Day: April 13, 2023
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The Strategy Behind Vietnam’s Decision to Back China’s “Common Destiny” Agenda
Xi Jinping's "Community of Common Destiny" is little more than a slogan for a lot of international observers but that thinking may be out of date now that China is using it as a core organizing principle of its foreign policy. ...
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Vietnam’s Bamboo Diplomacy on Display… Literally
Visiting General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping took a break from his talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyễn Phú Trọng for a sip of white tea at the CPV's headquarters in Hanoi on Tuesday. The decorative trees in ...
The Chinese First Lady’s Complicated History With Vietnam
China's First Lady Peng Liyuan met with Ngô Thị Mận, wife of Vietnam's Communist Party General-Secretary, on the first day of her visit to Hanoi on Tuesday in what looked to be a perfectly amicable setting. And that's exactly the way Chinese ...
China and Vietnam Agree to Landmark Upgrade in Ties; Sign Dozens of Deals on Everything From Railways to Data
Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a two-day visit to Hanoi on Wednesday after meeting with key Vietnamese leaders, including Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính and National Assembly head Vương Đình Hu. Xi returns to Beijing with a long-sought upgrade in diplomatic ties ...
Indian and Japanese Maritime Forces Make Port Calls to Philippines as China Tensions Grow
The Philippines appears to be taking inspiration from Vietnam’s multi-alignment strategy in its escalating confrontation with China over disputed territory in the South China Sea. This week, the Philippines Navy welcomed ports of call from both the Indian and Japanese maritime forces. ...
Argentina’s ‘China-Bashing’ New President Reaches Out to Xi Jinping for Help: Report
After bashing China during his presidential campaign and vowing to downgrade ties, Argentina’s new leader, Javier Milei, is reportedly reaching out personally to Chinese President Xi Jinping to request continued financial support as Argentina’s economic crisis worsens. Leading conservative newspaper ...
Ethiopian Bonds Spike As It Awaits Official Default
Ethiopia’s bond price jumped to their highest level since January on the news that the government will not make a $33 million interest payment due on 11 December. Ethiopia has a 14-day grace period to come up with the money, after which
Huawei is Going to Save Christmas in South Africa!
Chinese telecom giant Huawei wants to save South Africa from celebrating the Christmas holiday in the dark. The company's end of year marketing push in South Africa is focused on promoting its $3,400 Power-M battery back-up systems that can offset the ...
China Deploys Water Cannon in Latest Spat With Philippines in South China Sea
China-Philippines tensions in the South China Sea have risen yet again, with the China Coast Guard deploying a water cannon against a Filipino vessel en route to supply an outpost in the disputed waters. The escalation further positions the region as ...
U.S. Navy Plane Returns to Skies as China-Philippines Face Off in South China Sea
A U.S. Navy plane circled the skies during the latest China-Philippines confrontation in the South China Sea, underscoring the seriousness of the situation and the amount of multinational military hardware in the region. The U.S. Navy has previously deployed a P-8 Poseidon, ...
Philippine President to Meet With U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Amid APEC Summit
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the president of the Philippines, will reportedly make a stop-off in Hawaii to visit the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command on his way back from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco later this week. Marcos is scheduled to meet ...
Vietnamese and Chinese Officials Talk Territorial, Border Issues
China said its vice foreign minister held direct and friendly talks with his Vietnamese counterpart in Hanoi that covered bilateral ties, land borders, and maritime issues. Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong and Vietnam's Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Minh Vu agreed that ...
“Enough is Enough” – China Takes a Stronger Stand on Israel Crisis
China is using its presidency of the UN Security Council to call for a ceasefire in Gaza amid spiraling civilian casualties. In remarks at a Security Council briefing about the crisis on Friday, Zhang Jun, Beijing’s Special Envoy to the U.N., said: “The world must speak out ...
China’s Imports of Iranian Oil Rise as U.S. Eyes Sanctions
China bought an average of 1.05 million barrels of Iranian oil per day for the first ten months of the year, as Iran’s output keeps growing. The data from the shipping tracker Vortexa shows that Chinese imports are the highest since 2018, when the U.S. imposed sanctions against Iran. ...
