Day: May 13, 2022
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With China on the Minds of Many in DC, U.S.-Africa Summit Gets Underway
Under mounting pressure to rival China's engagement in Africa, the White House wants to make it very clear that the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit that begins on Tuesday will be very different than what it's done in the past. Traditionally, the U.S. has ...
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China’s Party-run Media, Scholars Dismiss U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit
While U.S. officials have sought to downplay competition with China in Africa ahead of this week's leaders summit in Washington, D.C., Chinese scholars and Communist Party-run media, on the other hand, are eager to draw comparisons between how the two powers engage with the continent.
China Was a Key Theme at High Profile Africa Conference in Washington
China may not be a prominent topic of discussion at this week's U.S.-Africa summit but it was on Monday at a high-profile conference that featured a number of senior U.S. and Chinese officials. The event was organized by the seven-week-old media ...
“China-Africa Relations Are the Bedrock of China’s Foreign Policy,” Says Beijing Envoy
China's ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, was among the keynote speakers at Monday's Semafor Africa Summit in Washington, D.C. Although Qin has never been posted to Africa and doesn't have any firsthand experience with the issues, according to his official ...
U.S. Playing “Catch Up” to China in Africa, Says Senior Commerce Department Official
U.S. Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves said the quiet part out loud on Monday at the Semafor Africa Summit in Washington, D.C., when he acknowledged that American stakeholders had fallen far behind China in terms of economic engagement in Africa. Graves, ...
Poll: African Publics Rate U.S. Leadership Higher Than China’s But Not By Much
For the most part, African publics in 27 countries across the continent have similar views of U.S. and Chinese global leadership, according to data from the international polling agency Gallup. U.S. favorability is ahead of China's by just eight percent.
Congolese Cobalt May Become a Casualty of the New U.S. Climate Law
It appears that the Democratic Republic of Congo and other African countries that produce strategic resources used to manufacture electric vehicle batteries may be sidelined by the new U.S. climate law known as the Inflation Reduction Act or IRA. A key ...
Bad Takes: What the News Media Got Wrong About Xi’s Trip to Saudi Arabia
So much of the international news coverage of Xi Jinping's three-day visit last week to Saudi Arabia was framed in the context of the broader U.S.-China rivalry. The Saudis and other Arab states, according to the prevailing narrative, were pivoting away ...
“Blue-ing” the BRI for Coastal Ecosystems and Communities
By Rebecca Ray Over the last week, China has presided over the Council of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montreal. China has chaired COP15 since the COVID-19 pandemic prevented countries from convening ...
The New Cold War Raises Climate Fears
The U.S.-China relationship's long slide into enemy-ship has now been formalized: we're in a new cold war. This isn't news exactly, but the way the Biden administration made this division the main structuring principle of its new National Security Strategy is ...
Biden’s National Security Strategy Formalizes New Cold War
The Biden administration’s newly released National Security Strategy sketched a dark vision of the 2020s as a decade when “he terms of geopolitical competition between the major powers will be set.” The release of the strategy document was delayed due to the Ukraine invasion. It incorporates many ...
Xi’s Agenda Troubled by Miscalculations: Top Singapore Diplomat
As strategic competition between China and the United States intensifies, Beijing enters its momentous 20th Party Congress (kicking off on Sunday) saddled with three big foreign policy mistakes. So argues Singapore's former top diplomat, Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan, in an entertaining interview with ...
China Releases Climate Plan Focusing Heavily on Global South
China has released a new concept note on climate cooperation in the runup to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (known as COP27) taking place in Egypt in November. The document suggests areas of cooperation between China and international partners on ...
Morocco Buys Chinese Drones
Morocco bought an unspecified number of Chinese-made Wing Loong II drones. The remote-controlled planes have both reconnaissance and strike capability and are an upgrade of the earlier Wing Loong drone. Morocco already owns four of these older models and similar tech from Israel and Turkey.
