Analysis
Diverse voices, unique insights on key issues shaping China’s engagement throughout the Global South.
analysis
Taiwan Eyes Fresh Diplomatic Ties With Honduras
By Allison Jackson and Amber Wang with Joan Suazo in Tegucigalpa Taiwanese seafood trader Jay Yen used to import 2,000 tonnes of shrimp a year from Honduras before the Central American country cut diplomatic ties with the democratic island in 2023. ...
analysis
Shaping Tomorrow: How China and Africa Are Negotiating a Shared Future
By Gaia Guatri Lagos—At 7:30 a.m., the light rail hums above the gridlock, gliding through the haze of exhaust and early heat. Built by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and financed through Chinese loans, the sleek blue carriages slice ...
Constructive Responses to Net Negative Transfers: What Next for China’s Financial Relationship With Low-Income Countries
By Rebecca Ray In the last few years, China’s net debt transfers (new disbursements minus repayments) to low-income countries have turned negative. This trend means that poor countries are now repaying China more each year for past years’ lending than they ...
An “Emotional Shift” in Israel? Rapprochement with Taipei during the Gaza War
By Amanda Chen On October 28, Taiwanese leader Lai Ching-te (賴清德) made headlines when he publicly referred to Israel as a “valuable model” for Taiwan’s defence. He delivered the remark during a dinner in Taiwan organised by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ...
A Senior Xi Adviser Visits Indonesia, Bringing Beijing’s Long Game Into Focus
One of China’s highest-ranking political figures, and among President Xi Jinping’s closest ideological advisers, visited Jakarta last week, in a move that underscored Beijing’s deepening interest in its relationship with Indonesia. Wang Huning, one of China’s most influential political ...
Wale, 29, from the African country of Benin, is a graduate student at Huzhou University, east China's Zhejiang province. (Photo by Yang xiaoxia / Imaginechina / Imaginechina via AFP)
When it comes to the China-Africa story, most people first think about infrastructure. Those who follow it more closely might think of diplomacy. But China-Africa relations is also a story about hundreds, maybe even thousands, of African students trained in China through scholarships and bilateral partnerships.
China-Africa and the Cost of Unused Talent
When it comes to the China-Africa story, most people first think about infrastructure. Those who follow it more closely might think of diplomacy. But China-Africa relations is also a story about hundreds, maybe even thousands, of African students trained in China through scholarships and bilateral partnerships.
China E-Mobility Weekly Digest: China Engineering Africa’s EV Future From Assembly Kits to Full Factories
This is a free preview of the upcoming Africa EVs Weekly Digest, part of the new CGSP Intelligence service. For many African countries to achieve some level of local manufacturing of electric vehicles (EVs), completely knocked down (CKD) and ...
What the U.S. Strategy Debate Gets Wrong About China
By Lukas Fiala Over the last week, all of us have pored over the latest U.S. National Security Strategy. As many have pointed out, one of the most striking developments is the shift towards recognising the Western Hemisphere as a primary ...
Myth and Misperception: Does Shared Communism Tie Vietnam to China?
In this edition of Myth and Misperception, I want to take a deep dive into one of the most contentious debates on Vietnam’s foreign policy: what role does ideology play in the country’s foreign policy? As a communist party-state, Vietnam officially adheres to Marxism-Leninism in every ...
China’s Digital Payment Push Gains Ground in Uzbekistan
Competition among Chinese companies in Central Asia is not limited to the electric vehicle sector or the renewable energy industry. It is equally intense in the field of digital payments, where tech giants Alipay and WeChat Pay together handle more than ninety percent of mobile transactions ...
How the U.S. Aims to Seize Control of Critical Congolese Minerals and Curb Chinese Expansion
By signing the strategic partnership agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United States achieved two key objectives in its critical minerals strategy: first, securing preferential access to copper, cobalt, zinc, gold, and other minerals considered strategic; and second, establishing a regulatory framework ...
Chile’s Election Puts China’s Lithium Ambitions to the Test
The Lithium Triangle is one of the most important geostrategic sectors in the Latin American landscape. Spanning through Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, the Lithium Triangle is home to between 60 to 75% of the earth’s known lithium reserves and is the centerpiece of the global energy ...
As China Cracks Down on Ivory, Japan’s Open Market Becomes a Backdoor for Traffickers
At his store in Tokyo's ritzy Ginza district, Hajime Sasaki displays a disparate array of wares, from chopsticks to Buddha statues -- including many made of ivory. International trade in elephant ivory is illegal, but Japan hosts one of the world's ...
China E-Mobility Weekly Digest: Kenya Builds EVs as China Floods Markets With Gasoline Vehicles
This is a free preview of the upcoming Africa EVs Weekly Digest, part of the new CGSP Intelligence service. Africa is emerging as a critical, increasingly complex space in global electric-vehicle strategy. No longer viewed solely as a source ...
Why China Is Watching Trump’s Venezuela Campaign Closely
By Tom Harper Donald Trump’s campaign against Venezuela escalated recently with the U.S. president announcing that the country’s airspace should be considered “closed.” This is a move that has preceded U.S. military interventions in the past, perhaps most notably in Iraq ...
To Build a Kenyan EV, an Engineer Turns to China… for Know-How, Not Cars
On the outskirts of Nairobi’s industrial zone, Engineer Tadesse Tessema, a soft-spoken power electronics graduate who built Ethiopia’s first car assembly plant nearly two decades ago, is once again trying to do something no one has done in East Africa: create a locally manufactured electric vehicle — ...
The Perception Problem: Why Central Asians Remain Skeptical of Chinese Investment
Over the past decade, China has poured billions into the Central Asian countries, financing infrastructure, renewable energy, agriculture, and digital technologies, while presenting itself as a reliable development partner. Central Asian governments, eager for investment and diversification, have embraced China as a strategic ally in trade and ...