Author: Cobus van Staden
Dr. Cobus van Staden is an accomplished scholar, journalist, and think tank analyst with more than 20 years of experience in Africa and Asia. Previously, he was the senior China-Africa researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) in Johannesburg. Cobus completed his Ph.D. in Japanese studies and media studies at the University of Nagoya in Japan in 2008. He focused on comparisons of Chinese and Japanese public diplomacy in Africa during postdoctoral positions at the University of Stellenbosch and the SARCHI Chair on African Diplomacy and Foreign Policy at the University of Johannesburg before joining the Department of Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2013. His academic research focused on media coverage of the China-Africa and Japan-Africa relationships, as well as the use of media in public diplomacy in the Global South.
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Looking Beyond “Useful Africa” at the Mining Indaba
With U.S.-South Africa ties in the deep freeze, it was notable to see the sheer size of the U.S. delegation sent to this week’s Mining Indaba in Cape Town – one of the most prominent industry gatherings and one of the few where the Global South ...
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Confusing Developments in “Development”
This week I’m in Brussels, where I took part in a workshop on how the EU should shape its development strategy in response to China’s global influence. I have joked in the past that it feels like I’ve attended this same ...
The Fraying Story of the “West” and What’s Next
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech in Davos marked a new era in how the West talks about itself. One could say he was the first Global North leader to frame the rules-based international order (RIP) in Global South terms: ...
2026: Africa-China Relations in a World Shaped by North-South Geopolitics
When talking about Africa–China relations, one is always moving along a sliding scale. There are myriad interactions with Chinese entities that concern only individual African countries, segueing into trends affecting the whole continent and sliding further into global dynamics shaping the developing world, of which Africa is ...
CGSP Take: How Does the Venezuela Crisis Affect China’s Relationship with the Global South?
By Cobus van Staden, CGSP Head of Research, China has sharply criticized the Trump administration’s incursion into Venezuela and its detention of President Nicolás Maduro. During his regular press conference on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson ...
The G20 Summit and the Half-Life of a Joke
When it was announced in 2023 that the African Union would become a full member of the G20, I darkly joked on a podcast that the AU’s entry into the body could very well mark the moment the G20 lost its status as one of the most ...
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. ...
How to Lure Chinese Financing Back to the Global South: Report
Global South countries face increasing financing pressure, endangering their ability to keep developing while also implementing measures to deal with a growing climate crisis. The disruption of global trade is coupled with a larger megatrend: flows of international capital to the developing world have turned negative. This ...
Weighing the Value of “Values”
I was in Berlin this week for a conference on the EU’s relationship with Africa in the context of the continent’s growing ties with external actors, many of whom Europe finds acutely worrying. The conference eerily landed on the second anniversary ...
Eye-Rolling Through the Apocalypse
November’s COP30 gathering in Belém, Brazil, marks three decades since COP1 in Berlin in 1995, and raises a sobering reminder of how deep we’ve sunk into a climate morass of our own making amid non-stop warnings. The evacuation of millions of people and the deaths ...
Revealing Reactions to China’s Festival of Optics
In terms of geopolitical optics, this week was nothing short of a banquet. It served up at least two sets of images that seem to crystallize our historical moment and that will live on in the Wikipedia of history as shorthand for where the world was in ...
Plugging into African Agency
After several years of declining funding, the African end of the Belt and Road Initiative seems to be roaring back. The newest Griffith University/Green Development Finance Center data on the Belt and Road Initiative shows that engagement with Africa jumped by 395%, while a few big ...
BRICS Announces Numerous New Initiatives
The BRICS group wrapped up its two-day leaders’ summit in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. The summit’s final communique is a 16,000-word doorstop that covers numerous issues from economics to education. The communique avoids any direct mention of the United States, and ...
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 ...
Looking Beyond Mining in the Africa-China Relationship
Last week’s China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo (CAETE) in Changsha, Hunan province drew very little press attention, but it gave a glimpse of the growing centrality of agricultural trade to the Africa-China relationship. The event delivered 176 new project deals worth $11.39 billion. The number ...
China Floats Ideas for “Multipolar” Currency System to Balance U.S. Dollar
China announced several new initiatives aimed at increasing global trade in the yuan and to hedge against the dominance of the U.S. dollar. Pan Gongsheng, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, proposed a future where the global financial system would rely on several currencies.