Ethiopia Debuts New Chinese-Built Science Museum
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed inaugurated a new Chinese-built museum of science in Addis Ababa last week. He said the museum "offers both the young and old a place to inquire, explore, innovate and invent" and praised how it was "built in ...
Debt in Africa: Everyone’s Watching What China Does in Zambia
The United Nations Development Program issued a new report this week that once again sounded the alarm on the urgent need for debt relief in the world's poorest countries. The UNDP said 54 countries are at risk, with African countries accounting ...
China’s Write-Off of 23 African Loans Doesn’t Move the Debt Needle: Report
China’s announcement last month that it is canceling 23 interest-free loans (IFLs) to seventeen African countries covers at most about 1% of African debt to China, according to a new study by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. Last month's cancellation announcement drew much media attention, but ...
Confirmed: Xi Jinping Will Travel to Central Asia this Week
It’s finally been confirmed: Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first foreign visit since the beginning of the pandemic will be to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan this week. In addition to state visits, he’ll also attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand on 15 and ...
Deportation Lapses Revealed in Ghana’s Illegal Mining Scandal
New revelations about how En (Aisha) Huang, Ghana’s so-called Queen of Galamsey (illegal small-scale gold mining), managed to make her way back to the country despite being deported are adding political heat to an already red-hot controversy. A member of parliament, Samuel ...
Chinese Embassy Meets With DRC Ministries About Attacks
The Chinese embassy in the Democratic Republic of Congo convened a meeting this weekend with several Congolese government ministries, including the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Interior, as well as immigration officials and the General Administration of the Police, to discuss ongoing attacks against Chinese residents in ...
China-DRC Military Cooperation?
The Defense Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo met with high-level officials from the Chinese embassy, including the military attache, to discuss possible Chinese support for the development of the DRC’s military industry. This follows the release of ...
Chinese Car Brands Pulling Ahead in South Africa
Chinese car brands like Chery and Haval are outselling traditional favorites like Mercedes Benz and Ford in the South African market. Both brands sold more than a thousand cars in July, far beyond Western competitors. Read more on the News24 ...
Ten Years of the Belt and Road: Reflections and Recent Trends
By Min Ye In 2023, China will mark the tenth anniversary of its flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the billion-dollar push to fund roads, ports and other critical infrastructure around the world. Ahead of this anniversary, it is important to pause ...
First Zambia, Now Ethiopia: African Debt Restructuring Gains Momentum
The Franco-Chinese-led Creditors Committee overseeing debt restructuring for three African countries under the auspices of the G20's Common Framework will meet on Monday for the first time to discuss the situation in Ethiopia. The same committee has been meeting in Paris for ...
Chinese-Invested Portuguese Company Wins Crucial Logistics Concession in Angola
Portuguese construction major Mota-Engil outbid three Chinese state-owned companies, CITIC, Sinotrans, and CR20, to win a 30-year concession to operate the strategically important Lobito Corridor that connects the copper/cobalt belt in the southern DRC and northern Zambia with the port of Lobito in Angola. But ...
Will China Finally Accept Kenyan Avocadoes? Maybe!
Chinese agricultural inspectors have concluded an audit of Kenyan avocado crops and warehouses, raising hopes that exports to China can finally begin. The audit is only the latest hurdle facing farmers hoping to access the Chinese market. Earlier, they were temporarily ...
Iran to Become Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member by 2023
Iran will become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in April 2023, according to the Chinese state newspaper Global Times. Iran has lobbied to join the Eurasia-spanning group for more than a decade, and its acceptance is sure to further boost ...
For Some Weird Reason, CGTN Doesn’t Want to Say Huawei by Name in a Report About the Company in Kenya
For some reason, the Chinese state broadcaster CGTN went out of its way to avoid naming Huawei by name in a recent report about the company's role as the primary technology service provider for Safaricom's popular mobile payment service M-Pesa. This is odd, ...
China’s Top Diplomats for MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa Are Both Touring the Continent
A flurry of high-level Chinese diplomacy is underway in Africa in the run-up to next week's Horn of Africa conference that Beijing is co-hosting with the Ethiopian government. On Sunday, Wang Di, China's top diplomat for the Middle East and North ...
