Day: August 9, 2022
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Arab Media Expresses Optimism Towards the China-Arab Summit
Arab media showed optimism toward the China Arab Summit which kicks off Friday in Saudi Arabia. Only a few hours before its kick-off, Arab media says the summit reflects the “strong position” that Arab countries hold within the new global system. ...
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Understanding Chinese Influence
By Lukas Fiala Xi Jinping’s current trip to Saudi Arabia has been accompanied by the usual framing of great power competition between the U.S. and China. The story in many of this week’s newspapers is one in which China increasingly ...
Worrisome Demographic Trends in China and Africa
Africa is home to the world's youngest and fastest-growing population, creating what proponents call a "demographic dividend." Conversely, China is rapidly becoming one of the world's oldest countries thanks in part to decades of draconian family planning policies that limited most ...
WEEK IN REVIEW: United States to Increase Its Military Force Presence in Northern Australia
The United States announced it will increase its military force presence in northern Australia in response to "China's dangerous and coercive actions" in the Asia-Pacific region. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday the Pentagon will step up troop rotations that will also include the deployment of added ...
More Evidence that the Africa-China Relationship is Increasingly Driven by Politics, Not Commodities
For centuries, many assumed that Africa's greatest contribution to the global economy was through selling stuff that comes out of the ground. That was certainly what drew the Chinese to Africa back in the early 2000s. Today that's no longer the case.
Chinese Oil Buying in Africa Plunges Amid Shift to Suppliers in Russia, Persian Gulf
Chinese oil imports from African countries dropped 22.6% year-on-year in the January-September period, highlighting a decade-long transition away from the continent to suppliers in Russia, the Persian Gulf and Brazil. The drop in 2022 further eroded Africa's total ...
Algeria is the Latest Developing Country to Get in Line to Join the BRICS Group
The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially submitted its application this week to become a new member of the BRICS club. Algeria now joins a growing list of developing countries, including Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, that all want to join the Chinese-initiated group. ...
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Said He’s “Not Aware” of Reports Xi Will Travel to Saudi Arabia Next Month
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian tried to tamp down mounting speculation that President Xi Jinping will travel to Saudi Arabia next month to attend a pair of summits. Zhao brushed aside a question on the issue from Reuters at the regular press briefing ...
Chinese State Media Tries to Put a Positive Spin on Trade Ties With Tanzania
The Communist Party-run tabloid Global Times is trying its very best to send a positive message about the state of China's trade with Tanzania. On Tuesday, the newspaper featured an interview with Chinese ambassador Chen Mingjian who touted the recent announcement to remove tariffs on ...
Just as in Nigeria, Kenyan Lawmakers Are Also Confused About What It Means to Waive “Sovereign Immunity” in Chinese Loan Contracts
Anger is mounting across Kenyan society over the terms of the loan agreements with the China Exim Bank for the multi-billion dollar Standard Gauge Railway that were released by the government on Sunday. Members of Parliament are sounding off in the ...
New Undersea Cable Will Link China to a Trio of Countries in Southeast Asia
Six telecom carriers from four countries in Asia signed an agreement to build a new regional undersea high bandwidth cable. The $300 million Asia Link Cable system will stretch 6,000 kilometers from southern China to the Philippines, Brunei and Singapore.
China-Global South and the Long Shadow of Empire
Writing is slow on my side today because as someone living in a former British colony, I can't tear myself away from Twitter reactions to the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Even as British Twitter is dominated by stiff-upper-lip memorials, Irish, ...
Week in Review: Illegal Mining in Ghana, U.S. Disillusionment in the DRC & #ChinaAfricaSpaceTalk
Aisha Huang, aka the "Galamsey Queen," surprised everyone when she was arrested again for illegal mining in Ghana. What does her arrest say about the government's efforts to combat illicit Chinese mining? Plus, a new report says the U.S. is "disillusioned" ...
WEEK IN REVIEW: Chinese President Xi Jinping Will Reportedly Travel to Two Central Asian States Later This Month to Mark His Formal Return to International Diplomacy
Chinese President Xi Jinping will reportedly travel to two Central Asian states later this month to mark his formal return to international diplomacy. The Foreign Ministry of Kazakhstan said on Monday that President Xi will first travel to Nur-Sultan before heading to neighboring Uzbekistan for a summit meeting of ...
