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Category: Economy

China’s Free Trade Agreements in the Global South: Quito and Beijing

By Alvaro Mendez and Chris Alden After eleven months and five rounds of negotiations, Ecuador announced last month that it has completed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China. It still has to obtain legislative approval, but we believe it will ...

Top State Department Official Says China’s Debt Relief Offer to Sri Lanka is “Not Enough”

Another senior U.S. diplomat has accused China of not doing enough to resolve Sri Lanka’s debt renegotiation, a sign that the island’s financial crisis is increasingly being framed geopolitically. U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland said: "What China ...

China on Debt: It’s Not Us, It’s You

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning pushed back against recent allegations by senior Western officials that China is holding back debt restructuring in Zambia. Citing recent statistics from the Zambian government, Mao pointed out that Zambia’s debt burden is predominantly Western, with 24% ...

What’s Driving the Steady Decline in Chinese Overseas Development Lending?

There was a time when Chinese lending to developing countries rivaled the World Bank. Those days are now long gone as Chinese overseas development lending has been on a steady downward trajectory.

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Top State Department Official Says China’s Debt Relief Offer to Sri Lanka is “Not Enough”

Another senior U.S. diplomat has accused China of not doing enough to resolve Sri Lanka’s debt renegotiation, a sign that the island’s financial crisis is increasingly being framed geopolitically.
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland said: “What China has offered so far is not enough. We need to see credible and specific assurances that they will meet the IMF standard of debt relief.”

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China, World Bank Spar Over Who’s to Blame For Delays in Zambia Debt Relief

A major philosophical difference is emerging as a hold-up to Zambia’s much-needed debt relief. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning recently said the key to easing Zambia’s debt burden “lies in the participation of multilateral financial institutions and commercial creditors in the debt-relief efforts.”

Why Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s Hot Take on Chinese Debt in Africa Is So Problematic

In a recent interview, the U.S. ambassador to the UN (and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa) weighed in on China's role in African debt distress in terms that could be described as 'blinkered' at best ('disingenuous' is another possibility): 

China Blocked Kenya From Getting Competitive Bids to Build Costly Railway, Supreme Court Told

Kenya’s Supreme Court hearings into the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) deal are revealing a deal tainted by collusion between Chinese and Kenyan actors. The account emerging from testimony shows that the deal defied oversight from the start. COMPETITIVE BIDDING: Financing depended on China ...

China Ramps Up Brazilian Corn Imports

A ship carrying 51,200 tons of corn became the first Brazilian vessel to dock at Jiangyin Port on the Yangtze River, with ships from the agricultural giant delivering 2.4 million tons of grain in total. The delivery comes as Brazil (the second largest corn exporter in the ...

Angolan Police Arrest 8 in Raid on Chinese-run Bitcoin Mining Operation

Eight Chinese nationals were arrested and servers and other equipment were seized by Angolan authorities during a raid on a Chinese-led illegal bitcoin mining operation hidden in a brick factory in Kwanza Norte Province. (AFRICAN OVERSEAS CHINESE NEWS - in Chinese)

China-Argentina Call Reveals Closer Ties

China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang held a phone conversation with his Argentine counterpart Santiago Cafiero, the newest sign of the two countries’ increasing closeness. Argentina is a champion of closer cooperation between China and Latin America and plans to ...

U.S. Panic About Chinese Land Grabs Echoes Africa

Recent reports in the right-leaning press in the United States claim that China is escalating purchases of American farms. This drumbeat is partly in support of the proposed Promoting Agriculture Safeguards and Security (PASS) act. The bipartisan measure would block investments ...

Scholz Looks to South America to Reduce Germany’s Dependence on Chinese Critical Resources

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has spent the past few days crisscrossing South America in a bid to find alternative sources of critical minerals, notably lithium, that his country's powerful auto industry now relies predominantly on China to supply.  Over the weekend, ...

Sovereign Sustainability: How China’s Overseas Development Finance Responds to Varying Environmental and Social Protections Around the World

By Rebecca Ray Do high standards for environmental and social protections deter Chinese overseas development finance? New data from the Boston University Global Development Policy Center shows that China’s borrowers have the policy space to ...

China’s Debt Relief Offer For Sri Lanka May Not Be Enough to Satisfy IMF, Say Insiders

Sri Lanka's desperately-needed financial lifeline from the International Monetary Fund may be in jeopardy due to an insufficient debt restructuring offer from China, Colombo's largest bilateral creditor. The IMF is requiring that Sri Lanka first receive assurances from ...
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