China’s Special Envoy For the Horn of Africa Makes Final Preparations Ahead of Next Week’s Peace Conference
China's Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa met last week with diplomatic representatives from the eight Horn of Africa countries to go over details ahead of next Monday's first-ever Chinese-sponsored HoA peace conference that it's co-hosting with the Ethiopian government. Per Chinese diplomatic protocol, ...
China Rates More Positively Among Young Africans than U.S.: Survey
A new survey shows that more young Africans see China as a positive influence in their lives than the United States. 76% of respondents rated China as a foreign power with a beneficial impact on their lives, while 72% said the same for the United States.
Transsion’s Nearly Two-Year Run of Uninterrupted Growth in Africa Comes to an End
Two years of the pandemic, supply chain disruptions and slowing economies in Africa finally caught up with Shenzhen-based African mobile phone giant Transsion. The company released its first-quarter results earlier this month that revealed drops in revenues (1.8%), profits (7.6%), and smartphone sales (7%) compared to the ...
Mobile Phone Giant Tecno Wants a Piece of Kenya’s Booming Mobile Money Market
Transsion's Tecno brand is expanding its new mobile money service to Kenya this week. “The wallet has pilot launched in Nigeria in May, and roll-out to Kenya in middle of June," the company said in a statement. A mobile payment option from ...
BBC Doc Tracks Origin of Racist “Shout-Out” Videos Featuring African Children
The BBC debuted a documentary investigating the origin of commissioned videos of African children being coached to recite messages in Chinese that have gone viral in China. These are frequently starkly racist and reveal the prevalence of anti-Black attitudes in China. The documentary was ...
Happy Birthday, B3W! We Have Some Questions.
Very few noticed, but June 12 saw an important milestone: the one-year anniversary of the announcement of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative. The plan drew on two kinds of connectivity. First, it was linked with Biden’s ...
Southward Bound
Over the last few months, you may have seen a few changes around these pages. While our focus has always been (and will always be) on Africa, you probably spotted the odd Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern, or Latin American story cropping up.
Lightning Round: U.S. Summits, Huawei and Chinese Mining in the DRC
In this Lightning Round edition of the show, CAP Managing Editor Cobus van Staden and CAP Francophone Editor Geraud Neema break down three of the week's big stories. First, Cobus explains why African leaders would ...
WEEK IN REVIEW: China will Serve as Co-Chair of Zambia’s New Creditor Committee
China, not South Africa or France, will serve as co-chair of Zambia's new creditor committee, said Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane. “It does make sense for our biggest creditor to play a leading part, to take a leading role in the proceedings,” Musokotwane told Bloomberg late last week. "They are ...
Sri Lanka’s Debt Nightmare Kicks Off Familiar Narratives Abroad
"We have lost the ability to repay foreign debt." This was the message from Sri Lanka’s newly appointed Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe to journalists on Tuesday. The announcement could signal a wave of defaults across the Global South and makes Sri Lanka the newest front in a war ...
China ‘Coming on Board’ Zambian Debt Talks: Treasury
Felix Nkulukusa, Zambia’s treasury secretary, confirmed discussions are now underway within the Chinese government about restructuring Zambian debt, as the African country grapples with the aftermath of its November 2020 default. This follows comments last week by Vicky Ford, the UK Minister for Africa, that ...
India-Africa Relations and the China Angle
India is becoming increasingly alarmed about China’s growing international influence, as frosty relations with Beijing persist despite recent Chinese overtures. This is especially true for Africa. India has long considered large swathes of the continent as a traditional sphere of influence. The Institute of Chinese ...
COVID Vaccine Distributions in Africa Were Once a Contested Issue Between the U.S. and China… But Not Anymore
As U.S. donations of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa surge, China’s supply to the continent is slumping. Analysis from the Beijing-based consultancy Bridge shows that over the last three months, China’s global provision of vaccines has been hovering close to zero. This is despite a ...
