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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A Billion Dollar Copper/Cobalt Mine is Up For Grabs in the DR Congo, Providing Rare Opening For the U.S. to Get in the Market
For the first time in seven years, the United States can re-enter the all-important critical resources mining sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where China is the dominant actor. The persistently low price of cobalt, a metal used to ...
Assessing the Impact of Chinese Media Influence in Africa
China's media presence in Africa is far more pervasive today than it was a decade ago, but not in the conventional way. Very few people consume China's traditional media offerings on the continent but millions, often unaware, engage with Chinese-produced messaging ...
The South China Sea Crisis is Fast Approaching a Dangerous Tipping Point
The reactions to Sunday's at-sea collisions between Chinese and Philippines maritime forces reveal a very worrisome trend in what's fast becoming one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints. While the incidents were both minor, more like gentle bumps than violent collisions, ...
Kenya’s President Didn’t Go to China to Get New Loans, Says Finance Minister
Senior Kenyan officials are trying to set the record straight about President William Ruto's trip to China last week and whether he went there with a billion-dollar request for new loans. Before he left, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua told a radio interviewer ...
China Limits Exports of Graphite to Counter U.S. Technology Restrictions
The Chinese government announced it will soon restrict the export of three grades of graphite, a key ingredient in EV batteries and nuclear power plants, in retaliation for U.S.-led restrictions on technology sales to Chinese companies. China's Ministry of Commerce ...
China Takes Advantage of Cobalt’s Low Price to Boost Strategic Reserve
The Chinese government plans to fortify its stockpile of cobalt, a critical resource used to manufacture electric vehicle batteries. Insiders tell Reuters that the Strategic Reserves Administration plans to purchase 3,100 metric tons of the blue metal in a move likely timed ...
China’s Special Mideast Envoy Largely Unseen at Cairo Peace Conference
Despite all of the talk over the past year of China's ambitions to be a major player in brokering Mideast peace, Beijing's Special Envoy to the region, Zhai Jun, was largely absent from the emergency discussions on the Israel-Gaza war that took place in Cairo on Saturday. ...
Africa’s Strong Presence at China’s Belt & Road Forum
Five of the 24 heads of state who attended this week's Belt and Road Forum in Beijing were from African countries, highlighting the prominent role the continent played at the event. Many of the themes ...
China Furious Over U.S. Veto of UN Action on Israel-Hamas War
China's normally soft-spoken ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, expressed "shock and disappointment" that the United States used its veto power on the Security Council to block a resolution that called for a humanitarian pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas. ...
China’s Foremost Mideast Scholar Explains Beijing’s Response to the Israel-Hamas War
China was much slower than the other major powers to respond to the October 7 terrorist attack by the Islamic militant group Hamas against civilian populations in southern Israel. The following week, when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi laid out Beijing's ...
Kevin Gallagher’s Key Takeaways From the Belt & Road Forum
Boston University Global Development Policy Center Director Kevin Gallagher was one of only a handful of U.S. stakeholders invited to participate in the Belt and Road Forum that just wrapped up in Beijing. Kevin joined CGSP Editor-in-Chief Eric Olander for a ...
Vietnam’s “Multi-Alignment” Strategy: Friend to All, Ally to None
Most developing countries around the world have stated repeatedly and emphatically that they do not want to be drawn into a new Cold War between the United States and China -- few, though, have moved with as much determination as Vietnam to ensure that never happens.