Africa May Have to Give Up on the United States
It was during the recent meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa — just as the lights dimmed, Trump cued up a video presentation, and the whole encounter veered into political theater — when the question hit me: what is this all ...
Unpacking China’s Offer to Southeast Asia and the Middle East
This week’s landmark meeting between China, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is arguably one of the most notable international responses to the Trump administration’s attempts to remake the global trading system we’ve seen so far.
How Does the Pause in the U.S.-China Trade War Affect the Global South?
Stock markets soared this week following the announcement of a 90-day lowering of tariffs between the United States and China. Amid the momentary euphoria, many are trying to map the trade landscape emerging from the agreement. As Zongyuan Zoe Liu ...
Navigating Our Endless Now
Foreign policy writers are in danger of running out of cliches. How often can one reuse the old Lenin line of “weeks where decades happen”? But here we are: in one week, India and Pakistan crept closer to full war, ...
Middle Powers Scan an Emerging Landscape
If, like me, you’ve fallen into the habit of obsessively checking the newest (and the newest and the newest) updates on the U.S.-China trade war, you’ll also be familiar with the weird candy/poison hit of a major trade war data-point dropping. In my case this morning, it ...
Xi Emphasizes Trade as He Kicks Off Southeast Asian Tour
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi on Monday, the first visit in his tour of Southeast Asia. He was met by the country’s President Lu’o’ng Cu’ò’ng. Xi will also make stops in Malaysia and Cambodia. Trade will likely be the dominant theme ...
Trump, China, and the Big, Baffling World
Amid the upheavals of Donald Trump’s first weeks back as U.S. president, a key point of overlap between his shredding of the Atlantic partnership and his ending of U.S. foreign assistance to the developing world has been largely ignored: the impact of these choices’ impact ...
The CGSP Take: Where Does the Munich Security Conference Leave the Global South?
This year’s Munich Security Conference provided two distinct messages on foreign policy from Washington and Beijing. In his speech on Friday, U.S. Vice President JD Vance framed European politics through a U.S. culture war lens. His broadsides against traditional allies implicitly questioned the idea of the unified ...
Africa, China, and Trump’s World-Spanning Gamble on Foreign Assistance
The Trump administration’s decision to halt and review U.S. foreign assistance to developing countries instantaneously turned the United States from many countries’ biggest helper into their biggest problem. In the process, he kicked off a massive experiment. The research question ...
Trump’s Executive Orders, China, and the Global South
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a raft of executive orders on his first day in office that will significantly shift the United States’s relationship with the developing world. The orders, while framed as promoting the interests of the U.S. voters, will ...
What does Trump 2.0 Offer to Africa?
By Cobus van Staden As the world shifts into gear for the next Trump term, striking new polling results have revealed a split in opinion about the incoming president. An opinion survey of ...
What does Trump 2.0 Offer to Africa?
As the world shifts into gear for the next Trump term, striking new polling results have revealed a split in opinion about the incoming president. An opinion survey of developed and developing countries by the European Council on Foreign ...
Africa-China 2025: Tracking Priorities on Both Sides
2025 marks a quarter-century since the first Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit. Since then, Africa-China engagement has been nothing short of transformational - both changing skylines across the continent and reshaping the role of the Global South in world politics more broadly.
3 Key Trends to Watch for China-Global South Ties in 2025
Trend-predicting – always a dicey enterprise – feels particularly difficult as the Biden administration dries to a crusty stain, and incoming U.S. President Donald Trump waits in the wings huddled in his signature cloud of white-hot incoherence. However, tracking a few ...
2024 Was the Year China Was Everywhere, All the Time
Every year, the team at the China-Global South Project makes a list of what we saw as the significant China-related stories of the last twelve months. This year, the task has been especially tricky. That's not because there is a lack ...
Thailand, China Stage Myanmar Talks
Chinese officials will attend meetings in Bangkok on Thursday and Friday aimed at crafting regional solutions to the crisis in Myanmar. The two meetings are seen as a bold attempt from Thailand to resolve the crisis, which is threatening the ruling military junta’s grip on the country. ...
