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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Tweet of the Day: Chinese Diplomats Do Their Best to Challenge the “Negative Narrative”
China's diplomatic Twitter accounts in Africa are pushing back against the surge of negative news that has emerged both on social and traditional media over the past several weeks. In this particular instance, the Chinese embassy in Kampala challenged a widely circulated interview with ...
In the Aftermath of Guangzhou, Perceptions of China Sour Among African Civil Society
Chinese efforts to contain the fallout from the recent crisis in Guangzhou appear increasingly ineffectual among a large, and growing, swathe of Africans. Beijing has mounted a robust diplomatic and media campaign to persuade the continent's governing ...
Anti-African Racism Was Partly to Blame for What Happened in Guangzhou, But China’s Political System is the Bigger Reason
Chinese YouTuber Simon Yu provides a clear, concise explanation for why incentives within China's rigid meritocratic political system were largely to blame for the poor treatment of Africans and other foreigners in Guangzhou in recent weeks. In this 13-minute video, Yu says if one wants to understand ...
Ma Tianjie: After Guangzhou, 3 Things Will Shape China-Africa “Brotherhood”
Ma Tianjie is one of China's most well-known environmental journalists and the creator of the popular "Chublic Opinion" blog that tracks Chinese public opinion on current events. In his latest column on the always-interesting Panda Paw Dragon Claw blog, Ma ...
Amid Political Turmoil in Nigeria, Speaker of the House Femi Gbajabiamila Emerges as a Key Player in Managing the Crisis With China
Femi Gbajabiamila has emerged as a central player in managing his country's various recent crises with China, including the uproar over the arrival of a 15-member Chinese medical team, and the ongoing disputes over reports of discrimination and maltreatment of Nigerians in the southern Chinese city of ...
Reports of Arson Attacks Against Chinese Businesses in Nigeria and Arrest of Archbishop Protesting Treatment of Africans in Guangzhou Highlights Growing Tensions
Videos are spreading rapidly on Nigerian social media, purportedly showing hundreds of young men burning down Chinese-owned businesses and factories in the Ogun-Guangdong Free Trade Zone outside of Lagos in southwestern Nigeria. Although these videos were shot last week and posted ...
Even Though It’s Been Repeatedly Proven False, U.S. Politicians Just Love That Chinese “Debt Trap” Theory
Gyude Moore has clearly had enough of U.S. politicians promoting the debunked Chinese "debt trap" theory in Africa. The former Liberian public works minister and now a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, ...
Brookings Scholar Yun Sun Provides a Road Map For Chinese Debt Relief in Africa
There's growing anticipation over how China will respond to Africa's calls for debt relief amid the worsening COVID-19 crisis that is ravaging economies across the continent. So far, there have only been a few hints as to how China will proceed, ...
The South African Human Rights Commission Joins Calls for an Independent Investigation Into Allegations of Maltreatment of African Migrants in China
The South African Human Rights Commission is joining the push for an independent investigation of the alleged mistreatment of African migrants in China, including forced testing, quarantining and "other inhuman treatment, due to the COVID-19 outbreak," the independent group said in a statement this week: ...
The China-Mediterranean Observer: COVID-19 Rattles an Already Volatile Region
As cases of COVID-19 have increased, the pandemic has accordingly become the main topic of discussion in the media of the wider Mediterranean region as many are worried about the health and economic damages that it will cause. Indeed, regardless of the geographical position, there has emerged ...
From Race to Debt to COVID-19: A Conversation with Ambassador Kuang Weilin on Current Issues in China-Africa Relations
For much of the past two decades, China’s engagement in Africa has been steady, rather predictable and largely uneventful. That is, until this year. The China-Africa relationship is facing an unprecedented mix of challenges today ...
Guangdong Province Vice-Governor Meets With African Students at a Local University
The Vice-Governor of Guangdong province, Zhang Xin, visited the campus of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou this weekend to meet with African students and to discuss a new open letter published by the provincial government, which re-states its policy of treating everyone, foreigners and Chinese, equally.