China Grabs on to Deborah Brautigam’s Frustration With the BBC

The Chinese government and state media have picked up on the controversy that erupted last week when Professor Deborah Brautigam, director of the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, complained on Twitter that the BBC had edited her comments on allegations of 'Chinese debt-trap ...

The Uganda Airport Story and FOCAC Spark More “Bad Takes” in Both Chinese and African Media

The editors at Nigeria's Punch newspaper are apparently still unaware that the story about Uganda's Entebbe International Airport being seized by China as part of a debt default is not true. If they knew that the rumor had been conclusively debunked, ...

The Uganda Airport Controversy is Prompting Renewed Discussion in East Africa About Chinese Debt

The last two weeks' uproar over (unfounded) allegations that Uganda will forfeit the Entebbe International Airport is finally winding down. It's making way for a more nuanced, thoughtful discussion on the implications of Chinese loans to East African countries. Economist and ...

BBC Apologizes to Professor Deborah Brautigam For Misrepresenting Her Views on “Debt Trap Diplomacy”

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) apologized to Professor Deborah Brautigam, director of the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, for editing an interview she did with the network last week in such a way that it sounded like she was a proponent of ...

The U.S. State Department Has All But Abandoned the Chinese “Debt Trap” Line, But Pentagon Officials Haven’t

One of the many differences between the Biden State Department and that of his predecessor Donald Trump is that today's U.S. diplomats rarely make any public reference to Chinese "debt traps," very common taking point just a couple of years ago. Inside the State Department, a number ...

Bad Journalism and a Poor Understanding of International Contractual Law Triggers Uproar in Uganda Over Chinese Loans

Officials from both the Chinese and Ugandan governments took to Twitter over the weekend to furiously denounce a report published late last week in the Daily Monitor newspaper, which erroneously claimed that China will seize the Entebbe International Airport as a result of defaulting on ...

With FOCAC Coming, China-Africa Relations Gain New Prominence on National TV in China

Two of China's leading authorities on Sino-African relations appeared in a nationally-broadcast hour-long show to discuss the current state of Chinese engagement in Africa and to answer questions from a studio audience. The Chinese Foreign Ministry's top diplomat for sub-Saharan Africa, Wu Peng, and Fudan University Professor ...

China’s New Ambassador to Djibouti Speaks With Jeune Afrique in One of His First Interviews With International Media

It's still relatively rare that Chinese ambassadors in Africa do interviews with the international media and even it's more notable that a relatively new envoy makes himself available to publications like the Paris-based magazine and website Jeune Afrique (JA). Hu Bin, ...

Nigeria and the Chinese Debt Trap Myth

The current slump in global oil prices combined with a surge of Nigerian borrowing is prompting a fresh wave of media anxiety related to the country's financial future and specifically whether China will take advantage of the growing instability to seize strategic assets in the event of ...

Nigeria’s Transport Minister Questioned About “Tricky” Chinese Loans, Debt Traps and Repayment

Nigerian Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi made the rounds of national TV news channels to promote Tuesday's official launch of the Chinese-built Lagos to Ibadan Standard Gauge Railway service. In an interview with Arise TV, Rotimi fielded a ...

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 ...

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 ...
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