India-China Meeting Aims to Warm Up Ties as Trump Waits Around the Corner
Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday. The meeting is the latest step in normalizing relations along the two countries’ disputed border. Wang and Doval last met in September, a gathering ...
China Reportedly Ponders Bigger Role in Myanmar
As pressure increases on the military junta in Myanmar, rumors are circling that China could be considering a larger role in the country. The announcement last month that China is considering a joint security company with the junta has spurred speculation that Beijing may be considering a more direct ...
Gautam Adani Pulls Out of Sri Lanka Port Deal Meant to Counter China
The controversial Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has withdrawn from a loan deal with a U.S. government agency for a port terminal in Sri Lanka, aimed at expanding operations at the country’s Colombo port while countering Chinese influence in the region. Adani was ...
China Signals Optimism on Rebuilding Ties with India
China is beaming friendliness to its massive neighbor across the Himalayas following recent high-level meetings between Indian and Chinese officials. The newest was a discussion between Liu Jianchao, the Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee, and India’s ambassador to China, Pradeep ...
The Global South is Becoming More Central to China’s Trade
While China’s trade data this month was largely gloomy, it also reflected interesting shifts. A breakdown of the data published by the Chinese publication Guancha showed that trade with key parts of the Global South is trending upwards. For example, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is currently ...
China Will Keep Driving Global Growth: Xi
Chinese President Xi Jinping said China will keep powering global economic expansion and that the country will meet its 5% GDP growth target. The comments come a day after the CPC politburo announced the first monetary easing in fourteen years to boost ...
Malaysia is Becoming More Mandarin-Speaking
The enrollment of non-Chinese students in Chinese-language schools in Malaysia is reportedly increasing rapidly, partly because employers are increasingly favoring speakers of Mandarin, according to a new report by the Singaporean publication Fulcrum. While numbers aren’t officially recorded, there are indications that this trend is expanding in line ...
Nvidia Teams Up With Vietnam on AI Amid U.S.-China Tensions
Nvidia, the U.S. maker of advanced computer chips, signed an agreement to set up an advanced research and development center dedicated to artificial intelligence in Vietnam. Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia said in a statement: “We are delighted to open ...
Biden Administration Grabs Last Chance to Push Debt Trap Narrative
U.S. President Joe Biden argued on Wednesday that the United States is striving to be a qualitatively different investor from China in Africa. In making this case, administration officials couldn’t resist one last reference to a meme cherished by Democrats and ...
Another Myanmar Militia Declares Ceasefire
A second major ethnic rebel group in Myanmar has announced a unilateral halt in its fighting with the country’s ruling military junta. Tuesday’s announcement by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) came a week after a similar announcement by the Ta’ang ...
Nepal Signs Belt and Road Deal
The Nepalese government announced on Wednesday that it signed a framework agreement with China on the Belt and Road Initiative. Kathmandu signed an initial BRI agreement in 2017, but projects have not progressed so far. The new agreement paves the way ...
India Signals Readiness to Further Normalize Ties with China
India and China can focus on “other aspects” of their relationship following the pullback of troops from two friction points along their border. This was the main takeaway from an address to the Indian parliament by External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Mauritius PM Calls for Review of Chagos Islands Deal
Navin Rangoolam, the newly inaugurated Prime Minister of Mauritius, said he wants an independent review of a draft agreement with the United Kingdom about control of the Chagos Islands. The agreement returns the sovereignty of the small Indian Ocean islands to Mauritius, ...
Myanmar Rebel Army Willing to Talk with Junta Amid Pressure from China
The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA,) one of a coalition of ethnic minority armies fighting Myanmar’s ruling military junta, signaled it wants to start peace talks. The Shan state-based militia announced its willingness to enter negotiations in a statement on Monday. Two ...
China Pulls Taliban Deeper into Central Asian Fold
China’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Yue Xiaoyong, met with the Taliban’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and the acting Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid. The meeting was confirmed by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Monday. She said the meeting aimed “to ...
Mexico Pivots as Trump Announces Tariffs
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump promised to impose 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico and Canada and an “additional” 10% on Chinese imports as a response to irregular border crossings and drug trafficking. He said the measures would be implemented on “day 1” of his term. ...
