Category: Diplomacy
China Appoints Veteran Diplomat to Senior Africa Role
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian announced on Wednesday that veteran Chinese diplomat Liu Yuxi will replace Beijing's outgoing Special Representative on African Affairs, Xu Jinghu. Liu assumes the role with more than 30 years of ...
There’s a Creeping Sense Last Week’s Japan’s Africa Summit Was Kind of Underwhelming
The post-mortems of last week's Tokyo International Conference on African Development are starting to come in and the reviews, at least from some in the Japanese media, are not very encouraging. One of Japan's main news agencies, Jiji, said the event ...
Date for CCP’s 20th Party Congress Set, What Developing Countries Should Expect in the Meantime
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced an earlier-than-expected date for its highly anticipated 20th Party Congress when President Xi Jinping will be appointed to an unprecedented third term in office. The Party's Central Committee said the once-every-five-year gathering ...
India Ramps Up Language on Taiwan as Tensions with China Rise
India has accused China of the ‘militarization of Taiwan Straits.’ The tweet, issued by the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka, is a marked escalation of the combative language between the two and from India’s relatively muted response when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in early ...
Fox News Blames Biden for China in the Solomon Islands
U.S. concerns about Chinese influence in the Solomon Islands have crossed a notable rhetorical red line: it is now a talking point on Fox News. This turns it from an obscure geopolitical spat to a topic in the mainstream Republican-Democrat culture war. Fox hosted the Republican insider Newt Gingrich ...
South African Anti-Foreigner Campaign Targets Chinese
The worrying escalation of xenophobia in South Africa is reportedly now hitting the country's Chinese community. Under the banner of Operation Dudula ('force out' in isiZulu), protesters marched to the China City mall in Johannesburg to protest the presence of foreigners, whom the movement blames for crime ...
China’s Xinjiang Messaging to the Global South in Action
Diplomats from African and Asian countries are currently on a Chinese government-organized tour of the Xinjiang region. Official Twitter accounts and the Chinese state press provide a glimpse of these diplomats' role in Chinese counter-messaging operations amid ongoing controversy over the mass incarceration of ...
Japan Pledges $30 billion in Funding at Africa Summit
Japan will extend $30 billion in funding to aid African development. This is the major outcome of the eighth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, which took place in Tunisia this weekend. Speaking virtually, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged funding across several cooperation ...
China Hits Back at TICAD 8
Japanese officials may have tried to downplay their rivalry with China in Africa, but the response from Beijing put the inflamed relationship between the countries front and center. China’s state-owned Global Times sharply criticized the commitments announced at the TICAD 8 meeting in ...
African Development Bank Collaboration Reveals Overlaps Between Japan’s and China’s Goals
A key announcement at TICAD 8 was that Japan will provide $5 billion to the African Development Bank (AfDB) under the fifth phase of the Enhanced Private Sector Assistance for Africa initiative (EPSA) from 2023 to 2025. EPSA is a Japan-led multi-donor platform to ...
How Do TICAD and FOCAC Differ?
While TICAD and the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) hone in on similar areas of cooperation (training, connectivity, infrastructure), their approaches differ in important ways. This article by Peter Fabricius for the South African think tank the Institute for Security Studies lays ...
Questions About China’s Debt Writeoff
While the Chinese government hasn't yet released a full list of the zero-interest loans to poor countries, it will write off, that hasn't stopped some African governments from celebrating. Togo signaled cautious optimism, saying that the write-off will free up funds for ...