Analysis
Diverse voices, unique insights on key issues shaping China’s engagement throughout the Global South.
analysis
China to the Rescue? China’s Liquidity Finance Should Be Welcomed but Not Gambled With
By Kevin P. Gallagher China is being criticized for stepping up its policy to provide liquidity financing in the form of loans and currency swaps for countries in distress for the wrong reasons. Providing such liquidity shows that China is ...
Blockbuster Set in Africa Dominates Chinese Box Office Over National Day Weekend
Africa is once again the backdrop for a glossy, big-budget Chinese patriotic blockbuster that dominated this weekend's National Day holiday box office with $37 million in ticket sales. "Home Coming" is a fictional recounting of the evacuation of some of the 30,000 ...
Climate Sweet, Climate Bitter
Last week it was Pakistan, this week South Florida. The climate collapse is like a monstrous four-dimensional version of whack-a-mole. You never know where - or how - it will hit. But the hits keep coming. With the damaged Nord Stream pipeline (and ...
U.S. Effort to Catch Up With China in the South Pacific Gets Off to Bumpy Start
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday welcomed leaders from 11 South Pacific island nations to the White House for a two-day summit that is widely seen as a critical part of Washington's effort to match China's growing influence in the region. ...
Ghana Commissions First Roads Built Under Controversial Bauxite Deal
Ghana’s Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia this week commissioned the first road infrastructure built under a controversial $2 billion resource-for-infrastructure deal with the Chinese conglomerate Sinohydro. Bawumia was eager to claim the inauguration of 441 km of roads in the Cape Coast region as ...
The China-Mediterranean Observer: How China looks at the Med
The most interesting articles published in Chinese media in August revolve around the future of the Iranian nuclear deal and, more broadly, Iran’s role in the Middle East. Chinese experts also commented on the end of France’s Operation Barkhane in Mali, as well as the rising great ...
Free Trade Agreements, China and the Art of Small State Diplomacy
By Jorge Heine The story goes that during the negotiation of the China-Chile free trade agreement (FTA) in 2005, Chile was keen to include wine, one of its leading export products, in the list of duty-free items, but China was reluctant ...
Indian Rumor Sparks Weekend of Baseless Speculation About Coup in China
All weekend there was wild speculation on both Indian and U.S. Twitter that Chinese President Xi Jinping had been placed under house arrest and that a military coup had taken place in Beijing. There was no coup, of course, and there is no ...
Friends Without Benefits?
By Chris Alden It seems a long time since the joint declaration on 4 February 2022 between President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin declared their ‘friendship without limits’ as crucial to ushering in a ‘new era’ in international relations. That ...
China’s No New Coal Power Overseas Pledge, One Year On
By Han Chen and Wei Shen On 21 September 2021, China’s president, Xi Jinping, told the UN General Assembly via video link that China would increase support for green and low-carbon energy in developing countries, and not build any new coal-fired ...
China’s Global Development Initiative Meeting Signals Growing UN Influence
China’s Global Development Initiative (announced by President Xi Jinping in 2021) took a massive step towards global influence this week. It got the UN stamp of approval and is being integrated into its development plans like Agenda 2030. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi co-hosted a ...
Ecuador is the Latest Developing Country to Restructure Chinese Debt
The Ecuadorian government announced a major debt restructuring deal with China's two largest policy banks that will provide $1.4 billion of debt service relief over the next three years. President Guillermo Lasso said his administration reached an agreement this week ...