Category: Development

China’s provision of undersea internet cables to Africa and the Middle East poses a security threat to the United States, according to a new report from the Middle East Institute (MEI), a  prominent Washington DC-based think tank. The report, ...

A Chinese contractor has slapped the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) with a bill for 1.1 billion Kenyan shillings ($9.6 million) in interest for delayed payments. The contractor, Nari-PCGE, complained to the Kenyan Parliament that it hadn’t been paid for its work on the 428-kilometer Loiyangalani-Suswa transmission line. ...

China is building rail lines all over the Global South. But how does Africa's experience with Chinese contractors compare with that of Southeast Asian countries?  The South African Institute of International Affairs recently published a paper comparing the environmental, ...

Media coverage of the Uganda Entebbe Airport loan is focusing on what the research lead Bradley Parks has called China Exim Bank's "aggressive" loan tactics. Parks' unit at AidData showed that the Entebbe airport won't be seized in the case of ...

It's only been a few weeks since the Europe-Africa summit in Brussels, EU where officials unveiled a huge €150 billion development package for Africa that aimed to convey a two-part message: 1) We're ready to engage Africa and 2) we're not going to cede further ...

While China's financing to the Global South has reshaped international development, many misconceptions exist about the nature of this funding.  While China is a major funder of infrastructure, experts on international development have pointed out that it is not ...

Uganda's Entebbe International Airport was never at risk of being seized by Chinese creditors in the event of a default on the $200 million loan, according to new research by Brad Parks and Ammar Malik at AidData in the United States. ...

Early on in China's engagement in Africa, the Chinese were big on gifting sports stadiums to African governments as part of their soft power diplomatic outreach on the continent. Later, Chinese infrastructure development shifted focus to larger, more conventional projects like bridges, railroads and highways but now ...

China's Ambassador to Kenya, Zhou Pingjiang, used a ceremonial outsized key to mark the opening of a new Chinese-financed security surveillance center for the Standard Gauge Railway. It was not specified what kind of surveillance technology and from what manufacturer was ...

Chinese ambassador to Tanzania Chen Mingjian joined President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Wednesday to open a new political training academy located outside of Dar es Salaam. But unlike similar Chinese-financed academies in South Africa and Ethiopia that are primarily country-specific, ...

It's beginning to settle in among Nigeria's governing class that once abundant Chinese railway financing is no more. Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi was the first to acknowledge the new reality earlier this month when he told the Guardian newspaper (Nigeria) that the country's future railway ...

By Kevin P. Gallagher and Cecilia Han Springer 50 years ago, from February 21-28, 1972, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon visited Beijing, beginning the process of normalizing diplomatic relations between the US and China. In the Shanghai Communiqué issued during that historic ...