It’s Bonfire Season
The announcement of the ICC arrest warrants for Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, as well as the Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other ...
China Planning Joint Security Company with Myanmar Junta
Myanmarese press reports say China proposed establishing a shared security firm with the country’s ruling military junta. The reports say the junta formed a working committee in October to prepare a memorandum of understanding for the potential company. The 13-member committee ...
Malaysian Minister Calls for Stronger China-Southeast Asia Rail Network
Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke called for the development of an integrated pan-Asian high-speed rail network, in order to avoid disruptions of South China Sea shipping. In an interview with South China Morning Post while visiting Hong Kong, Loke said developing ...
China Reconfirms Support for Iran-Saudi Ties, Gaza Ceasefire in Riyadh Talks
Officials from China, Saudi Arabia and Iran called for “an immediate end” to Israeli military operations in Palestinian territories and Lebanon. They convened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the second meeting of the China-Saudi Arabia-Iran tripartite committee set up to implement ...
Xi and Lula Chart New Phase in China-Brazil Relations
China's President Xi Jinping and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva upgraded the relationship between their countries and signed a raft of new agreements. Xi's visit to South America for the APEC summit in Peru and the G20 summit in ...
China Emphasizes Global South Connections at G20 Summit
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced several initiatives at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro aimed at boosting development across the Global South. In his remarks, Xi announced eight measures aimed at strengthening global development:
Final Biden-Xi Meeting Draws Red Lines as Latin America Braces for Trump
The last official meeting between outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping was officially framed as looking back at the last four years of the relationship. However, Xi also used it to set Beijing’s terms for the upcoming Donald Trump presidency. ...
Trump, China and Africa: Key Issues
As news of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet choices trickles in, many are trying to game out what foreign policy will look like in the Trump 2.0 era. For Africa, that’s particularly tricky because Trump was largely disinterested in the continent during ...
Mexico Could Be Ground Zero for U.S.-China Tariff Fights
Mexico is reportedly considering imposing retaliatory tariffs against the United States, if the incoming Trump administration follows through on his threat of 25% levies on Mexican imports. Mexico surpassed China as the biggest source of U.S. imports in 2023, partly due to rapid offshoring by Chinese companies.
China Pushes for Security Personnel Deployment in Pakistan
China is reportedly putting pressure on Pakistan to allow Chinese security personnel to protect Chinese nationals in the country. This follows high-level security talks in the wake of a suicide bombing that killed two Chinese engineers outside of the airport in ...
Peru and China to Expand Free Trade Agreement
China and Peru will sign an expanded and upgraded version of their free-trade agreement (FTA) which could boost trade between them by 50%. The new agreement, announced late last week, will be signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the ...
North-South Trade Tensions Mark the Opening of a Gloomy COP29
The UN’s COP29 climate summit opened in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Monday. The first day was derailed by agenda negotiations following a request by China and the rest of the BASIC negotiating group (Brazil, South Africa, and India) for talks on carbon border taxes and other environmentally-minded trade restrictions. ...
HOT TAKES: Early Predictions of How Trump’s Win Could Affect Key China-Global South Issues
AFRICA: The outcome of the U.S. election for Africa will likely be mixed. South Africa will likely face increased pressure from U.S. policymakers around its opposition to Israeli actions in Gaza, and perceptions of its closeness to Russia and China. Such pressure will likely push it ...
Trump, China, and the Rest of Us
As we absorbed the news of another Trump term, my immediate conversations with friends split into two categories. With American and U.S.-adjacent friends, the conversation defaulted to (mostly despairing) unpackings of what happened. But the ...
Indian Border Patrols Resume as Minister Warns of “Other Challenges”
Indian army patrols of key areas along its disputed border have been completed for the first time since a bloody border incident in 2020 resulted in a standoff with China. The army’s 14th corps announced on Monday that they successfully completed patrols of parts of Depsang Ara ...
Shooting Incident Further Raises Security Concerns in Pakistan
Two Chinese nationals were wounded after a private security guard opened fire at a garment factory in Karachi. An unnamed police official reportedly said that the guard hasn’t been arrested and that no motive has yet been ascertained. However, Bloomberg reported ...
