Analysis
Diverse voices, unique insights on key issues shaping China’s engagement throughout the Global South.
analysis
China’s Hainan Islamic Pilgrimage Stopover Reveals Bigger Plans
China is quietly transforming the island of Hainan, located 20 kilometers offshore in the South China Sea, into a strategic transit hub for Muslim pilgrims from Southeast Asia, starting with Indonesian travelers seeking to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, known as Umrah.
analysis
BRICS Nations to Gather Without Xi, Putin
By Facundo Fernández Barrio BRICS leaders will meet in Rio de Janeiro from Sunday, with the bloc depleted by the absence of China's Xi Jinping, who is skipping the annual summit of emerging economies for the first time in 12 years.
Southeast Asia Digest: Caught Between U.S. Tariff and China Shadow
This is a free preview of the upcoming Southeast Asia Weekly Digest, part of the new CGSP Intelligence service launching in Summer 2025. This week in Tariff Negotiations with the U.S.:
Understanding China’s Role in Africa’s Power Sector: A New Series from The China-Global South Project
China is helping build nearly one in every five power plants operating in Sub-Saharan Africa today, yet most people know very little about how these projects come together. As electricity demand rises and traditional development partners pull back, China’s influence is becoming even more significant.
China’s Copper Smelting Boom Backfires Amid Global Supply Strains
Over the past decade, China positioned itself as a leader in copper refining, accounting for more than half of global capacity. Its strategy designed to secure control over key critical minerals meant to power everything from clean energy grids to electric vehicles, defense equipment, and construction ...
A mosque in Haikou, Hainan. China is building Hainan into a Muslim pilgrimage stopover hub, with a bigger plan. Photo by Miyuki Yoshioka / Yomiuri / The Yomiuri Shimbun via AFP
China is quietly transforming the island of Hainan, located 20 kilometers offshore in the South China Sea, into a strategic transit hub for Muslim pilgrims from Southeast Asia, starting with Indonesian travelers seeking to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, known as Umrah. ...
How the U.S. and China Misread Southeast Asia in the Tariff War
Southeast Asia is not the world's workshop or a passive trade partner. As the U.S.-China tariff war escalates, the region is asserting a new kind of agency, trade independence rooted in national interest. Economies like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia, at the end of the day, choose ...
Lithium Prices Are Crashing, But Some Producers Are Doubling Down. Why?
There is a puzzling shift unfolding in the global lithium market. Prices have collapsed by over 70% from their 2022 highs to around $12,000 per tonne, and yet, against all market logic, some Chinese lithium giants are not retreating. Instead, ...
Brazil’s BRICS Balancing Act Faces a New Test in Rio
The 17th BRICS Summit kicks off this weekend in Rio de Janeiro, but preserving the group’s original mantra of non-alignment is proving to be a challenge for Brazil, the summit’s host. Since returning to power, President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva ...
In China, Ecuador’s Noboa Looks for Breathing Room and Bargains
With a tightening fiscal clock and the weight of geopolitical balancing on his shoulders, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa touched down in China last week with more than just a forum appearance on his agenda. His trip to the 2025 Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin doubled as a ...
How China is Challenging Russia’s Nuclear Dominance in Central Asia Through Kazakhstan
Having reshaped Central Asia’s oil and gas infrastructure and challenged Russia’s long-standing dominance of the region’s traditional energy sector, China is now setting its sights on nuclear power as the next frontier. This next step is not just about energy diversification. ...
Indonesia and China’s Battery Alliance Must Be Built on Sustainability
In a bold display of ambition and diplomacy, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto stood beside Chinese executives last week to break ground on what is touted as Asia’s largest integrated electric vehicle (EV) battery ecosystem. Backed by $5.9 billion in ...
A Peer-to-Peer Pivot in China’s Overseas Development Finance
By Rebecca Ray In 2024, China extended $6.1 billion in 20 commitments in public and publicly guaranteed (PPG) loans, according to a new update to the China’s Overseas Development Finance (CODF) Database managed by the Boston University Global Development Policy ...
Analysts Doubt Congo’s Cobalt Export Restrictions Will Do Much to Boost Prices in the Long Term
The Democratic Republic of the Congo extended a four-month export ban on cobalt exports in a bid to further constrain supply and boost prices of the critical metal that's used to manufacture electric vehicle batteries. The government hopes that by keeping additional ...
As U.S. Focus Wavers, Xi Courts the Global South
Chinese President Xi Jinping held separate bilateral meetings with the leaders of Ecuador and Senegal on Friday in what appears to be a concerted effort by Beijing to maintain strong ties with Global South countries, even as major power diplomacy increasingly dominates Beijing's foreign policy agenda.
Startup in Malawi Bets on Chinese Tech to Power an EV Shift
For years, Malawi, the world’s fourth-poorest country, has suffered from chronic fuel shortages. However, in a sunbaked workshop on the outskirts of the capital, Lilongwe, a team of local electric vehicle (EV) technicians is working to overcome this anomaly. Huddled around ...
The Art of (Watching) War: China’s Fading MENA Moment
By Felix Brender 王哲謙 Amid escalating conflicts across the Middle East since 2023, Beijing has been increasingly silent. Long eager to position itself as benevolent and neutral, China has offered little more than carefully worded statements while the region spirals. It ...
China-Led Study Proposes Global Energy Network
A globally connected network of solar and wind energy could provide three times the global energy demand by 2050 at a lower cost than independent national power systems. This is the finding of a study led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with researchers from ...