Author: Eric Olander
Eric Olander is the co-founder of the China Global South Project (CAP), 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 Contractor Adopts Manufactured Sand in Quest for Alternative to Natural Sand
The presence of Chinese construction companies in Kenya is evident from the big projects they are handling; from roads to office complexes to shopping malls. The current government’s flagship transport project, the Standard Gauge Railway, which replaces the century-old lunatic express from the coastal city of Mombasa ...
Q&A: Niger Shrinks Nature Reserve for Chinese Oil Exploration
Welcome to the first edition of China-Africa Q&A, a new podcast series that will feature interviews with key stakeholders in the China-Africa discourse. We’ll publish these podcasts intermittently and, as always, welcome your feedback. In ...
Buying a Train Ticket on Ethiopia’s New SGR Is Not as Easy You Might Imagine
Journalist Ismail Einashe tried to buy a ticket on the new Chinese-funded/built standard gauge railway (SGR) in Ethiopia to travel from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa. In nearby Kenya, buying on their SGR is a pretty straightforward transaction, as it should be. Not in Ethiopia, though, according ...
Kenya’s Appetite for Chinese Loans May Finally be Starting to Wane
During a meeting last week with Yang Jiechi, Chinese president Xi Jinping's special envoy for Africa and one of Beijing's most senior foreign policy officials, Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta gave one of the first indications that the mounting pressure over his country's rising debt levels may ...
Chinese Vlogger Fyjo Molly Wants You to See Africa in a Different Way
Fyjo Molly uses an unusual way to phoneticize her English YouTube handle name. The Chinese characters for Africa, 非洲, are typically spelled “fei zhou” but writing it as “Fyjo” Molly put her own little twist on the name, much like her ...
Q&A: Ghanian Minister Calls for Crackdown on Illegal Fishing. Will China’s Distant Fishing Fleet Comply?
Ghana's Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Elizabeth Naa Afoley Quaye, called for the eradication of illegal fishing operations that threatens the sustainability of the local fishing industry and the livelihoods of thousands of people in coastal communities. The practice, known ...
Japan Summit Provides Wake-up Call for China to Change Its Approach in Africa
An editorial today in one of South Africa's leading financial news publications, Business Daily, enthusiastically welcomed the outcome of last week's Japan-Africa summit in Yokohama. The summit, known as TICAD7, focused a lot of attention on directing Japan's vast private ...
Podcast Transcript: China’s Distant Fishing Fleet Is Decimating What’s Left of Ghana’s Fish Stocks
Eric: Hello and welcome to another edition of the China in Africa podcast. I'm Eric Olander and as always, I'm joined by Cobus Van Staden, a senior China, Africa researcher at the South African Institute of international affairs ...
Reflections on TICAD7 With Judd Devermont
In this episode, Eric & Cobus speak with Judd Devermont, Director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a prominent think tank in Washington, on his key takeaways from this year’s Tokyo International Conference on African ...
One Chinese Company’s Bold, Controversial Plan to Wipe Out Malaria in Kenya
Malaria is a global threat. In 2017, an estimated 20,000 people were killed in terrorist-related incidents. That same year, 435,000 people died from the mosquito-borne disease, predominantly in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
Why Using a Zero-Sum Analysis to Compare Japan and China in Africa “doesn’t work”
With the Tokyo International Conference on African Development or TICAD, summit coming up this week in Yokohama, there is often a temptation to compare Tokyo's engagement strategy in Africa with that of Beijing's. Furthermore, there are often references to how the Sino-Japanese rivalry in Asia also tends ...
Why Everyone Will Be Thinking About China at the Upcoming Japan-Africa Summit
54 countries and international organizations will convene at the end of August in Yokohama for the seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development or TICAD. While the event is ostensibly about Japanese engagement with Africa, a lot of attendees will likely ...