Leaders Pledge Closer Ties During Week of Southeast Asia-China Diplomacy
As territorial disputes keep Southeast Asia on edge, Chinese and regional leaders are promising closer cooperation at a series of diplomatic events this week. Chinese Premier Li Qiang emphasized connectivity on Monday at the 7th China International Import Expo (CIIE). Li ...
China Piles Security Pressure on Pakistan
Chinese diplomatic messaging can sometimes be ambiguous, but that wasn’t the case this week in Pakistan. Chinese Ambassador Zhang Zaidong again emphasized that security threats against Chinese personnel is now the top issue in the relationship. Speaking at an Islamabad seminar called
India and China Complete Troop Withdrawal
Indian and Chinese troops have finalized their pull-back from two key confrontation zones along their disputed border in the Himalayas. An unnamed Indian official confirmed to Reuters on Wednesday that the troop movements have been completed. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian ...
Brazil’s BRI Rejection a Setback for China
After years of dithering, Brazil will reportedly not join China’s trillion-dollar connectivity project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI.) President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s special presidential advisor on International affairs, Celso Amorim, told O Globo newspaper that Brazil wants to advance its relationship with China without ...
As Myanmar Nears the Brink, Worries Mount in China
Myanmar’s ruling military junta is under increasing pressure from several ethnic militias. The military government, which took power in a coup in 2021, kept its grip on the country through advanced firepower, partly due to support from Russia and China. However,
BRICS Summit Hails Multipolarity, Calls for Global Reforms
The BRICS+ group committed itself to global financial reform and opposing trade barriers at its leaders’ summit in Kazan, Russia. The summit, the largest diplomatic forum in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, gathered more than twenty leaders in what is increasingly ...
Xi, Modi Pledge Cooperation at Historic Meeting
India and China agreed on Wednesday to work towards improving bilateral ties, signaling a potential thaw between the neighbors since clashes between their troops in 2020 over a contested border. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met ...
Reports of Possible Xi-Modi Meeting Following Border Deal
A senior Indian official announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, on Wednesday. It will be their first structured meeting since a 2020 border clash sent India-China ties into crisis.
BRICS Leaders Gather in Russia for First Meeting Since Enlargement
The leaders of the BRICS+ group will kick off the bloc’s first leaders’ summit since admitting new members this year. The gathering in Kazan, Russia, from Tuesday to Thursday this week comes as the group faces both increasingly stark geopolitical tensions and new disputes among the recent ...
China and India Reach Border Patrolling Deal
India and China reached an agreement about military patrols along their disputed border, according to a senior Indian official. It could pave the way for the easing of tensions between the two powers. Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced on Monday: ...
Shanghai Cooperation Organization Decries Sanctions and Tariffs
China, Russia, and Iran’s ongoing disagreements with Western power provided the frame for this year’s heads of government meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The ten-state Eurasian security grouping met in Islamabad, Pakistan, this week. The joint statement released at the end ...
China Urges Middle East De-Escalation in Series of Diplomatic Calls
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi conducted separate phone calls to counterparts in Israel and Iran this week. His call to his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz on Monday was reportedly the first time he had spoken with an Israeli official since last year. ...
Satellite Image Sparks Rumors of New Chinese Settlement Along Indian Border
Indian media outlets are speculating that China built a new settlement about 38 kilometers from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) the country's border with China. The purported settlement is on the northern shore of Pangong Tso Lake, the site of ...
China Pledges Upgraded CPEC Cooperation, Calls for Improved Security in Pakistan
Chinese Premier Li Qiang signed thirteen cooperation agreements with Pakistan, including currency swaps, trade agreements, and an upgrade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a prominent Belt and Road Initiative project. A joint statement released today expanded on the cooperation:
Attention Falls on India’s Role at SCO Meeting
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar surprised many by announcing his attendance at this year’s SCO gathering. India became a full member of the China-centric organization in 2017, but growing tensions with China over the last few years complicated its presence. Jaishankar’s ...
Security Jitters as Pakistan Hosts SCO Meeting
Pakistan is hosting a two-day heads of government meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) starting today amid heightened security concerns following last week's suicide bombing attack against Chinese workers. Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived in Islamabad yesterday and was met at the ...
