Day: February 7, 2023
Related Posts
Awkward Timing as Italy Withdraws from BRI
Italy has announced its formal withdrawal from the Belt and Road Initiative after joining the China-centered infrastructure and investment project in 2019. The timing of the announcement that Rome won't renew its BRI commitment is notable. It came only a day before the ...
Related Posts
Top U.S. and Chinese Diplomats Talk Israel-Hamar War, Bilateral Ties
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed ways to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza from spreading and agreed to build on recent progress in bilateral ties. “The top priority is to cease fire and to ...
G7 Virtual Meeting With Zelensky Turns Focus to Beijing and South China Sea
The G7 on Wednesday issued a clear warning against China’s military buildup in the South China Sea and stressed that member countries will divest and diversify from China when needed to keep their economies healthy. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle ...
China Hasn’t Used Economic Coercion Even As Philippines Ramped Up South China Sea Strategy: Analyst
Concerns that China might use economic coercion against the Philippines, particularly as Manila ramps up its strategy of showcasing Chinese “aggression” in the South China Sea, have not been borne out, a noted analyst on the issue said. The Philippines’ strategy ...
Vietnam’s Biggest Export Market U.S., Import Source China
The U.S. was Vietnam’s biggest export market in the first 11 months of 2023 at $88 billion, down 13% year-on-year. China was second at $56 billion. Meanwhile, China was Vietnam’s largest import market at $100 billion, followed by South Korea at ...
Wang Yi, China's Foreign Minister and S. Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs of India
In the space of 24 hours, between Sunday and Monday, the foreign ministers from both China and India laid out their respective governments’ positions on the escalating war in the Middle East. In Beijing, China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, was unsparing in his criticism of ...
Debunking Propaganda in the Debate Over “Western Private Creditor” Debt in Africa
In this short piece, I will use statistical data extracted from the World Bank's online database. The figures I will use here are for Africa as a whole, i.e. sub-Saharan Africa (the one most often referred to when talking about "African" debt) and North Africa. Figures are for the ...
China-IMF Spat Over Debt Relief Intensifies Following Fund Chief’s Call for Beijing to Change Its Ways
The war of words between China and Western-led multilateral institutions about developing country debt is escalating. China’s party-owned tabloid Global Times has reacted to a recent CBS 60 Minutes interview with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, in which she said: "China has to change its policies ...
China Confirms It Has a Balloon Floating Somewhere Over Latin America
China’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed Pentagon allegations that a second Chinese surveillance balloon is floating over Central and South America. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said the balloon is non-military and used for flight tests. She said it has limited self-steering capacity and was blown off course, entering South American airspace “by ...
China Updates 2022 Africa Trade Figures
Chinese customs authorities are slowly releasing new trade data for individual African countries following its January announcement that trade with the continent rose by 14.5% to $276.8 billion. Country data is similarly higher than in 2021. China's Trade with Key African Countries: ...
China’s High-Profile Envoy to the DR Congo to Leave This Week
Zhu Jing, China’s outgoing ambassador, is making the rounds of Kinshasa to say goodbye before leaving the country later this week. He is vacating his post as part of a routine rotation. Zhu was a prominent voice for China as the DRC became ...
Chinese Contractor Completes 105km Railway Upgrade in Namibia
China Gezhouba Group Corp (CGGC) finished a 107.5km upgrade of a rail line between the Namibian harbor Walvis Bay and the central logistics hub of Arandis on time, despite materials shortages and COVID-related delays. The upgrade doubles transport speeds on the line. The ...
African Ambassadors Tour Xinjiang to See “Happy Life of Local Residents”
China’s use of diplomatic junkets to justify its anti-Uyghur measures in Xinjiang to the Global South are ratcheting up again. Ambassadors and other senior diplomats from Senegal, Benin, Mali, Rwanda, Madagascar, Malawi, Uganda, Lesotho and Chad visited the region on Thursday. Judging by Global ...
How the U.S. Aims to Compete With China in Critical Resource Mining
U.S. officials are speaking out about the urgency to diversify supply chains for critical resources that are now largely dependent on China, particularly rare earths, cobalt, and lithium that are all essential ingredients in manufacturing electric vehicle batteries. ...