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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Learning From South Sudan
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Development and the Complications of Tech
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Nigeria’s China Moment
The current anti-Chinese sentiment in Nigeria is a fascinating sign of the times, but I'm a it baffled about what it signals. I don't know enough about Nigerian society to be able to unpack it in detail. However, it seems like a symptom that China's narrative of ...
Nigeria’s Conversation About Chinese Debt
The first thing to say about the ongoing controversy about Chinese loans purportedly compromising Nigerian sovereignty is that it's based on a misreading of standard language found in loan contracts. Rather than stating that, in the case of a default, China will have the right to seize ...
The Country, the People, and the Debt
The news last week that South Africa has received a $4.3 billion loan from the IMF to help tide it over the COVID-19 crisis resulted in a revealing moment online. Rather than celebrating this lifeline to an economy that was already weak before the pandemic, ...
Excuse Me. Who Exactly is Mike Pompeo Referring to When He Talks About “The Free World?”
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New Words = New Lives
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A Not-So-Extraordinary Summit
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So. Many. Ironies.
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The Geopolitics of COVID-19
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