China Signals Support for Indonesia HSR; Debt Under Review

China said it is ready to help keep Indonesia’s Jakarta–Bandung high-speed line running smoothly as Jakarta opens talks to restructure project loans. In Beijing on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun emphasize that when evaluating high-speed rail projects, Indonesia and China ...

China’s Global Initiatives: More Questions, Fewer Answers

By Lukas Fiala With the Xiangshan Forum, Beijing’s premier security summit, having taken place in September, I’ve been wondering about the state of the Global Security Initiative (GSI). It is common knowledge that it’s rather difficult to understand the implementation of ...

Indonesia to Renegotiate High-Speed Rail Cost-Sharing with China

Indonesia will reopen talks with China on how to split a $1.2 billion cost overrun on the Jakarta–Bandung high-speed rail, Whoosh, as a new state holding prepares a debt restructuring for the operator. Whoosh is a 142-kilometer Jakarta–Bandung line that ...

Development Finance at a Crossroads: BRICS Challenge to Western-led Economic Order

We're going to see two starkly contrasting visions of the current international economic order this week when leaders from nearly two dozen developing countries gather in Russia for a BRICS summit while the development finance elite meet in Washington for the IMF-World Bank's annual meeting.

China’s Global Development Initiative Meeting Signals Growing UN Influence

China’s Global Development Initiative (announced by President Xi Jinping in 2021) took a massive step towards global influence this week. It got the UN stamp of approval and is being integrated into its development plans like Agenda 2030. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi co-hosted a ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

2026: Africa-China Relations in a World Shaped by North-South Geopolitics

When talking about Africa–China relations, one is always moving along a sliding scale. There are myriad interactions with Chinese entities that concern only individual African countries, segueing into trends affecting the whole continent and sliding further into global dynamics shaping the developing world, of which Africa is the heart.

The Africa-China relationship is its own thing, but Africa’s fate can’t easily be separated from factors affecting the wider Global South, ...