U.S. Official Says China and Russia Blocked ASEAN Summit Statement
An unnamed U.S. official told Reuters that China and Russia rejected a joint statement of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at its East Asia summit in Vientiane, Laos. The summit was dominated by tensions resulting from territorial disputes in ...
Pakistan’s Post-Bombing High-Wire Act
Pakistan’s hosting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Council of Heads of Government meeting on October 15 and 16 is happening as the country is scrambling to contain the fallout of a bombing attack on a group of Chinese engineers on Sunday. ...
Myanmar, South China Sea Dominate ASEAN Summit
Leaders from the ten member countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathered in Laos on Wednesday for an unusually fraught ASEAN summit. Their time in Vientiane is likely to be dominated by twin crises: the civil war in Myanmar and rising tensions ...
Commodities Face Economic, Geopolitical Complications in China
Mixed economic messages from Beijing and complex geopolitics are complicating global minerals and commodities trade. As Chinese markets reopened after last week’s holiday, iron ore prices slid back from a five-year high as the market reevaluated stimulus measures announced last week. Investors ...
Details of Kenya’s New Chinese Loan Emerge
Kenya will use a new loan from China to advance work on 16 different road projects, said a senior Treasury official. Kenya signed a new $279 million loan agreement with China Development Bank on the sidelines of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in September. ...
“No Clear Evidence” that Vietnam Facilitates Chinese Exports to the U.S.: IMF
An investigation by the International Monetary Fund has found no clear evidence that Vietnam is used as a waystation to facilitate Chinese imports to the United States. The study examined backward trade linkages with China in Vietnamese exports to the United ...
Vietnam Names China in Protesting “Brutal” Attack on Fishing Crew
Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry blamed Chinese law enforcement for a violent attack on a Vietnamese fishing crew in the disputed South China Sea on Sunday. Ten fishers were reportedly beaten with metal bars, and about $20,000 worth of equipment and fish were taken in ...
Indian Army Chief Downplays Border Thaw
As media speculation about warming relations between India and China mounts, it seems that not everyone is fully on board. Notably, the head of the Indian armed forces apparently tried to temper expectations on Tuesday. Speaking at the Chanakya Defence Dialogue, ...
Fishing Boat Attack Raises China-Vietnam Stakes
Anger is growing in Vietnam following an attack on a Vietnamese fishing boat off the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. Both China and Vietnam have territorial claims on the region. About ten sailors were injured when a reported 40 people ...
Competing Naval Drills in South China Sea Raise Tensions
Competing naval exercises got underway in the South China Sea this week, further raising tensions in a region marked by overlapping territorial claims. The Philippine Navy cooperated with allies in carrying out a maritime cooperative activity (MCA) exercise, which focused on ...
Connecting to African Power: Trends from The China-Global South Project’s Africa-China Energy Tracker
As Africa moves into the second quarter of this century, it faces a complex set of opportunities and perils. The continent’s vibrant youth population, mineral wealth, and vast capacity for renewable energy are examples of such opportunities. However, the continent is also subject to a nexus of ...
Rare Signs of Thaw between India and China?
India and China's border dispute has been resolved by three-quarters, said Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. This is the latest signal of subtle shifts in one of the world’s most momentous geopolitical relationships. While the relationship has long been contentious,
Chinese EVs are Reshaping the International Landscape
The Biden administration on Monday announced a ban on Chinese-made software and hardware that connect electric vehicles to the outside world. It includes a range of cameras and sensors and the software driving them. It also includes a ban on Chinese-made autonomous driving software.
Philippines Says It Will Keep Sending Ships to Disputed Sabina Shoal
The Philippines will continually deploy vessels to the Sabina Shoal, said the country’s coast guard. The announcement came as a coast guard vessel returned from a five-month stint in the contested region. Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela told reporters: ...
China Blames U.S. for Lengthening Gaza Crisis
China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Geng Shuang, said the United States is to blame for the failure to reach a ceasefire in the ongoing Gaza conflict. Addressing the UN Security Council on Monday, Geng noted that the region is almost ...
Hong Kong to Assume Larger Belt and Road Role
Hong Kong will occupy a pivotal position in the Belt and Road Initiative, with Chinese officials saying its role as a financial and services hub is “irreplaceable.” The city hosted the ninth Belt and Road Summit on Wednesday. Li Yongjie, China’s deputy international ...
