Category: Politics
China’s Vaccine Deliveries to Africa Slow to a Trickle While Shipments to Asia Soar
Chinese vaccine deliveries to Africa over the past week increased by just 500,000 doses compared to the previous week, according to the latest data from the Bridge Consulting Vaccine Tracker Report. While that's a sizable number of jabs given the paucity of vaccine shipments to ...
Chinese News and Social Media Commentary Largely Dismiss G7’s Plans to Challenge BRI and Vaccine Distribution
After a flurry of announcements at the end of the three-day G7 summit in Cornwall, observers around the world spent Monday digesting the communiqué, various government fact sheets, and news coverage to try and piece together what it all means. China, ...
The U.S. Campaign to Challenge China’s Vaccine Distribution Drive in Developing Countries Gets Off to an Awkward Start
The U.S. effort to catch up with China's vaccine distribution drive in developing countries got off to a rocky start on Monday when the embassy in the Caribbean island state of Trinidad and Tobago announced on Twitter that it would donate a total of ...
B3W and the Democracy Issue
One of the interesting divisions emerging from the Biden administration’s campaign to re-energize the G7 and NATO against China is its attempt to divide the world into ‘democracies’ and ‘autocracies,’ and to insist that the two groups are squaring off against each other as if they’re in ...
The G7’s Kinda Sorta Billion Dose Vaccine Pledge for Developing Countries
G7 countries took a big step over the weekend to change the narrative on COVID-19 vaccines, after being rightly accused of hoarding the vast majority of the world's supply of jabs at the expense of poorer developing countries.
China Accuses G7 of “Empty Promises” and Draws on Members’ Colonial Past as Part of Its Counteroffensive
China hinted at the colonial pasts of the G7 member states in its coverage of the weekend's G7 summit in Cornwall, which focused a considerable amount of time and attention on confronting Beijing. Sensing an opportunity to mobilize mass opposition to ...
Sanctions and Anti-Sanctions
For those tracking the development (and high-level normalization) of ‘the new cold war,’ this week has been a doozy. U.S. President Joe Biden departed for the G7 summit in Cornwall with a rare bipartisan win in his pocket. His U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, a $250 ...
New Report Examines Where Africa Fits Into China’s Global Strategic Vision
Understanding where Africa fits within China's broader strategic geopolitical vision is something of a mystery to many outside observers. Most international reporting and research on the issue relies on English or French language materials that go a long way to frame the prevailing narratives about Chinese priorities ...
Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama Defends Twitter Ban, Denies Knowledge of Talks With China to Build Firewall
Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama spoke out in defense of the government's decision last week to ban Twitter, claiming the move was intended to protect the country's sovereignty and national security. The Foreign Minister made the remarks during a press conference that followed closed-door ...
Until the U.S. Actually Starts to Ship Vaccines Overseas, Criticism of Chinese Vaccine Distribution Doesn’t Fly With Many in the Global South
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken renewed his criticism of China's so-called "strings attached" vaccine diplomacy around the world during an online roundtable discussion with Japanese media. But the Secretary's comments were not well received among many in the Global South, ...
Liberia’s Senate President Shows Engaging China Depends on Acceding to Beijing’s Core Interests Up Front
The recent visit to the Chinese embassy in Monrovia by Albert Chie, president pro-tem of the Liberian Senate, provides an interesting insight into how African stakeholders are proactively telegraphing their acceptance of China's position on sensitive territorial issues like Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong among others.
This Picture Should Be Quite Worrying to Every Australian Politician
Colin Ding, president of the Chinese mining company Kingho Energy Group, paid a visit to the State House in Freetown on Tuesday to meet with President Julius Maada Bio about the company's new port and rail lease agreements that will be used to ramp up iron ...