Category: Diplomacy

African countries have been lobbying for the International Monetary Fund to provide emergency financing known as Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to help them cope with the economic consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak. But David Dollar, a senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center ...

Shortly after Representative Kalu introduced his motion in the Nigerian House of Representatives, the Chinese embassy responded with a short statement, published only in Chinese, on the embassy website.  The embassy framed its objection against the motion around "media reports" rather than directly taking on the Nigerian ...

One of the unexpected outcomes of the COVID-19 crisis is its rapidly escalating impact on the relationship between Nigeria and China. Several African governments have protested the treatment of African migrants in Guangzhou, but Nigeria is emerging as the epicentre of a diplomatic crisis in China-Africa relations.  ...

China's Consul General in Cape Town, Lin Jing, is emerging as one of China's newest so-called "Wolf Warrior" diplomats who's spending a lot more time on Twitter taking direct shots at the U.S. and other critics of Beijing. Over the weekend, ...

One of Kenya's leading newspapers waded into the highly sensitive territory over accountability for COVID-19 and the origin of the deadly virus.  Although today's editorial in The Standard newspaper is the publication's first on the topic, the paper published two columns ...

Nigerian Representative Benjamin Kalu appeared on Plus TV to discuss the motion he submitted in the House of Representatives calling for immigration checks of every Chinese national in the country.   STARTING WITH CHINESE: "What COVID has done ...

The state-owned New Vision newspaper in Uganda issued a correction on Tuesday for referring to Tsai Ing-wen as the "President of Taiwan," rather than how China describes her role: as the "leader of the Taiwan Region."

Conservative U.S. politicians and their respective media are focusing more attention lately on Chinese COVID-19 aid in Africa to highlight what they perceive as Beijing's plan to use this current crisis to expand its influence on the continent and around the world.

Prior to the recent crisis in Guangzhou, China's public diplomacy momentum in Africa looked unstoppable. Dramatic images of planes filled with donations from Alibaba founder Jack Ma were everywhere on state-run media channels, local news outlets, and diplomatic Twitter accounts, and receiving enthusiastic responses from African leaders. ...

For the most part, the Chinese government has been very effective in persuading African political leaders about its version of what happened recently in Guangzhou. Contrary to widely held public perceptions in Africa, fueled in part by provocative videos that purportedly show Chinese mistreatment and abuse of ...

Few issues are more sensitive in China today than referring to COVID-19 as the "Wuhan Virus" or "Chinese Virus" as some U.S. politicians and right-wing journalists choose to do. It miffs the Chinese to no end. If you want to get an immediate shout-down on social media ...

There is mounting concern in the United States that calls for debt relief from Africa and other developing regions that have been hit hard by COVID-19 and the subsequent economic crisis will only help those countries to pay back loans to China.