be Hard to Tell If Kenya Is Managing Its Debts Well or If It’s In Danger of Debt Distress… Or Both
Confusing, even contradictory messages have been coming out over the past week about Kenya's debt sustainability. On the one hand, the Treasury is reporting that debt servicing obligations have fallen by $634 million, including to the China Exim Bank, due to deferrals and repayments ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
DRC Government Tries to Reframe Underwhelming Beijing Visit
Kenyan Presidential Hopefuls Want to Sell Pot and Avocados to Repay Country’s Debts to China
It's not unusual for China to emerge as a contentious hot-button electoral issue during presidential campaigns in Africa but rarely as flamboyantly as in Kenya's increasingly colorful race. Two of the candidates, one a major party contender, the other, well, not ...
Egypt’s New Capital City is Literally Rising Out of the Sand
The Chinese construction company that's building Egypt's New Administrative Capital in a desert outside of Cairo regularly posts photos of the progress that's being made. The speed of construction is remarkable especially when you consider that there was literally nothing there but sand before construction ...
China is Transforming the Skyline of Ethiopia’s Capital Addis Ababa
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed inaugurated the new Chinese-built Commercial Bank of Ethiopia tower on Sunday that at just under 210 meters high is now the tallest building in East Africa. https://twitter.com/sharmarke580/status/1492951693407006724 ...
Phasing Down Coal in the Global South
By Rishikesh Ram Bhandary and Cecilia Han Springer Although Chinese President Xi Jinping announced last year that China will no longer build new coal-fired power plants overseas, the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center’s China’s Global Power (CGP) Database shows 60 coal ...