Chinese Stunt Fliers Hype Fighter Jets at Dubai Air Show
Seven Chinese-made J-10C fighter jets will take part in displays at the Dubai Airshow starting on Monday. They will be flown by the PLA Airforce’s Bayi Aerobatics team in-flight performances, including twenty different maneuvers. The exhibition is aimed at promoting the J-10C, a ...
Four Key Trends in Battery Metals
Amid heightened demand for green technology, prices for critical minerals should be going up, up, up, right? In reality, prices have proven volatile. Even as demand keeps rising, new supply sources are coming online, potentially driving down prices. In addition, geopolitical ...
Israeli Media Reaction to China’s Stance on the Israel-Hamas War
By Amanda Chen As the Israel Defense Forces’ Operation Iron Swords continues in the Gaza Strip, a month after Hamas’ surprise terror attack on southern Israel on October 7, this edition of the ChinaMed Observer delves into the Israeli media’s response ...
Why the Israel Crisis Has Implications for China in the Global South
The carnage in Israel and Gaza seems to signal an inflection point, not only because of its omnidirectional horror but also because it again demonstrates the centrality of Israel and its West Asian neighborhood in the U.S. political imagination, a reality that has implications for China’s global ...
Southeast Asia is Testing TikTok’s Limits
ByteDance’s TikTok is learning some very valuable lessons from the past few weeks: overconfidence is bad, and a new level of creativity might be in order if it wants to keep up with Southeast Asia’s policy quirks. Charm alone is not enough in this part of the ...
India Sanctions Chinese Steel Imports, Further Straining Already Frayed Ties
Already strained Sino-Indian ties suffered another setback this week after New Delhi imposed tariffs on some Chinese steel imports as part of an effort to crack down on what it claimed was predatory pricing. The new five-year duties are specifically targeted ...
Saudi Arabia to Boost Oil Sales to China Next Year
Saudi Arabia is preparing to increase oil shipments to China in 2024 to meet growing demand from a crop of new refineries that will come online next year, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights. While Russian sales are expected to remain strong ...
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Arrived in Beijing on a High-Speed Train
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro arrived in Beijing on Tuesday in a rather unusual manner for a visiting head of state. Rather than fly into Beijing's sprawling Capital Airport on the outskirts of the city, Maduro traveled aboard one of China's newest and ...
Zambian President Haikinde Hichilema Does the Rounds of Shenzhen’s Tech Giants
Zambian President Haikinde Hichilema devoted the third day of his week-long China tour to visiting some of the country's largest tech companies headquartered in the southern megacity of Shenzhen. The president visited the headquarters of internet giant Tencent, automaker BYD and ...
Forget About Everything Else, Hichilema’s in China to Resolve Zambia’s Still Unfinished Debt Restructuring Deal
Zambian President Haikinde Hichilema is spending much of this week visiting Chinese business hubs in Shenzhen and Shanghai, but the real focus of this trip will be dealt with later in Beijing, where he will tackle the sensitive issue of debt. ...
Two Weeks After the Coup, It’s Business as Usual For Gabon’s Chinese Community
Other than a 6 p.m. curfew every night, daily life for most of the 3,000 Chinese expatriates in Gabon hasn't changed much since the military overthrew the government of longtime dictator Ali Bongo on August 30. A media worker for the ...
New “Chinese Savior” Medical Drama Set in Africa Now Streaming
A new big-budget Chinese medical drama set in a fictitious African country was released this week on major Chinese streaming platforms, the latest installment in the burgeoning genre of "Chinese savior" narratives. "Welcome to Milele Village" is a series that focuses ...
Remember Those Exploitative African “Blessing Videos” on Chinese Social Media? They’re Back. This Time in the West.
It was once very easy for Chinese social media users to spend between $15 and $40 to get a bare-chested man, a scantily clad woman or even a child to do demeaning performances in short videos that were often highly exploitative.
South China Sea Ruling Anniversary Adds Pressure to ASEAN Gatherings
Protests in Manila this week marked the seventh anniversary of a Permanent Court of Arbitration tribunal’s finding in favor of a Philippine claim over a stretch of the South China Sea also claimed by China. This comes as a week of ...
