Analysis
Diverse voices, unique insights on key issues shaping China’s engagement throughout the Global South.
analysis
It’s Time to Reflect on China’s Global Economic Role (Again)
By Lukas FIala Whenever the AidData team at William & Mary publishes one of their landmark reports, it’s time for us to sit down, read and think. And with the publication of their latest findings this week, they’ve given us a ...
analysis
Why the West Gets Vietnam Wrong: The Myth of Pro-U.S. and Pro-China Camps
Welcome to Myth and Misperception! It has never been more urgent to understand China’s relations with the Global South and how they impact the United States. Unfortunately, many observers in the West do not have a firm understanding of these relationships due to an absence of native ...
Chinese Mining Companies Need Deeper Dialogue With Overseas Communities
By Chen Yu Minerals like nickel, lithium, cobalt, and copper are foundational to the global clean-energy transition. Solar panels, wind turbines, EVs, and battery storage cannot be built without them. Yet extracting, processing, and transporting these “transition minerals” can be resource-intensive, ...
Xi Can Skip the G20 Without Losing Africa. For Trump, It’s Different.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's predictable decision not to attend this Saturday's G20 summit in Johannesburg is sparking quite a bit of chatter among journalists and other observers that Beijing is somehow dissing South Africa and downgrading the G20 as a whole. ...
China’s Tech Push Reshapes Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Fields, Bringing Big Gains and Bigger Risks
Claude Kaharo stands outside his traditional tobacco curing barn in Marondera, Mashonaland East, watching smoke billow from the thatched structure. Black scorch marks covering the circular hut are evidence of the countless wood-burning curing sessions he has managed over nearly a decade of farming. Now 56, the ...
Vietnam's Defense Minister Phan Van Giang (R) and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (L) shake hands during a welcoming ceremony at the Ministry of Defense headquarters in Hanoi on November 2, 2025. AFP
Welcome to Myth and Misperception! It has never been more urgent to understand China’s relations with the Global South and how they impact the United States. Unfortunately, many observers in the West do not have a firm understanding of these relationships due to an absence of native voices. This shortage has ...
The Trump Administration in Southeast Asia: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
By Derek Grossman U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Malaysia in October for the annual ASEAN summit, along with his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s engagements throughout the region, offers fresh evidence of how the administration is faring on its Southeast ...
China E-Mobility Weekly Digest: From Pixii to Yango: Africa’s Next Wave of Electric Vehicle Innovation
This is a free preview of the upcoming Africa EVs Weekly Digest, part of the new CGSP Intelligence service. Changes in electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing and trade dynamics worldwide are unlocking business innovation. African countries, which largely lag ...
China Moves from Infrastructure to Legal Influence in Africa
Prosecutors and representatives from twelve African countries — Ethiopia, Algeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe — gathered in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, on October 29, 2025, for the second China-Africa Prosecutorial Cooperation Forum. The meeting’s theme, ...
Nigeria and the U.S.-China-Geopolitics of a ‘Guns-a-Blazing’ Threat
The first few days of November delivered a powerful, if chilling, lesson in contemporary geopolitics for Abuja. When the U.S. President, Donald Trump, fresh from re-designating Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” for religious freedom violations, threatened to intervene militarily in the nation “guns-a-blazing” over allegations ...
A Post-American Shift Complicates Growth Strategies for the Global South
by Lukas Fiala and Chris Alden From the BRICS to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), members of recently expanding international fora are quick to point to a multipolar order as a hopeful imaginary of post-Western internationalism.
From Blueprint to Power Plant: Lessons from Chinese Power Projects in Africa
After tracing the arc from planning to procurement, financing to construction, this final installment in Part 1 of The Porcelain Jar at the End of the Rainbow pauses to reflect. What have we learned, not just about China’s engagement in Africa’s power sector, but about the systems, choices, and ...
China E-Mobility Weekly Digest: Training, Tensions, and Transitions as Africa’s EV Push Gains Momentum
This is a free preview of the upcoming Africa EVs Weekly Digest, part of the new CGSP Intelligence service. Electric vehicle (EV) training is one of the major missing links when it comes to e-mobility adoption in different African ...
Chinese EV Maker Bets on Nigeria’s Green Future With Electric Vans And Youth Training Program
Little-known Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, CAWIN, is partnering with Nigeria’s ABC Logistics, a courier and parcel-delivery firm, to test a fleet of fully electric vehicles as part of a broader effort to green its logistics operations. The pilot program ...
Balancing Giants: APEC, the Pacific Alliance, and Latin America’s Quest for Strategic Autonomy
The 2025 APEC Summit, held in early November in Gyeongju, South Korea, came to a close with a hopeful image: a renewed spirit of dialogue between the United States and China following a bilateral meeting between President Trump and President Xi.
Mediterranean Anxieties Over the Sino-Moroccan Rapprochement: French, Algerian, and Tunisian Media Perspectives
By Bianca Pasquier On October 31, 2025, China abstained from the United Nations Security Council vote endorsing Morocco’s “Western Sahara Autonomy Proposal” for resolving the conflict between Rabat and the Polisario Front. Two days prior, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly ...
Reexporting the Revolution: Kyrgyzstan’s Strategic Role in China’s Electric Vehicle Expansion
Like its Central Asian neighbors Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan is rapidly emerging as a major export market for Chinese automakers, both for traditional and electric vehicles. This surge comes amid tightening restrictions in Western markets on Chinese exports, pushing Chinese manufacturers to deepen their presence across Eurasia. ...
The Pain of Un-Polarity
“THE G2 WILL BE CONVENING SHORTLY!” This post by U.S. President Donald Trump in the run-up to his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week may end up leaving a more lasting mark than the actual summit he attended. ...