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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Chinese EV Technology Powers New Green Bike and Bus Projects in East Africa
Two projects in East Africa highlight China's growing role in the region's electric transportation sector: KENYA: The Shenzhen Shenling Car Company Limited donated 49 electrified motorbikes for a new pilot project to replace gas-powered boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) in Nairobi.
Washington’s Schizophrenic China-Africa Debate
There are two totally different conversations going on in Washington, D.C. these days about how to frame China's engagement in Africa. Down at the State Department and even at the Pentagon, there's a concerted effort underway to evolve U.S. policy away from the confrontational approach of the ...
China Becomes a Major Focus in U.S. House Hearing About Elections in Africa
China emerged as a prominent theme at a virtual hearing on Tuesday convened by the U.S. House of Representatives's foreign affairs subcommittee on Africa to discuss what the U.S. can do to better support democracy and elections in Africa. Lawmakers from both parties expressed concern about the ...
Pressure Mounting on U.S. and European Governments to Ease IP Restrictions on Vaccines — Both to Relieve Vaccine Inequity and to Counter China, Russia
Calls are growing louder in the U.S. and Europe for those governments to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines so developing countries would be able to manufacture their own jabs and narrow the current vaccine inequity gap. These ...
China’s Vaccine Distribution Campaign Now Extends to the Military With PLA Donation to the Philippines Army
The Philippines Army began inoculations of its forces this week using a batch of Sinovac COVID-19 jabs donated by the People's Liberation Army. So far, the PLA's vaccine donations have been confined to Asia where it's also given to armed forces in Pakistan, Cambodia, and Mongolia.
From Asia to Africa to the Americas, China is Shaping the Vaccine Narrative With a Steady Stream of Powerful Images
The optics of China's COVID-19 distribution around the world. U.S. & European governments have yet to deploy an effective strategic communications plan to rival this kind of visual messaging that's been very effective to date in shaping the narrative on vaccine inequity.
Africa’s Role In the Current India-China Rivalry
Africa is emerging as a front in two great power rivalries, one between China and the U.S. and the other between China and India. The increasingly bitter feud between Asia's two largest countries now extends beyond the sub-continent into the Indian ...
Researchers Want Official Washington to Know That China’s Actually Doing Quite a Bit to Relieve the Debt Problem in Africa
While U.S. policymakers are trying to come up with a new, more effective approach to challenge China's engagement in Africa, a trio of scholars at the Washington, D.C.-based China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University want to make it clear that Beijing is actually doing far more ...
Brautigam: Influence and Investment, Not Asset Seizures Are the Primary Drivers of Chinese Lending in Africa
China-Africa Research Initiative Director Professor Deborah Brautigam spoke recently with acclaimed Harvard researcher William Overholt in what was a fascinating discussion about the complexities surrounding the Chinese debt issue in Africa. Professor Brautigam laid out some of the findings ...
New Railway in Nigeria to Push Up the Country’s Debts to China
Although Chinese loans account for just 11.28% of Nigeria's external debt stock, a senior advisor to President Buhari warned this weekend that figure is likely to go up if/when the China Exim Bank approves the $5.3 billion loan to build the Ibadan-Kano portion of a ...
U.S., European Claims That the BRI Is in Trouble Are Way Overblown, Says Prominent Chinese Scholar
The sharp drop in Chinese overseas development finance lending documented by Boston University's Center for Global Policy Development among others has prompted critics of Beijing's Belt and Initiative in the United States and Europe to suggest that the massive global trade agenda is in trouble.
IMF Chief Sounds Optimistic About the Prospect of New SDRs But Sidesteps U.S.-China Tensions That Are in the Way
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva echoed the growing optimism in some parts of Washington about the possibility of issuing new so-called Special Drawing Rights -- effectively a cash injection by the IMF to all of its members which would provide some badly-needed liquidity for the world's poorest countries.