Category: Diplomacy
The Man Who Came Up With the Now-Debunked Chinese “Debt Trap” Theory Still Trying to Convince Official Washington that It’s a Thing
Commentator and author Brahama Chellaney is determined to keep his Chinese "debt trap" theory alive regardless of whether or not there's any credible evidence to support his assertion. Chellaney first introduced the idea in ...
COVID and the Emerging Global Landscape
This week saw a small, but notable indicator in my corner of the global COVID landscape. South Africa announced that it will import 10 million doses each of China’s Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines. South Africa is hardly the first country in the Global South to ...
The Pushback Against China’s Coercive Diplomacy
Although China has successfully leveraged its strengths in COVID-19 vaccine production to replenish its reservoir of goodwill in many developing countries, elsewhere Beijing is facing growing resistance to its increasingly assertive foreign policy agenda. The ...
Economist Intelligence Unit: “Western Powers Have Lost the Vaccine Diplomacy Battle”
The battle over vaccine distribution between the U.S./Europe and China or Russia is over before it even started, declared a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit. "It is likely that the damage to the reputation of Western countries has already been done and will be hard ...
The Chinese Foreign Ministry Responded to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Webinar Where He Talked China-Africa
Antony Blinken probably did not expect that an informal Q&A with alumni of the U.S.-government sponsored Young Africa Leaders Initiative would spark yet another international spat with China. On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian was asked to comment on the Secretary's critical remarks about Chinese ...
What the U.S. Apparently Doesn’t Understand About China-Africa Ties
So, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony held a virtual ‘tour’ of Africa on Tuesday with the leaders of Nigeria and Kenya on Tuesday. That it was called a ‘tour’ and not a Zoom or Skype shows everything that was wrong with ...
Blinken Warns of Chinese Debt Traps and Imported Labor in Q&A With African Youth
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken resuscitated widely debunked theories about debt traps and imported labor to warn African countries about the dangers of working too closely with Beijing. His comments on Tuesday provide the most detailed ...
Debunking the Chinese Unskilled Labor Myth in Africa
Antony Blinken is just the latest U.S. Secretary of State to accuse China of bringing over large numbers of unskilled workers to build infrastructure in Africa, presumably at the expense of local labor. Every Secretary of State over the last decade ...
Antony Blinken Revealed He Doesn’t Really Know Much About What China’s Doing in Africa
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed yesterday that when it comes to understanding the dynamics of China's engagement in Africa, he really doesn't know very much. When a young person floated him a softball question about how the U.S. plans ...
Transcript of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Q&A Exchange About Chinese Engagement in Africa
WAZAM OBANOR: Considering the growth of the Chinese in Africa, will the U.S. be competing with China in Africa -- especially as it pertains to Africa's growth over the next few years? U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Thank you Wazam, ...
The U.S. Tries to Repackage What’s Effectively a Zoom Call Into Secretary Antony Blinken’s “Virtual Travel to Africa”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will "embark on his first virtual trip to Africa" on Tuesday as part of an effort to reach out with young people in Kenya and Nigeria. Even though the State Department ...
Quad Queries
I’ve wondered in the past whether ‘the Quad’ – the alliance among the United States, Japan, Australia and India dedicated as a counterweight to China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region – has taken on such prominence simply because the word is so fun to say. Quad quad ...