Category: Crime

Debate: Is China a Helpful or Horrible Trade Partner for Global South Countries?

At last week's Munich Security Conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi touted his country's 5% economic growth last year as a "benefit to the world" thanks to all of the trade it does with countries around the world. ...

Chinese Companies Engage in Massive “Forest Looting” in the DR Congo

Two Chinese logging companies are now the largest timber harvesters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with concessions sized at more than 3 million hectares. The firms, Wan Peng and Booming Green, are engaged in industrial-scale logging to export raw ...

Guarding West Africa’s Forests: Exploring Ways to Put an End to Illegal Chinese Timber Trade

Together, the United States and China import $40 billion worth of timber products each year, quite a bit of which is harvested illegally from West Africa's rapidly shrinking forests. But cracking down on this illicit trade is extremely difficult given that ...

Chinese Demand for Illegal Rosewood Leads to Deforestation in Cameroon

Cameroon is just one of a growing number of African countries that is facing a deforestation crisis due in part to the trade in illegal Rosewood. Large organized crime syndicates are felling vast numbers of these prized trees, smuggling them across ...

Investigating Chinese Corruption in the DRC Linked to the “Deal of the Century”

China's role in the landmark Congo-Hold Up corruption scandal was relatively small compared to those of other actors that were found to have funneled millions of dollars to former Congolese president Joseph Kabila and his associates. Nonetheless, investigators found that Chinese ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Confusing Developments in “Development”

This week I’m in Brussels, where I took part in a workshop on how the EU should shape its development strategy in response to China’s global influence.
I have joked in the past that it feels like I’ve attended this same ‘EU, Africa, and External Development Partners’ conference for ten years straight. 

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Chinese Involvement in the “Congo Hold-Up” Corruption Scandal

19 media outlets together with five NGOs in the U.S. and Europe pored through 3.5 million leaked documents from a Gabonese bank to produce Congo Hold-Up, a landmark report that detailed breathtaking corruption in the DR Congo during ...

How COVID-19 is Impacting the Africa-Asia Wildlife Trade

Amid the shutdowns in both Asia and Africa due to the COVID-19 outbreak there've been serious disruptions to the illegal wildlife trade between the two continents. But even though it's been harder to get African wildlife products to markets in China, ...

Africa’s Donkey Population Risks Collapse Due to Surging Chinese Demand for Hides

NOTE: this interview with Alex Meyers was recorded just prior to his departure from the Donkey Sanctuary. Persistent Chinese demand for donkey hides is now pushing the animal's population in many countries, including a number ...
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