New U.S. Strategy for Africa Raises Questions
Early headlines framed the United States’s new strategy towards Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of China and Russia, arguably because it’s difficult to get people in Washington and London to read anything about Africa without a New Cold War sweetener.
U.S. Unveils New Foreign Policy Strategy for Africa That Downplays China and Great Power Competition
The United States is embarking on a major shift in its foreign policy towards Africa by downplaying the need to confront China's influence on the continent. It will instead focus more attention on democracy and governance issues. The new approach was ...
Even Before Blinken Unveiled the New U.S. Strategy For Africa, China Didn’t Like It
Hours before Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the new U.S. strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa, China's nationalist tabloid newspaper began publishing stories that attacked the U.S. for "attempting to bring the continent back to the Cold War" and for "ruining Africa's development prospects."
Many Chinese Netizens Are Framing the Blinken Visit and the New U.S. Strategy in the Context of Great Power Competition
The Blinken visit to Africa and the unveiling of the new U.S. strategy for the continent were not widely covered by Chinese media on Monday but a few online commentators, some with sizable audiences, offered their opinions. Most echoed the prevailing ...
Blinken’s Comments on Taiwan Spark Furious Response From Chinese Embassy in South Africa
Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken triggered an uproar by the Chinese embassy in Pretoria over comments that he made about Taiwan in an interview with South African television news channel eNCA: WHAT BLINKEN SAID: "I think with regard to ...
Chinese Foreign Ministry Claps Back at Latest U.S. Debt Trap Accusation
The seemingly never-ending dispute over supposed Chinese debt traps in Africa flared anew on Monday when Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying launched a lengthy rebuttal to the latest accusation on the issue by a senior U.S. government official. Last week, prior ...
How U.S.–China Cooperation Can Strengthen Democracy
By Jake Werner Is it possible to find common ground between the United States and China on the fraught question of democracy? The answer at first appears to be no. But the prospects for democracy around the world may depend on ...
China, Cambodia Break Ground on Controversial Navy Base Renovation Project
Cambodian and Chinese officials dismissed international concerns about a new Chinese-financed upgrade of a navy base in the southern Preah Sihanouk province during a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday. Defense Minister Tea Banh and China's ambassador Wang Wentian both refuted reports published earlier this week by T
Chinese Media Uses Oft-Used Tactic to Dismiss U.S. Concerns Over PLA Port in Cambodia
The Chinese media reaction to the Washington Post report about the PLAN's purported desire to build a navy base in Cambodia closely adhered to an often-used template used to challenge unfavorable stories: Discredit the report.
China’s Rivals Consider Implications of Possible New PLAN Base in Cambodia
China's reported desire to build a navy facility in Cambodia is prompting careful scrutiny from analysts in rival nations, notably the United States and Taiwan. Ryan Ho Kilpatrick, a reporter at the Taiwan-government-funded media outlet TaiwanPlus, spoke with Michael Mazza, a defense ...
PLAN Base Story in Cambodia Fits Nicely With China Threat Narrative in U.S.
The Washington Post story is playing nicely in the United States, where suspicions about China's military ambitions are already quite pronounced. It's notable, however, that Senator Hagerty would consider the small base that the PLAN is purportedly building in Cambodia a ...
Wang Yi Wraps Up Central Asia Tour With Promises of Closer Economic and Security Ties
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is heading home after a four-day trip to Kazakhstan this week, where he sought to bolster trade and security ties with five Central Asian countries. The group, known as the China + Central Asia or C+C5, met ...
Biden Didn’t Say the Word “China” in His Summit of the Americas Speech But He Didn’t Have to Since Everyone Knew It Was on His Mind
U.S. President Joe Biden opened the three-day Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles with a new economic plan and a promise to re-engage countries in the Western Hemisphere... that is, friendly countries in the Western Hemisphere. The White House also unveiled the "Americas ...
Inflation, Supply Chain Woes Hit Chinese Supermarkets in Argentina
Supply chain disruptions and inflation are driving Chinese shopkeepers out of Argentina’s major cities to the countryside and even to neighboring countries. An Asian business association said rising rents and staff costs mean owners are increasingly considering moving to Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, or Paraguay. ...
