Category: Diplomacy
China in Africa: the BBC’s Annoying Interview of Liu Guijin
It’s not often that senior Chinese officials make themselves available for interviews with the international media, especially in English. So when I first heard that the BBC World Service’s “Business Today” radio program was to interview Beijing’s top diplomat on African Affairs Ambassador Liu ...
Rant: China Might Want to Consider Soft Power Too
By any measure China’s awe inspiring embrace of Africa is impressive. Let’s put aside the staggering financial statistics on how many billions of dollars Beijing is spreading across the continent or even the scale of its natural resource haul. Honestly, there is no comparison ...
The West’s Tragic Blindspot in Africa
I have been living in Kinshasa for almost three weeks now and since I landed here I’ve been asked countless times what I find the most interesting/bizarre/unusual about life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For me, the answer is clear. It’s not the vibrancy of Congolese culture, how ...