Month: April 2022

The Government of Angola will set up a police station to serve the Chinatown district of its capital Luanda, announced José Bamoquina Zuwu, Angola’s Interior Minister. He made the announcement during a rare visit to the Chinese neighborhood. The move follows increasing attacks against Chinese residents in ...

The Sudanese army is going to learn to speak Chinese! Well, at least a small contingent will. This follows the opening of the country’s first Confucius Institute at the University of Khartoum this week. The CI’s inaugural class will be made ...

China's ambassadors in Africa are normally very reclusive, especially on English-language social media platforms like Twitter. So, it was a bit surprising to see Fei Shangchao, China's envoy to Somalia, get into an all-out Twitter feud on Tuesday with anyone and everyone willing to throw a verbal punch ...

Shanghai’s COVID lockdown is resurrecting a troubling trend in Africa-China social media. Online agents accept orders to create tailor-made videos to inspire Shanghai residents to persevere through the pandemic-related restrictions. The problem is that these videos include Africans, dancing and holding up signs in Chinese.

By Daniel Bradlow and Magalie Masamba The COVID-19 pandemic has had a particularly profound adverse impact on Africa’s sovereign debt situation. Currently, 22 low-income African countries are either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress. This situation is likely to ...

Simultaneous disruptions to the largest ports in China and South Africa are threatening to upend one of the world's most important trade routes. The ongoing lockdowns in Shanghai as part of the city's battle against Omicron have led to a major slowdown ...

If 2021 was the year of so-called "vaccine diplomacy" in Africa where the world's major powers stingily distributed COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries while preaching to their geopolitical rivals, 2022 is going to be the year of "food diplomacy."  The worsening ...

Press coverage of Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington DC on Friday revealed how geopolitics are reshaping U.S.-Africa relations. While Tanzanian coverage of the meeting focused on investment pledges, Voice of America framed the visit in the context ...

The Chinese embassy in Nigeria came out forcefully against a report on an obscure news website that alleged China plans to support the candidacy of Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi in the country’s upcoming presidential election. The embassy tweeted an image of the article, branded ‘FAKE ...

The Chinese embassy in Nigeria has hurriedly expressed support for calls to clean up the Osun River, which feeds into the densely inhabited Lagos lagoon, following months of reporting that Chinese mining companies are partly responsible for polluting the waterway with heavy metals. ...

The Chinese embassy in Kampala announced that Beijing will provide Uganda with a $20 million aid grant intended to support social development initiatives. While this sum doesn't stand out compared to Western aid allocations, it is notable because these kinds of conventional aid ...

Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway is now arguably the most controversial Chinese project in Africa, due to runaway rumors that debt from the notoriously opaque agreement will lead to the seizure of the port of Mombasa by Chinese banks. This controversy prompted Professor Deborah ...