Chinese-Built Nairobi Expressway to Open to Cars Next Week, But First It Was Runners’ Turn to Use the New Road
Thousands of Kenyans filled the new Chinese-financed and built Nairobi Expressway on Sunday when they ran/walked along the new road as part of the Nairobi City Marathon. President Uhuru Kenyatta was on hand to start the race and told everyone that ...
Huawei Quietly Becomes a Dominant Player in Africa’s Burgeoning Mobile Money Sector
Quietly and largely out-of-sight, Chinese telecom giant Huawei is becoming one of the most important actors in Africa's mobile payment business. Many people don't realize that the popular Kenyan mobile payment service M-Pesa runs on Huawei Mobile that each year processes tens of billions of dollars in transactions ...
Chinese Vaccines Shipments Around the World Plunge 97% Last Month and We Now Know Why
For much of last year, China was seemingly unstoppable in its drive to ship vaccines to developing countries around the world. Hundreds of millions of doses went to Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and then suddenly, beginning last fall, shipments came to a grinding halt. ...
Lockdown “Shout-Out” Videos Featuring Africans Raise Controversy
The ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns in cities like Shanghai are sparking a cottage industry of commissioned viral videos commenting on the crisis. Recently, videos of shirtless African men, dubbed Wolf Warriors, dancing or posing with messages in Mandarin have become trendy. While many Chinese consumers see ...
Flurry of Coverage on China’s Rise in the Global South Reveals Indian Anxieties
Few countries are as anxious about China’s rise than India. However, a recent flurry of coverage shows that in contrast to the United States, India’s focus falls squarely on the Global South. These articles also show how central the Indian press and think tank community have been ...
Ethiopia’s Ambassador to China Rebuffs Debt Trap Narratives
Ethiopia’s ambassador to China, Teshome Toga Chanaka pushed back against the idea that loans from China are plunging African countries into debt traps. He recently sat down for an interview with Wang Huiyao, the head of the Center for China and Globalization, a prominent foreign policy think ...
Human Rights in a New Geopolitical Order
China’s abstention from the UN vote to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, together with India and almost half of Africa, was a reminder that despite all the pro-Ukraine sentiment on Western social media, the global bulwark against Russia is pretty leaky. Rama Yade, the Senegalese-born former French ...
Nickel Trading Halted on the London Metals Exchange Following a Chinese Company’s $8 Billion Loss
Authorities at the London Metal Exchange took the unprecedented move to halt trading in nickel on Tuesday after prices for the metal doubled to $100,000 a ton. The sharp upsurge came in response to concerns over supply disruptions in Russia, one of the world's largest ...
The Tsingshan Nickel Crisis Couldn’t Have Come at Worse Time for Zimbabwe
News that Chinese steel and mining giant Tsingshan Holdings Group now faces a staggering $8 billion trading loss over short sales of nickel is no doubt prompting considerable anxiety among policymakers in Zimbabwe. Just this week, Tsingshan's local subsidiary in Zimbabwe, ...
Nigeria’s Transport Minister Once Friendly Ties With Chinese Contractors Appears to Sour
Nigerian Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with officials from the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC.) The meeting is widely expected to be contentious, because of the slow pace of work on the 203 kilometer Kaduna to Kano railway.
What Did Chinese Community Leaders in Africa Think of the Two Sessions Meeting in Beijing?
Since last Friday, Chinese news has carried wall-to-wall coverage of the Two Sessions "parliamentary pageant" in Beijing. Not surprisingly, it's been followed by Chinese expats across Africa. The Two Sessions meetings provide a rare glimpse into the ...
The Ukraine Crisis Raises Questions for the Global South About China’s Foreign Policy
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unmasked serious contradictions in China’s foreign policy. In theory it would have triggered China’s staunch opposition to foreign interference in sovereign states. In reality, the non-intervention principle coexists awkwardly with Beijing’s aversion to Western-led blocs like ...
You’ve Heard of the Brady Plan, But What About the “Shanghai Plan” to Restructure Developing World Debt?
This week's revelation from the AfDB that Africa's total public debt now stands at $546 billion, more than all of the revenue collected in 2021 by governments across the continent, is the latest indication that the debt issue is blooming into a full-blown crisis ...