NATO Communique Dials Up Tensions
Chinese state media is responding strongly to a NATO communique released this week that characterizes China as a threat to the bloc’s interests. The communique, released during a two-day NATO summit in Lithuania, said: “The ...
The Solomon Islands’ Beijing Embassy Opens Amid Western Concern About Stronger China Ties
The Solomon Islands officially opened its new embassy in Beijing this week, following the upgrading of their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership. These stronger ties include an agreement on police cooperation. This follows riots in the capital Honiara in 2021, partly ...
Is Ethiopia Planning a Joint Policing Center with China?
On Tuesday, the Chinese embassy to Ethiopia put out a press release outlining a meeting between Chen Zhiyuan, China’s Vice Minister of Public Security and the Ethiopian Federal Police Chief Commissioner General Demelash Gebre-Michael. The meeting was reportedly at the invitation of the Ethiopian government. ...
Chinese Expert Pours Cold Water on Ethiopia’s BRICS Dream
In June, Ethiopia joined about twenty other emerging economies in applying to join the BRICS group, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. As with South Africa’s late entry into the group, China’s support is a key determinant of ...
Graph of the Day: China’s Real Share of African Debt
Amid the news that Zambia has moved towards the official start of negotiations with its private creditors, it is worthwhile remembering that China's share of African debt is far outstripped by debt to private sector lenders in the U.S. and Europe and Western-led multilateral lenders. This is ...
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Arrives in Beijing
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, arrived in Beijing for a four-day visit that will see meetings with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang. The trip (Abbas’s first visit to Beijing since 2017) is being framed as an attempt to ...
Q&A: What is Mahmoud Abbas Trying to Achieve in Beijing?
We asked Jony Essa, The China-Global South Project’s Mideast editor, to unpack the significance of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s visit to China: What message is this visit sending? Abbas is sending a message to the ...
China Plans Supply Chain Expo As ‘Derisking’ Scambles Firms’ Investment, Manufacturing Plans
China will hold a supply chain-focused expo in November, aimed at protecting its unique status as the world’s workshop. The China International Supply Chain Expo will feature more than 300 international exhibitors, including companies from the United States. The five-day event
Press Expulsions Leave India and China In the Dark
The last Indian journalist left in China has been expelled. The two powers have been kicking out each other’s reporters on a tit-for-tat basis over the last few years. The sole remaining reporter (working for the Press Trust of India) was told to leave this month, bringing the ...
Brazil’s President Lula Kicks Off Official Visit in Shanghai
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrived in Shanghai on his way to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing later this week. His time in Shanghai will include attending the inauguration of former Brazilian president and Lula ally Dilma ...
First Signs of Progress on Debt at Spring Meetings, But Much Remains Unclear
There is cautious optimism at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meetings in Washington DC for progress on debt relief. Earlier this week, Reuters and other outlets reported that China could be willing to drop its demand that Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) like the World Bank ...
The Philippines Walks a Tricky Line Between the Superpowers
China has rejected a joint call by the Philippines and the United States to scale back its presence in the South China Sea. This follows Tuesday’s 2+2 talks between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Philippine Secretary of ...
The Risks and Rewards of China’s New Mideast Diplomacy
When China announced in March that it had brokered a landmark agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic ties, it took a lot of people by surprise. They just didn't see it coming. ...
Iran-Saudi Pact Marks China’s Debut as Great Power Diplomatic Player
Friday's news that China brokered the final stage of a diplomatic détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia triggered a torrent of analysis in major news publications around the world. From Asia to the Middle East to the United States, two consistent ...
DC’s Think Tanks Mobilize for Rapid Response to the China- Brokered Iran-Saudi Arabia Pact
Given that China and the Mideast are two of the three primary obsessions among U.S.-based national security think tanks (Russia being the third, of course), it shouldn't be a huge surprise that analysts reacted very fast with their assessment of Friday's rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. ...
Amid Breathless News Coverage of the Chinese-Brokered Iran-Saudi Arabia Pact, Some Analysts Urge a More Cautious Approach
While the bulk of the discussion in the news media and on Twitter about the resumption of diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia focused on the magnitude of the deal -- both in terms of the impact on Mideast politics and because of China's surprise role ...
