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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The local head of Chinese construction major CCECC, Jason Zheng, pledged that it would only take eight months to build the once-abandoned light rail in the Nigerian capital Abuja. Zheng made the promise during a meeting last week with Nigerian Vice ...
U.S. Acknowledges It Can’t Cut China Out of the EV Battery Supply Chain
For much of the past year, since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, U.S. officials have spoken at length about the urgent need to remove China from the critical minerals supply chain used, among other things, to manufacture electric vehicle batteries. ...
Vietnamese EV-Brand VinFast Hopes Possible EU Sanctions Against Chinese Electric Cars Will Give It an Opening
Vietnamese electric vehicle company Vinfast plans to ship its first batch of 3,000 VF8 crossovers to Europe later this year and the upstart EV brand may even get an assist from European Union trade authorities. Earlier this month, the European Commission ...
Blockbuster Movie Scares Chinese Tourists Away From Thailand
Chinese tourists landing in Bangkok on Monday were greeted with a heroes welcome, including Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who went to the airport to personally welcome the first batch of visa-free visitors. Thailand is desperate to revive its Chinese tourism ...
WEEK IN REVIEW: ASEAN Kicked off First-Ever Joint Naval Drills in South China Sea on Tuesday
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) kicked off its first-ever joint naval drills in the South China Sea on Tuesday near Indonesia's Nantuna island. The five-day exercise comes at a sensitive time when many ASEAN members are locked in bitter maritime territorial disputes with China.
Chinese Lending to Africa Plunges to 20-Year Low
Chinese lending to African countries plunged to below a billion dollars in 2022, the lowest level in two decades, according to new data from the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University. The findings confirm that the era of Beijing financing ...
Syrian President Assad Heads to Beijing as China Ramps Up Mideast Diplomacy
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will arrive in China on Thursday ahead of a landmark summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Assad's visit kicks off a new round of Chinese diplomacy focused on the Mideast in the weeks ahead that will also ...
Kuwait’s Crown Prince Heads to China
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BRI Isn’t Intended to Undermine the West, Says China’s EU Ambassador
Fu Cong, the Chinese ambassador to the European Union in Brussels, challenged the widely-held perception in Brussels and other Western capitals that the Belt and Road Initiative aims to undermine U.S. and European influence around the world. If that was the ...
Republican Lawmakers in the U.S. Propose Yet Another Strategy to Challenge China’s Belt and Road Initiative
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Prominent Chinese Professor Explains Why the U.S., Not China is Actually to Blame for Global South Debt Distress
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