Author: Eric Olander
Eric Olander is the co-founder of the China Global South Project, an independent, non-partisan media initiative dedicated to exploring every facet of China’s engagement in Africa. Eric is a fluent Mandarin-speaker and a longtime China-watcher with more than 25 years of journalism experience at many of the world’s leading media companies, including CNN, the BBC, and FRANCE24, among others. He received his undergraduate degree in East African History from the University of California at Berkeley and holds a master’s degree in Chinese Public Affairs from the University of Hong Kong.
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If you're a Chinese business operator in Uganda and have had employees who've cheated, stole from your business, or caused property damage, you can email safelyxikun@gmail.com to have their name added to a new database of bad employees that's accessible by other Chinese companies in the country.
Carnegie-Tsinghua Scholar Tang Xiaoyang on the “Real Situation Confronting Chinese Companies in Africa”
One of China's largest and most influential online portals, Observer (观察), published an interview this week with well-known China-Africa scholar Tang Xiaoyang, deputy director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, about some of the difficulties that Chinese companies are encountering in ...
President Akufo-Addo Taps Ghana’s Former Ambassador to China to Run One of the Country’s Two Oil Refineries
Ghanaian President Akuof-Addo appointed Edward Boateng, the highly regarded former ambassador to China, to become the Managing Director of Ghana's embattled Tema Oil Refinery (TOR). Although Boateng served in the Ghanaian foreign service from 2017 until last year, he comes from ...
China to Kenya: It’s Payback Time
Kenya's National Treasury has resumed debt repayments to China after a 6-month debt deferral period expired in June. The Kenyan government had hoped to be able to extend that through the end of the year but Chinese creditors, namely the China ...
No Reprieve for Kenya’s Loan Bid as Chinese Banks Resist Move
Kenya is moving forward with repaying Chinese creditors after the Treasury failed to secure an extension of a 6-month debt repayment holiday that expired in June. The Treasury said on Monday that it will meet all of its Chinese debt obligations, particularly to the China Exim Bank ...
China Calls For Equitable Vaccine Distribution Even as Belt & Road Countries Are Benefitting More Than Others
China has repeatedly called for fair and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines around the world but it appears that its own vaccine distributions favor Belt and Road member countries. 60% of China's total global vaccine distributions, or 350 million ...
China Claims It Doesn’t Play Politics With Vaccine Distributions, But What Happened in Paraguay This Weekend Says Otherwise
The China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation, the company that manufactures the Sinpharm vaccine, informed Paraguayan Health Minister Julio Borba on Saturday without warning that it will cancel its contract to supply the South American country with 1 million jabs. The company ...
Five Countries in Africa Account for 80% of All Chinese Vaccine Deliveries
Chinese vaccine shipments to Africa increased by 4 million doses over the past week highlighted by a large delivery to Mozambique and the first delivery to Uganda, according to the latest figures from Bridge Consulting's latest Vaccine Tracker Report.
Why Chinese Coal Financing Along the BRI Will End With Whimper Not a Bang
There's been growing excitement among environmentalists around the world that China may finally be ready to abandon its once expansive overseas financing of coal power plants, particularly in Belt and Road member countries. Last week, the Green BRI Center published ...
Fearful of an Attack, Namibian Police Increase Protection of Chinese Nationals and Businesses
Chinese and Namibian authorities are sufficiently concerned about the possibility of a "terrorist attack" that regional Namibian police have been ordered to tighten security for Chinese nationals and businesses operating in the country. Namibia's police Inspector General Sebastian Ndeitunga said the move ...
Chinese Mining Company in the DRC “Regrets” Recent Labor Abuse Case Involving Two Soldiers, But Doesn’t Take Responsibility
The Chinese-run mining company at the center of a high-profile controversy over labor abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo issued its first response to the videos that went viral last week showing Congolese soldiers brutally whipping a local employee while Chinese managers looked on.
Chinese Diplomats in Africa May Be Signaling They’re Paying Closer Attention to Local Labor Issues
China's newly arrived ambassador to Uganda, Zhang Lizhong, (pictured far left foreground) conducted a site inspection on Saturday at the Entebbe International Airport, which is currently being expanded by Chinese contractors. The visit itself was an unremarkable public diplomacy event. But ...