Day: March 25, 2022
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A Glimmer of Hope in the Middle of a Dark Tunnel
By Lukas Fiala As someone working on international affairs in today’s world, it’s rare to end the week on an optimistic note. Yet, sometimes even the darkest of times offer a glimpse of hope. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s return to in-person ...
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U.S.-China Technology Competition in Africa
African telecom operators have resolutely opposed U.S. calls to stop using Chinese networking hardware. In fact, Huawei, ZTE, and other Chinese tech firms in recent years have significantly expanded their presence beyond networking to mobile money, data centers, and even new ...
WEEK IN REVIEW: Beijing Considering Hosting a Third Belt & Road Forum Next Year
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing is considering hosting a third Belt & Road forum next year, the first time a major BRI event would be convened in China since the beginning of the pandemic. The key question is whether China will relax its strict COVID travel restrictions ...
China’s Lending Will Be Demand-Driven: Ambassador
China will not promote loan-supported projects to the Global South but will be led by recipient country demand. This was one of the takeaways from a recent interview with China’s ambassador to Kenya, Zhou Pingjian. His comments included hints of China's emerging, more cautious ...
Does China Want Africa to “Choose Sides”? Maybe a Little Bit
China often assures African countries that they won’t be made to ‘choose sides’ in a new cold war. However, a recent op-ed by a prominent Africa-focused think tanker makes clear that Beijing increasingly sees the continent as a stage for geopolitical competition. Yao ...
Africa’s Cynical Democrats Face the Development Dilemma
The Biden administration frames its fight with China for influence in the Global South as a struggle between democracy and autocracy. Both sides argue that their systems boost development. The result is that Africa's development space is increasingly clogged with geopolitics. The prominent ...
New Data Provides a Snapshot of China’s Global Power Plants One Year After Xi’s No-Coal Announcement
By Cecilia Springer and Hua-Ke (Kate) Chi Ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference known as COP27, and one year on from Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s announcement that China would step up support for green and low-carbon energy and not ...
Exposed: The Asian Companies Ruining West Africa’s Forests
West and Central Africa house some of the world’s last remaining old-growth rainforests. Asian timber companies are now driving widespread irresponsible logging, leaving ruined ecosystems in their wake. However, simply blaming ‘China’ for this destruction is unrealistic. The environmental platform Mongabay recently published ...
The U.S.-China Battle For Ideas in the Global South
Both the United States and China have restructured their respective foreign policy establishments in recent years to be better poised to confront each other. In the just concluded 20th Party Congress in Beijing, Chinese President ...
IMF Visit Adds Pressure on China to Support Sri Lanka Debt Restructuring
A team from the International Monetary Fund is in Sri Lanka for the second time in three months to discuss debt restructuring amid calls for China to align itself with the country’s other creditors. Sri Lanka’s new President Ranil Wickremesinghe said: "We have ...
TICAD: Japan’s Quiet Challenge to China’s Development Role in Africa
27 and 28 August will see the eighth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) taking place in Tunisia. Japan’s TICAD predates China’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and set the template for the continent’s interaction with Asian economic superpowers. However, TICAD is ...
Unpacking China’s Quest for Digital “Discourse Power”
Perceptions in Beijing that Western powers are trying to constrain its influence is resulting in a concerted focus on building a China-led consensus across the Global South. Under the shorthand of ‘discourse power,’ this involves establishing China as an alternative to the United States in fields crucial ...
Indonesian President Widodo’s Meeting With Xi This Week Will be Chinese President’s First Since Pandemic Beginning
Indonesian President Joko Widodo arrived in Beijing on Monday for a two-day state visit to China, where he will hold a symbolically important meeting with President Xi Jinping. This week's talks will be the first in-person meeting between President Xi and ...
China Gambled When It Lent A Lot of Money to the World’s Poorest Countries. Now Those Bets Are in Real Trouble.
With a growing number of developing countries facing acute debt distress, many to Chinese creditors, Beijing may soon be forced to abandon its long-held policy of refusing to cancel concessional and commercial loans. Chinese creditors have been aggressively rescheduling billions of ...
One of Kenya’s Two Leading Presidential Candidates Says He’ll Publish All Chinese Contracts if Elected
Kenya's presidential front-runner William Ruto made it clear that if he wins next month's presidential election in Kenya he will publish the multi-billion dollar Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) loan contract with the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC). Speaking with the Reuters news ...
NYT Columnist Argues China’s Inexperience in Managing a Debt Crisis Poses Systemic Risk for the Global Economy
While rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in developing countries is major news around the world, it barely registers in the United States. So, it was notable on Friday when New York Times Columnist Peter Coy dedicated an entire opinion piece to the issue of Chinese debt. ...