Why Is China Engaging Africa? Chinese Expert Weighs In
In the run-up to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit, many tried to parse the factors driving China’s engagement with the continent. The consensus among Western commentators was a combination of Chinese need for mineral resources and their need to build political coalitions.
African Deals Signed in Beijing Reveal Resurgence in China-Africa Relations
Kenya signed a $280.9 million loan agreement with China Development Bank to refurbish rural roads. The deal will tackle fifteen different road projects across the country. Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury and Economic Planning, John Mbadi, signed the agreement in Beijing late ...
FOCAC and China’s Global Messaging
This year’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was partly aimed at reinvigorating a relationship many had framed as declining. Preceded by new data showing that Chinese project financing in Africa increased after a multi-year fall, China sought to use FOCAC to present an image of its engagement with ...
Kenyan President Emphasizes Infrastructure During Beijing Trip
Kenya’s President William Ruto came to Beijing with a long wishlist. In the run-up to his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Ruto stressed several key infrastructure projects as key to Kenya’s cooperation with China. Standard Gauge Railway: The ...
Photos by BAY ISMOYO / AFP
In 2025, China remained a top-three source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Southeast Asia, following only the U.S. and intra-Southeast Asian flows. While much of the investment falls under the umbrella of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it is important to distinguish between broad private investment and state-led ...
Looking Beyond “Useful Africa” at the Mining Indaba
With U.S.-South Africa ties in the deep freeze, it was notable to see the sheer size of the U.S. delegation sent to this week’s Mining Indaba in Cape Town – one of the most prominent industry gatherings and one of the few where the Global South ...
Confusing Developments in “Development”
This week I’m in Brussels, where I took part in a workshop on how the EU should shape its development strategy in response to China’s global influence. I have joked in the past that it feels like I’ve attended this same ...
The Fraying Story of the “West” and What’s Next
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech in Davos marked a new era in how the West talks about itself. One could say he was the first Global North leader to frame the rules-based international order (RIP) in Global South terms: ...
2026: Africa-China Relations in a World Shaped by North-South Geopolitics
When talking about Africa–China relations, one is always moving along a sliding scale. There are myriad interactions with Chinese entities that concern only individual African countries, segueing into trends affecting the whole continent and sliding further into global dynamics shaping the developing world, of which Africa is ...
CGSP Take: How Does the Venezuela Crisis Affect China’s Relationship with the Global South?
By Cobus van Staden, CGSP Head of Research, China has sharply criticized the Trump administration’s incursion into Venezuela and its detention of President Nicolás Maduro. During his regular press conference on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson ...
The G20 Summit and the Half-Life of a Joke
When it was announced in 2023 that the African Union would become a full member of the G20, I darkly joked on a podcast that the AU’s entry into the body could very well mark the moment the G20 lost its status as one of the most ...
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. ...
How to Lure Chinese Financing Back to the Global South: Report
Global South countries face increasing financing pressure, endangering their ability to keep developing while also implementing measures to deal with a growing climate crisis. The disruption of global trade is coupled with a larger megatrend: flows of international capital to the developing world have turned negative. This ...
Weighing the Value of “Values”
I was in Berlin this week for a conference on the EU’s relationship with Africa in the context of the continent’s growing ties with external actors, many of whom Europe finds acutely worrying. The conference eerily landed on the second anniversary ...
Eye-Rolling Through the Apocalypse
November’s COP30 gathering in Belém, Brazil, marks three decades since COP1 in Berlin in 1995, and raises a sobering reminder of how deep we’ve sunk into a climate morass of our own making amid non-stop warnings. The evacuation of millions of people and the deaths ...
Revealing Reactions to China’s Festival of Optics
In terms of geopolitical optics, this week was nothing short of a banquet. It served up at least two sets of images that seem to crystallize our historical moment and that will live on in the Wikipedia of history as shorthand for where the world was in ...
Plugging into African Agency
After several years of declining funding, the African end of the Belt and Road Initiative seems to be roaring back. The newest Griffith University/Green Development Finance Center data on the Belt and Road Initiative shows that engagement with Africa jumped by 395%, while a few big ...