In terms of geopolitical optics, this week was nothing short of a banquet. It served up at least two sets of images that seem to crystallize our historical moment and that will live on in the Wikipedia of history as shorthand for where the world was in 2025.
One is the waves of uncannily synchronized soldiers and a bewildering array of high-tech weaponry gliding down Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue. The ...
Country: Angola
Related Posts
Powering Africa: China’s Expanding Role in the Continent’s Energy Future
This report, authored by International Development expert Dr. Frangton Chiyemura, examines the scale and significance of Chinese-backed energy projects across Africa. From solar parks in Mali to massive hydropower dams in Zambia, it explains how these initiatives are distributed, why they matter, and what they mean ...
Crude Deals or Clever Design? Unpacking China’s Resource-Backed Finance in Africa
It is not every day that a highway is paid for with barrels of oil. Yet in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, that is exactly how some of the region’s largest infrastructure projects are being financed. Instead of tapping their treasuries or issuing sovereign bonds, governments are ...
Stop Calling the Lobito Corridor a U.S. Gambit Against China
There’s a lazy but geopolitically irresistible allure in branding Angola’s Lobito Corridor as a U.S. bid to blunt China’s influence in Africa and the region’s mineral supply chains. I get why the framing sticks: it’s neat, dramatic, and easy to sell. ...
[WEEK IN REVIEW] China Invests in Angola to Secure Food Supply Chains
Chinese construction giant Sinohydro signed a $100 million deal with Angola to build out the country's agricultural infrastructure in a bid to boost grain production. While 60% of the output from this venture will be shipped to China, the rest will ...
Motives That Matter: The Economic and Strategic Logic Behind China’s Power Sector Engagement in Africa
Why is China building power plants across Sub-Saharan Africa? What exactly motivates its involvement in the sector? What does it hope to gain, and what does this mean for countries on the receiving end of its infrastructure support? Is this simply a gesture of South-South solidarity, ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Critical Minerals Weekly: China’s Rare Earth Reset, Copper Overcapacity, and Zimbabwe’s Big Lithium Gamble
This is a free preview of the upcoming Critical Minerals Weekly Digest, part of the new CGSP Intelligence service launching in Summer 2025. After months of strategic restrictions, China has agreed to resume rare earth exports to the U.S. as ...
Model Meets Reality: The Africa–China Export Forecast That Delivered
In an era where economic uncertainty often renders forecasts obsolete before they materialize, Africa’s export performance to China between 2022 and 2026 stands out as a compelling exception. Projections that I made together with Professor Reon Matemane, an associate professor at the University of Pretoria, in ...
The New Realities About Chinese Development Finance in Africa
Chinese overseas development finance is unrecognizable from what it was just a few years ago. After suffering tens of billions of dollars in losses, Chinese lenders have moved to de-risk their lending to countries in Africa, Asia, and across the Global ...
China, the U.S., and the Competition for Africa’s Strategic Resources
Southern Africa has become a focal point of geopolitical competition, with the U.S., China, and other global powers maneuvering for influence over key infrastructure projects and critical resources. The Lobito Corridor Project, a railway and logistics ...
What does Trump 2.0 Offer to Africa?
By Cobus van Staden As the world shifts into gear for the next Trump term, striking new polling results have revealed a split in opinion about the incoming president. An opinion survey of ...
No, the Lobito Corridor is NOT a U.S. Project
U.S. President Joe Biden finally made his long-postponed trip to Angola, fulfilling his December 2022 promise to visit Africa. When the promise was initially made, there were expectations of a more substantial visit—perhaps including multiple countries—not just a single stop as a “lame duck.”
Fact-Checking International Media Coverage of Biden’s Africa Tour
Joe Biden wrapped up a three-day trip to Cabo Verde and Angola this week, marking the first visit by a sitting U.S. President to Africa in almost ten years. Although Biden sought to lay out an expansive vision for U.S. foreign ...