While the U.S. Government Wants to Reduce Dependence on Chinese EV Battery Makers, Ford Motor Has Other Plans
The Ford Motor Company announced a number of important deals with major Chinese mining and battery manufacturers to bolster the supply chain of critical resources needed to power its new line-up of electric vehicles. NICKEL: The U.S. auto giant
How Did China Do in Its First Horn of Africa Peace Conference?
China's Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Xue Bing, wrapped up a two-day peace conference in Addis Ababa last week, Beijing's first-ever effort to mediate conflicts outside of Asia. Xue personally offered to serve as a broker to help resolve ...
Quad Announces Infrastructure, Shipping Initiatives as China Looms Large
The leaders of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia committed to funneling $50 billion in infrastructure to the Indo-Pacific region and will launch a real-time system to track ships. While China wasn’t mentioned by name, these measures are widely understood as attempts to counter its influence as an infrastructure ...
China’s Foreign Minister to Visit Seven Pacific Island States
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is embarking on a ten-day tour of Pacific Island states this week. Kicking off with the Solomon Islands, the tour will also take Wang to Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and East Timor. The trip will run from May 26 to ...
Once a Leading Player in Kenya’s Mobile Phone Market, Huawei Hopes Budget Phones Will Help It Make a Comeback
Huawei's moribund mobile phone business in Kenya is showing signs of life. The company was once among the dominant mobile phone brands in Africa, including Kenya, but that business all but stopped in 2019 when Huawei was sanctioned by the United States and blocked from using Google's Android mobile ...
China’s New Ambassador to Rwanda A Man of Mystery?
Wang Xuekun, China's new ambassador-designate has arrived in Rwanda. While most announcements of new Chinese diplomatic postings highlight the ambassador's track record in the region, the Foreign Ministry only listed his birth date and: "He holds a doctor’s degree in engineering and is ...
The China-Mediterranean Observer: Assessing the Impact of the Chinese Defense Minister’s Recent Visit to Iran
We start this issue of the ChinaMed Observer reporting on the visit to Iran made by the Chinese Minister of Defence, Wei Fenghe. During the visit on April 27th Wei met with several high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Seyed Ebrahim Raisi, Minister of Defense General Mohammad-Reza Gharayi ...
Prominent Chinese Scholar Says If IPEF Has Any Chance of Success, U.S. Will Have To Overcome Two Challenges Simultaneously
This week’s launch of the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) provoked considerable consternation in Beijing about Washington’s ongoing efforts to mobilize coalitions of regional states to challenge China’s dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. Not surprisingly, Chinese officials and state media both dismissed the new bloc as something ...
China to Join Zambian Creditor Committee Says IMF Head Georgieva
After months of inaction, there's word now of an important breakthrough in restructuring Zambia's ballooning $32 billion debt. China, widely perceived as the lone holdout, has finally agreed to join a multi-party creditors committee, according to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva during the group's Spring Meetings that took place last ...
China’s Decision to Join Zambian Creditor Committee is Well Received Albeit With Some Skepticism
There was a wide range of reactions to China's decision to become a member of a new Zambian creditors committee that will convene with the aim of restructuring the African country's $17 billion external debt. The initial response from some African ...
Xi Hints at Plans for New China-led Global Security Order
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a new global security initiative while rejecting the economic decoupling championed by the United States. Xi spoke Thursday at the Boao Forum for Asia, traditionally an occasion for the announcement of broad, new policy directions. The speech gave a glimpse ...
For the First Time in a Really Long Time, a Chinese Vaccine Shipment Arrived in Africa
China's newly-arrived ambassador to Zambia, Du Xiaohui, led a handover ceremony this weekend for a shipment of 600,000 COVID-19 vaccines. This is the first large-scale delivery of COVID jabs to Africa from China in a very long following a massive plunge in distributions late last year. ...
China Lockdowns Will Hit South Africa’s Economy, and Other Long Reads to Kick Off Your Week
COVID-19 lockdowns and the war in Ukraine will decrease China's appetite for South African exports, while slowing down crucial exports of Chinese products to South Africa, according to South African analysts. (BUSINESS LIVE) B3W: The U.S.-led Build ...
Rotimi Amaechi Opponents Double Down on China Smears
Opponents of Nigerian Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi’s presidential run are using paid media content to paint him as too close to China. This is the newest attempt to link Amaechi with China, after the Chinese embassy in Abuja hit back at similar rumors last week. ...
