Analysis

Africa's political importance to China is steadily rising as Beijing's relations with a growing list of countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas dangerously deteriorate. Conflict has already broken out between China and India, leaving Asia's two largest powers bitterly divided. Even more worrisome ...

The overwhelming majority of African countries enjoy robust ties with both China and the United States but those relations are under increasing strain as Washington's relations with Beijing further deteriorate. In recent months, a number of African leaders have expressed their desire to stay out of what's ...

I'm afraid I've devolved into the kind of person who checks Twitter before even putting on my glasses in the morning. On good days it jolts me out of my lockdown torpor at least long enough to make coffee. On bad days it makes me want to ...

It's often said that analyzing China-Africa ties is a lot like looking at one of those inky splotches you see on a Rorschach test. If you think China's engagement in Africa is the worst thing that's happened to the continent in ...

Zambian President Edgar Lungu might have been surprised to hear that the big takeaway from his call on Monday with Xi Jinping wasn't debt relief or anything to do with COVID-19. In the unlikely event that he opened a copy of the China Daily newspaper on Tuesday ...

Historically, foreign aid projects have long been criticized for creating dependency, prompting some critics to argue that normative foreign aid should be rejected by African recipients altogether for the seemingly inevitable outcomes of increased corruption and dependency. As more than 80% ...

In this issue of the ChinaMed Observer, we cannot but pay great attention to how the discussion on the yet-to-be-finalized agreement between China and Iran has evolved in the Iranian media. Other important issues that we found in the media published in the wider Mediterranean region include ...

For the first time in years, the United States is seeing progress in its relentless effort to persuade/force/cajole (it really depends on your viewpoint) countries against using networking equipment from the Chinese telecom giant Huawei. The UK's recent decision to ban Huawei gear from its ...

One of the weird realities of the current moment is that while we're seeing much more widespread popular energy behind social justice causes, many of these campaigns seem siloed and isolated from each other. For example, over the last few months we've spent much energy tracking the ...

Rashidah Mpinga, a large-scale rice outgrower in Kalungu, an agricultural district in Uganda’s Southern Region, gets ready to harvest her rice. She’s going to rent a combine harvester and a tractor from Zhong’s Industries Limited, a Chinese private enterprise. She expects to ...

There's a huge disconnect between the debt relief discussion currently taking place on many webinars hosted by academics and analysts, and the reality of what's actually happening. We're now five months into this crisis and one thing is clear: bondholders, pension ...

China has led a surprisingly effective, low-key campaign to lead mid-tier agencies at international organizations. At the United Nations, Chinese nationals now lead five of the 15 specialized agencies: the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the U.N. Department for Economic ...