Analysis
Diverse voices, unique insights on key issues shaping China’s engagement throughout the Global South.
analysis
China’s Vaccine Diplomacy: Soft Power Lessons from Latin America
By Dr. Álvaro Mendez, Co-Director & Senior Associate Fellow, Global South Unit at LSE IDEAS In early 2021, Beijing launched a diplomatic campaign to promote China’s COVID-19 vaccines with the aim of winning friends and cutting deals in ...
Africa Should Negotiate Collectively with China at FOCAC. But That’s Not Going to Happen.
As the next Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) draws closer, the same sentiments and concerns over Africa’s relative position in the 20-year-old arrangement keep coming up. It is widely acknowledged that the continent generally gets the short end of the stick ...
Which Way is West?
One of the fun aspects of the China-Africa Project is that we don’t always agree. The work of pulling in different perspectives means that how we see reality is itself a negotiation, drawing on our different backgrounds. For example, one of the issues where Eric and I ...
China and the High Stakes Showdown in the DR Congo
Chinese mining bosses for years played the game as everyone else in the DR Congo. Money pretty much solved every problem. Need a permit? Pay some money. Get in trouble with the law? Pay some money. Under-counting cobalt reserves? Pay some money.
The Global Marketplace Versus the Global South
This week The Guardian carried two articles about China’s growing influence in the Pacific Island region. The first, under the headline “Pacific Plunder,” highlights how China imports more wood, fish, and minerals from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and elsewhere than any other major ...
Kenyatta Urges African, Caribbean Leaders to “Wake Up” on COVID and Debt Issues
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta used his opening address at a virtual summit of African and Caribbean leaders on Wednesday to issue an urgent plea to fellow leaders that they have to "wake up" to the challenges presented by the pandemic and the worsening debt crisis ...
Why Is the Kenyan Government Determined to Hide Its Chinese Loan Contracts?
A growing number of Kenyans are becoming increasingly incensed with Attorney General (AG) Kihara Kariuki for his determination to challenge activists’ demands in court for disclosure of the $3.2 billion Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) contract with China. The move didn’t go down well with ...
China’s Improbable Resource Bonanza in Afghanistan
By Lukas Fiala and Hugo Jones, China Foresight LSE IDEAS Over the past week, the crisis in Afghanistan continued to push all else to the periphery. China and Russia abstained from a United Nations Security Council resolution requiring the Taliban ...
Why the Myanmar-China New Passage is Potentially a Very Big Deal For Africa
China successfully completed its first test run of an important sea-road-rail trade route that connects the Port of Yangon in Myanmar to the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu in southern China. A shipment arrived from Singapore at the capital ...
Africa-China Nerds, Get Ready!
Today was a landmark day for the China-Africa Project. We got to interview Wu Peng, the Director-General of the Department of African Affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Director-General Wu is China’s most senior official focusing on Africa, and it was a rare privilege to speak with ...
Q&A: Why Now? The Domestic Politics Driving the DRC’s Review of Chinese Mining Contracts
Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi is fulfilling the promise he made last May to investigate foreign mining contracts to ensure they are fair and equitable. While the President did not single out the Chinese specifically, they're no doubt going to be disproportionately impacted given their outsized role in ...
China’s Tech Lead in Africa Highlights B3W’s Biggest Problem
When Joe Biden took over from Donald Trump, many predicted that Trump’s foreign policy would soon follow him out the door. A few months down the line, it’s become clear that they agreed more frequently than expected even if their styles are very different. One example is ...