Category: Economy
A New Chinese-Built Road in Nigeria Highlights Why Infrastructure is So Important For Local People and, More Importantly, Politicians
Both truckers and workers are celebrating the opening of a new, modern road that leads to the Ogun-Guangdong Free Trade zone in western Nigeria. The recently opened road has dramatically improved transport times for cargo and made it much easier for thousands of workers to get to ...
Why This Chinese Factory Video is Causing Quite a Stir on Social Media in West Africa
A Chinese factory video where a young woman demonstrates how to convert raw cassava into fully processed gari has created quite a bit of buzz in Nigeria and Ghana where gari is a popular indigenous food. Ghanaian entertainment and lifestyle social ...
When It Comes to Deforestation, There’s Plenty of Blame to Go Around
The NGO collective Forests and Finance released a new study today showing that investments by Chinese banks make it the world’s second-largest funder of projects linked to tropical deforestation. Analyzing data from financial databases and company publications, the study found that between 2016 and 2020, Chinese ...
New Report Highlights China’s Indispensable Role in Building African Infrastructure
African infrastructure financing is in freefall, plummeting from $100 billion annually in 2014 to just $31 billion last year, according to a new report published by the global law firm Baker McKenzie. It appears that both bilateral and ...
As Nigeria’s Debt Steadily Grows, China’s Share Shrinks — Yet Somehow Lots of People Still Worried About “Debt Traps”
Nigeria's Debt Management Office (DMO) announced late last week that the country's external debts will increase to $83 billion due to $2.5 billion of new loans provided by the World Bank and the Export-Import Bank of Brazil to help mitigate the effects of the ongoing ...
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 ...
Conflicting Views in Ghana Over China’s Entrance Into the Global Cocoa Trade
A spirited debate is underway in Ghana over the implications of China's entrance into the global cocoa market. Various commentators, cocoa industry officials, and political leaders have all expressed concern over the past week that China will do to the cocoa market what it's done ...
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 ...
Debunking Myths About Chinese Labor in Africa
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's comments this week that suggested China imports labor to work on infrastructure projects highlights the incredible durability of one of the oldest myths about Chinese engagement. The reality is there's been a steady decline in ...
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 ...
Maybe Antony Blinken Thinks China Uses Debt Traps in Africa After Reading Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal
It's not surprising that a lot of people, including the U.S. Secretary of State, remain mistaken in their belief that the Chinese seize physical assets in the event of a loan default, given that it continues to appear in news reports -- including ...
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 ...