Equatorial Guinea Media Donation Highlights a Key Chinese Soft Power Strategy
China is making diplomatic inroads in Equatorial Guinea via an old tactic: donating broadcasting equipment. This comes as the West African country faces a lot of U.S. pressure due to fears that it might host China’s first Atlantic military base. Qi Mei, ...
Kenyan Presidential Hopeful Wants a “Green” Future with China
George Wajackoya, an outlier in Kenya's upcoming presidential race, is doubling down on his suggestion to pay off his country's towering infrastructure debt to China with marijuana. He urged Kenya to revolutionize its economic outlook by legalizing the cultivation of the plant: "Discovery of oil in ...
China, Africa, and a New Alternative International Order
There's an emerging consensus among many leading international relations scholars that Russia's invasion of Ukraine marked the official end of the post-Cold War era and the beginning of, well... actually... no one's actually sure what's coming next but whatever it is ...
Citing National Security, Kenya (Again) Refuses to Release SGR Contracts With China
Kenya's transportation minister Joseph Njoroge reaffirmed the government's longstanding refusal to make public the $3.9 billion contract with the state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to build the Standard Gauge Railway. Njoroge's cited a host of reasons for rejecting the ...
Global Times Isn’t Happy With the FT’s Report on Chinese Lending in Africa
This week's Financial Times story by Africa Editor David Pilling and Greater China Correspondent Kathrin Hille on the slowdown in Chinese infrastructure lending in Africa provoked a largely favorable response among international audiences but almost no reaction from Chinese stakeholders... until today.
African Governments Need to Prepare For a New Era of Chinese Lending That Will be Smaller and More Targeted, Says Analyst
The recent pullback in Chinese lending for African infrastructure development makes sense, given debt sustainability problems in more than a third of the countries across the continent, explained Damilola Akinbami, the Lagos-based head of research at Financial Derivatives Company in an interview on the ...
It’s Difficult to Overstate Just How Much the “Debt Trap” Accusation Irks Chinese Officials
Wu Peng, China's top diplomat for sub-Saharan Africa, on Wednesday posted a tweet that featured a week-old video of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari defending his decision to borrow from China. Wu didn't include any other reference in ...
Chinese, Nigerian Security Officials Meet to Discuss How to Better Protect Chinese Expats in the Country
High-level Chinese and Nigerian security officials met on Monday in Abuja to discuss how to reduce crime and violence against Chinese nationals residing in Nigeria. Yin Guohai from China's powerful Ministry of Public Security along with Ambassador Cui Jianchun held talks ...
Small-scale Miners in Northeastern DR Congo Protest Against Chinese Mining Companies’ Use of Heavy Machinery
Protests erupted this week in the far northeastern Congolese province of Haut-Uélé where small-scale miners rallied against the growing presence of Chinese mining companies in the region. The marchers, mostly young men, are upset about how Chinese mining companies are using large ...
Hunan Province Approves a Raft of New Measures Aimed at Boosting Trade With Africa
Provincial lawmakers in the southern Chinese province of Hunan approved a set of new measures this week that are designed to boost the province's already sizable trade with Africa. Members of the Standing Committee of the Thirteenth People's ...
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 ...
Southward Bound
Over the last few months, you may have seen a few changes around these pages. While our focus has always been (and will always be) on Africa, you probably spotted the odd Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern, or Latin American story cropping up.
Lightning Round: U.S. Summits, Huawei and Chinese Mining in the DRC
In this Lightning Round edition of the show, CAP Managing Editor Cobus van Staden and CAP Francophone Editor Geraud Neema break down three of the week's big stories. First, Cobus explains why African leaders would ...
WEEK IN REVIEW: China will Serve as Co-Chair of Zambia’s New Creditor Committee
China, not South Africa or France, will serve as co-chair of Zambia's new creditor committee, said Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane. “It does make sense for our biggest creditor to play a leading part, to take a leading role in the proceedings,” Musokotwane told Bloomberg late last week. "They are ...