Category: Diplomacy
Vietnam’s Communist Party Leader Arrives in Beijing, Kicking Off a Busy Week of Chinese Diplomacy
Vietnam's Communist Party leader Nguyen Phu Trong arrived in Beijing on Sunday, kicking off what will be a very busy week of international diplomacy in the Chinese capital. Trong's three-day visit is generating a lot more attention given that he will be the first international ...
Reports: Xi Expected to Travel to Saudi Arabia for December Summits
Chinese President Xi Jinping will reportedly travel to Saudi Arabia in December to attend a trio of Sino-Arab summits taking place in the Kingdom. The latest rumors about President Xi's purported trip surfaced late last week following the fourth round of talks between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his ...
China-based Development Bank to Ramp Up Lending by $10 Billion a Year
While China's two major policy banks have pulled hard on the reins to curtail development financing in the Global South, the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is going in the opposite direction. AIIB's President Jin Liqun told the Financial Times that the ...
China’s Foreign Ministry Refutes Kenya Loan Rumors
Wu Peng, the top diplomat for Africa in China’s Foreign Ministry, denied that Kenya missed a payment on its Standard Gauge Railway loan. Wu Peng is the Director-General of African Affairs in the Foreign Ministry. His comment was a rare intervention from the Ministry in a loan controversy.
Taiwanese Troops to Serve in Somaliland
For the first time, the disputed African region of Somaliland will be included in 14 countries and territories that will host Taiwanese soldiers as part of an alternative directive that allows them to do their national military service overseas. Somaliland has been lobbying for independence from Somalia, ...
China’s Messaging to Africa on Xinjiang in Action
The meeting this week between a group of African journalists and Wu Peng, China’s top diplomat to Africa, became an example of how Chinese government officials use direct engagement with reporters as a messaging tool. China has cultivated support in the Global ...
Vietnamese Communist Party Leader Will be Xi Jinping’s First International Visitor during His Third Term
The General Secretary of Vietnam's Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, will embark on a four-day visit to Beijing this week, culminating on Sunday with a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. There's considerable symbolism to this visit, given that Nguyen ...
Does China Want Africa to “Choose Sides”? Maybe a Little Bit
China often assures African countries that they won’t be made to ‘choose sides’ in a new cold war. However, a recent op-ed by a prominent Africa-focused think tanker makes clear that Beijing increasingly sees the continent as a stage for geopolitical competition. Yao ...
Africa’s Cynical Democrats Face the Development Dilemma
The Biden administration frames its fight with China for influence in the Global South as a struggle between democracy and autocracy. Both sides argue that their systems boost development. The result is that Africa's development space is increasingly clogged with geopolitics. The prominent ...
The U.S.-China Battle For Ideas in the Global South
Both the United States and China have restructured their respective foreign policy establishments in recent years to be better poised to confront each other. In the just concluded 20th Party Congress in Beijing, Chinese President ...
What Developing Countries Should Expect From Xi’s New Foreign Policy Team
China's new foreign policy leadership is taking shape following Sunday's announcement that two senior officials had been promoted to key roles on the last day of the 20th Party Congress in Beijing. Foreign Minister Wang Yi will join ...
Annoyed With the U.S., Saudi Arabia Pivots to Asia
The steadily deteriorating ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia are coinciding with what appears to be a concerted shift by the Kingdom to foster closer ties with Asia's largest powers, namely China, India, and South Korea. On Friday, Saudi ...