Beware False Idols: The Pitfalls of Copy-Paste Development Models

By Felix Brender 王哲謙 At this year’s Munich Security Conference, the U.S. put on such an antagonistic performance that China barely had to lift a finger to win brownie points. All Beijing had to do was sit back, radiate calm, and ...

Indonesia Shifts Focus, Now Eyeing China’s Approach to Poverty Alleviation

Indonesia is looking to emulate China’s community empowerment model to tackle poverty, according to Budiman Sudjatmiko, head of the National Agency for Poverty Alleviation Acceleration, on Friday. This marks a strategic pivot from its current reliance on social assistance programs. ...

China Promotes Its Poverty Alleviation Policies to African Diplomats

China's successful track record in eliminating extreme poverty over the past several decades is emerging as a potent soft power diplomacy initiative in its relations with African countries. China now regularly touts its poverty eradication efforts in its official propaganda 

The Fire Next Door

So…How have you been? Since we last spoke, my country exploded. If you’re not up on South African news, the current government has finally managed to get a charge to stick to its predecessor – former president Jacob Zuma. This took ...

Poverty Alleviation is Becoming an Increasingly Important in China’s Public Diplomacy Messaging In Africa

Lacking the pop culture Europeans and Americans have long relied on to bolster their soft power diplomacy in Africa, China instead uses alternative messaging about its rapid economic development, infrastructure accomplishments, and now domestic poverty alleviation. While the Chinese topics are ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Revealing Reactions to China’s Festival of Optics

In terms of geopolitical optics, this week was nothing short of a banquet. It served up at least two sets of images that seem to crystallize our historical moment and that will live on in the Wikipedia of history as shorthand for where the world was in 2025.
One is the waves of uncannily synchronized soldiers and a bewildering array of high-tech weaponry gliding down Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue. The ...

What the EU Can Learn From China’s Development Efforts in Africa

Legacy aid donors in the United States and Europe generally don't look to China for inspiration on poverty alleviation programs that their aid agencies implement in places like Africa. That's a big mistake according to Philani Mthembu, executive director at Institute for Global Dialogue in Johannesburg. Mthembu ...

China’s Input Ensured the Elimination of Schistosomiasis from Zanzibar’s Pemba Island

The WHO and the Tanzanian government have heralded a Chinese project to combat schistosomiasis in Pemba island, Zanzibar, which ran from 2016 until this year. Its successful implementation of good practices like broad-based cooperation and its flexible project design to accommodate local specificities might have received more ...

From the Soil: How One Chinese Village Cut Poverty through… Flowers?

Hannah Ryder, CEO Development Reimagined explores how one village in China, that initially grew just one crop, has cut poverty in just a decade… but will it last? Can the same be done elsewhere? Watch her vlog to find out!