Chinese Scholars Attribute Iran-Saudi Arabia Pact to Declining U.S. Influence in the Mideast and Beijing’s Personal Diplomacy
Chinese Mideast specialists were quicker than usual in weighing in on Friday's Persian Gulf deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Broadly speaking, most scholars attributed China's success in finalizing the agreement to President Xi Jinping's commitment to "personal diplomacy" since 2014 ...
Iran-Saudi Arabia Deal Sparks National Pride on Chinese Social Media Platforms
There wasn't a huge response on Chinese social media to the news that Beijing facilitated the restoration of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran given that it's a pretty esoteric topic for most people. Nonetheless, there was some discussion on ...
The U.S. Doesn’t Seem Sure of What to Make of the China-Brokered Deal
Publicly, the White House says it supports anything that "de-escalates tensions" in the Mideast. Privately, there's probably a lot more teeth-gnashing going on in the corridors of the National Security Council (NSC.) This is because the deal gives China a huge diplomatic win while also bolstering Washington's ...
U.S. Conservatives Blast Biden for Iran-Saudi Arabia Deal, Say It Highlights American Decline
Conservative U.S. lawmakers and the right-wing media reacted strongly to the news that China had brokered a restoration of diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia on Friday, blaming President Joe Biden for what they say is more evidence of the administration's failed foreign policy:
IMF Tells Sri Lanka to Gets Its Creditors in Line, Prompting Showdown With China
The Sri Lankan government suffered another setback in its ongoing effort to secure a $2.9 billion emergency financing package from the International Monetary Fund after the lender informed Colombo it would have to secure more assurances from its creditors, namely China, to provide debt relief. ...
Yellen Defends Bretton Woods Institutions Against Challenge From China, Accused Beijing of Acting as “Roadblock” in Zambia
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen forcefully defended the primacy of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in response to China's demand that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund also take losses on their loans to developing countries. Yellen called for sweeping reforms ...
Cambodia PM: If We Don’t Rely on China for Development Assistance, Then Who?
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen wrapped up a three-day visit to Beijing on Friday that included meetings with his counterpart Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping. The Cambodian leader went to Beijing with a big wish list that he's hoping China will fund, namely ...
Chinese Scholar on Why Railway Financing Makes Sense for Beijing, Despite Criticism
Chinese-financed railways in Asia and Africa have sparked enormous controversies over whether it was wise for countries like Kenya, Indonesia, Nigeria and Laos to put themselves in so much debt for infrastructure that will take decades to become profitable, if it ever does.
Q&A: Why is Benin on Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang’s African Tour Itinerary?
The newly appointed head of Chinese diplomacy, Qin Gang, has begun his first African tour which will take him to five countries. A visit that is part of the long tradition of Chinese diplomacy to reserve the first overseas tour to the African continent. ...
WEEK IN REVIEW: China Pushing for Free Trade Agreement With South America’s Mercosur Bloc
China is pushing for a free trade agreement with South America’s Mercosur bloc or any of its individual members (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.) The recent election in Brazil could be a game changer, with rumors that trade talks could be on the agenda of incoming President Lula ...
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 ...
Brazil’s President Lula Kicks Off Official Visit in Shanghai
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrived in Shanghai on his way to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing later this week. His time in Shanghai will include attending the inauguration of former Brazilian president and Lula ally Dilma ...
First Signs of Progress on Debt at Spring Meetings, But Much Remains Unclear
There is cautious optimism at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meetings in Washington DC for progress on debt relief. Earlier this week, Reuters and other outlets reported that China could be willing to drop its demand that Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) like the World Bank ...
The Philippines Walks a Tricky Line Between the Superpowers
China has rejected a joint call by the Philippines and the United States to scale back its presence in the South China Sea. This follows Tuesday’s 2+2 talks between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Philippine Secretary of ...
The Risks and Rewards of China’s New Mideast Diplomacy
When China announced in March that it had brokered a landmark agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic ties, it took a lot of people by surprise. They just didn't see it coming. ...