China Risks Repeating Debt Restructuring Mistakes of the Past Say Research Trio “HRT”
Chinese creditors' obsession with secrecy and their outright refusal to cancel debts held by low-income countries will undermine the chances of success of any major sovereign debt restructuring initiative, argue World Bank economists Sebastian Horn and Carmen Reinhart along with University of Kiel economist Christoph Trebesch.
Almost 2/3 of Africa’s Exports to China Last Year Came From Just Three Countries
The highly distorted nature of China-Africa trade in 2021 was the subject of a series of compelling charts and infographics published on Tuesday by the online financial news site Quartz. African exports, in particular, stood out. Only three ...
With An Eye on China, EU Chief Says Europe is Africa’s “Most Reliable Partner”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (photo) will arrive in Dakar on Wednesday for a quick trip before next week's Europe-Africa summit. One of the key highlights of her visit will be to unveil some of the first projects selected as part of the new Global Gateway ...
Somaliland FM Pitches “Huge” Oil and Gas Potential to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen
Somaliland Foreign Minister Esse Kayd on Wednesday began a five-day tour of Taiwan at the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, where he met with President Tsai Ing-wen. Kayd was especially keen to extol the potential for Taiwanese companies ...
Lithium Follows Cobalt’s Lead With New Record Production Output
The surging demand for electric vehicles in China, the U.S., and Europe is powering new demand for lithium, a key ingredient used to make EV batteries. Global mined lithium production hit a record high in 2021 of 100,000 tonnes (excluding the ...
Meet Nigeria’s First Female Train Conductor (Who Also Happens to be Fluent in Mandarin)
The state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) that built the new Lagos-to-Ibadan standard gauge railway in Nigeria, published a cute corporate video recently that showcased the country's first female train conductor. Introduced only by her Chinese name Bai Yang, she ...
Ren Hanjun, a visiting professor at Peking University, posted a commentary on WeChat that was shared tens of thousands times entitled "Wars are easy to start, difficult to end."
The following is a transcript of a commentary posted on WeChat by Ren Hanjun, a visiting professor at a Peking University think tank who also posts video commentaries on international affairs on his WeChat channel 老任财富故事会 (Lao Ren’s Wealth Stories). This particular post about the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran went viral ...
New U.S. Strategy for Africa Raises Questions
Early headlines framed the United States’s new strategy towards Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of China and Russia, arguably because it’s difficult to get people in Washington and London to read anything about Africa without a New Cold War sweetener.
U.S. Unveils New Foreign Policy Strategy for Africa That Downplays China and Great Power Competition
The United States is embarking on a major shift in its foreign policy towards Africa by downplaying the need to confront China's influence on the continent. It will instead focus more attention on democracy and governance issues. The new approach was ...
Even Before Blinken Unveiled the New U.S. Strategy For Africa, China Didn’t Like It
Hours before Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the new U.S. strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa, China's nationalist tabloid newspaper began publishing stories that attacked the U.S. for "attempting to bring the continent back to the Cold War" and for "ruining Africa's development prospects."
Many Chinese Netizens Are Framing the Blinken Visit and the New U.S. Strategy in the Context of Great Power Competition
The Blinken visit to Africa and the unveiling of the new U.S. strategy for the continent were not widely covered by Chinese media on Monday but a few online commentators, some with sizable audiences, offered their opinions. Most echoed the prevailing ...
Blinken’s Comments on Taiwan Spark Furious Response From Chinese Embassy in South Africa
Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken triggered an uproar by the Chinese embassy in Pretoria over comments that he made about Taiwan in an interview with South African television news channel eNCA: WHAT BLINKEN SAID: "I think with regard to ...
Chinese Foreign Ministry Claps Back at Latest U.S. Debt Trap Accusation
The seemingly never-ending dispute over supposed Chinese debt traps in Africa flared anew on Monday when Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying launched a lengthy rebuttal to the latest accusation on the issue by a senior U.S. government official. Last week, prior ...
How U.S.–China Cooperation Can Strengthen Democracy
By Jake Werner Is it possible to find common ground between the United States and China on the fraught question of democracy? The answer at first appears to be no. But the prospects for democracy around the world may depend on ...