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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Podcast Transcript: What Lessons Can Africa Draw From China in Urban Transportation?
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 in Johannesburg, South Africa. ...
What Lessons Can Africa Draw From China in Urban Transportation?
Africa is urbanizing faster than any region in the world. Today, an estimated 472 million Africans live in cities and that number is expected to double over the next 25 years, according to research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That ...
“The Belt and Road Is a Chinese Plan to Build a New World Order”
China's hugely ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is often described as being more of an idea than an actual policy. Depending on whom you speak with, BRI is characterized as an economic plan to outsource China's excess domestic industrial output. Other people, notably ...
Podcast Transcript: Kenya Tribunal Blocks Chinese-Financed Coal Power Plant
Eric: Hello, and welcome to another edition of 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 in Johannesburg, ...
Kenya Tribunal Blocks Chinese-Financed Coal Power Plant
Kenya's National Environmental Tribunal ruled this week that the government and its industry-allies failed to submit a proper environmental impact assessment to build a coal power on Lamu island. The $2 billion plant, with more than half of the financing coming from the Industrial ...
China, Africa, and the Future of the Internet
Blessed with generous government-backed loans and low-cost, high-quality equipment, Chinese technology companies have transformed African telecommunications. Millions can now connect for voice and data using devices made by Tecno, Huawei, and ZTE among countless others. Similarly, in media, private companies like StarTimes and state-backed ...
China's Trade With Africa Is up, but That's Not Necessarily a Good Thing
Representatives from 53 African countries are expected to attend the inaugural China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo that will take place in Changsha, capital of the south-central province of Hunan, from June 27-29. Those African officials attending the expo will no doubt have ...
Is South America Becoming China's "New Africa?"
At first glance, China's engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) looks a lot like what it's doing in Africa. Just as China surpassed Europe as Africa's largest trading partner, China has similarly overtaken the U.S. as LAC's largest export market. While China's ...
Like it or Not, Huawei is the Indispensable Tech Company in Africa
It is hard to overstate Huawei's singular importance in the development of Africa's information technology sector. Over the past ten years the company, often armed with state-backed loans from China, has built significant portions of Africa's IT infrastructure, everything from networking to broadband ...
How Chinese Traders Both Help and Hurt Local Merchants in Ghana
It’s well documented that a lot of people in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa resent the growing Chinese migrant presence, both in terms of the people who come and the Chinese way of doing business that is often culturally out of sync with local ...
Analyst Explains Why China's "Debt Trap Diplomacy" Critics Are Wrong
China's critics, led largely by the United States, are determined to warn developing countries about the risks of borrowing too much money from Beijing. They contend China will use these loans to financially entrap economically vulnerable countries as part of a broader effort to ...
The Belt & Road Initiative: Bold Economic Agenda or Chinese Political Ploy?
In the U.S. and many parts of Europe, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is often seen as "Trojan Horse" where Beijing uses the lure of trade and investment to discretely extend its political influence around the world. https://youtu.be/WJdtdNcnEoU Not surprisingly, in China, those ...