Nairobi Expressway Tolls Increase Before It’s Even Opened
Kenya’s new Chinese-built Nairobi Expressway is hiking its toll prices, even though it hasn’t opened yet. The government announced that motorists using the motorway will pay 350 Kenyan shillings ($3.03) more than previously announced, bringing the total toll to between 120 and 1,800 shillings ($1.04-$12.54), depending on the ...
Nairobi Expressway Will Be the Setting for This Year’s Nairobi City Marathon
Amid excitement and controversy, Kenya is celebrating the opening of its new Nairobi Expressway in the most Kenyan way possible: by running a marathon. It was recently announced that the new Chinese-built highway will be the scenic setting for this year’s Nairobi City ...
West Shouldn’t Complain About Global South Not Aligning on Russia When It Hasn’t Done the Legwork
CAP took its first wobbly step onto a newish media platform Twitter Spaces on Thursday evening. If you don’t know it, the experience is kind of like an audio-only Zoom call, except everyone on Twitter can join. The topic of the ...
New Trends in Chinese Overseas Development Finance
In less than six years, China's financing of overseas energy projects in the Global South plunged from $35 billion to zero, according to new data released this week from Boston University's Global Development Policy Center. BU's findings mirror a broader pullback ...
Calls Growing Louder in Kenya to Balance Lopsided Trade With China
All week, numbers have been trickling out of Kenya's National Bureau of Statistics that depict a dangerously lopsided economic relationship with China. The latest data show that last Kenyans $3.9 billion worth of products from China but exported just $131 million in return.
China Donates Surveillance System and Vehicles to Help Protect Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway
China's Ambassador to Kenya, Zhou Pingjiang, used a ceremonial outsized key to mark the opening of a new Chinese-financed security surveillance center for the Standard Gauge Railway. It was not specified what kind of surveillance technology and from what manufacturer was ...
Beyond the “New Cold War”: Russia, China, Ukraine, the Global South
By Lukas Fiala and Hugo Jones The world watches as a large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine unfolds, after a prolonged period of guesswork around Putin’s strategic intentions. Millions of Ukrainians fear for their lives and seek shelter from Russian airstrikes and artillery. ...
U.S., European Tech Competition With China in Africa
Challenging China's dominance in Africa's tech sector was one of the key takeaways from this month's Europe-Africa summit and a key component of the EU's Global Gateway infrastructure agenda. But it's not going to be easy given the enormous breadth of ...
The Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe Rallies to Defend Chinese Businesses in Worsening Stand-off With Civil Society Groups
The Chinese embassy in Harare stepped up on Monday to defend Chinese businesses, mostly in the mining sector, against accusations of environmental and social abuse made by a coalition of 27 civil society organizations (CSOs).
Report: Increased Chinese Economic Engagement in Africa Has Led to Enhanced Political Alignment
China is realizing significant political dividends from its steadily rising economic engagement in Africa over the past two decades, according to new findings by a trio of scholars in the United States. The researchers, Carla D. Jones, Hermann ...
A Flurry of China-Africa Webinars at Institutions Across the U.S.
Interest in China-Africa relations among scholars and institutions in the U.S. appears to be on the rise in 2022, at least as measured by the number of webinars on the topic over the past couple of weeks: THE HOOVER INSTITUTION ...
5,600kgs of Ethiopian Coffee Sells Out in Just 5 Seconds on Alibaba’s Livestream
When Ethiopian ambassador to China Teshome Toga agreed to join online influencer Li Jiaqi on a livestream on Alibaba's mega e-shopping platform T-mall to sell Ethiopian coffee, he no doubt imagined that he would have to do a bit of promotion to help jumpstart sales. ...
Xiao Long’s Unexciting But Very Interesting Vlog on Daily Life in Rural Rwanda
Xiao Long's (aka "Little Dragon") YouTube vlog isn't particularly exciting. He doesn't food blog, have a cute girlfriend that shoots his videos, or go on fancy adventures that fans love to watch. In fact, his monotone voice-over style is downright ...
The Big Chill
Over the last few years, we’ve seen increasing hand-wringing in Western capitals about how the money China is spending in the Global South translates into direct political influence. This week research was published that quantifies the issue. A new report ...
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 ...
West Shouldn’t Complain About Global South Not Aligning on Russia When It Hasn’t Done the Legwork
CAP took its first wobbly step onto a newish media platform Twitter Spaces on Thursday evening. If you don’t know it, the experience is kind of like an audio-only Zoom call, except everyone on Twitter can join. The topic of the ...
New Trends in Chinese Overseas Development Finance
In less than six years, China's financing of overseas energy projects in the Global South plunged from $35 billion to zero, according to new data released this week from Boston University's Global Development Policy Center. BU's findings mirror a broader pullback ...