Today is a public holiday in South Africa – Human Rights Day. There’s a certain irony in spending the day focusing on China’s President Xi Jinping’s visit to Vladimir Putin, knee-deep in a human rights disaster.
What one makes of the Ukraine crisis increasingly maps on where one lives. This is made clear by a remarkable new set of polling data recently published by the European Council on Foreign Relations ...
Country: Benin
Benin’s Finance Minister Meets With China Exim Bank President
Beninese Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni is in Beijing this week, where he met with China Exim Bank President Ren Shengjun. Neither side released details of the meeting, but it does highlight how China Exim Bank is continuing to engage African governments ...
Q&A: Why is Benin on Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang’s African Tour Itinerary?
The newly appointed head of Chinese diplomacy, Qin Gang, has begun his first African tour which will take him to five countries. A visit that is part of the long tradition of Chinese diplomacy to reserve the first overseas tour to the African continent. ...
Massive Statue by Chinese Artist Rises Over the Benin City of Cotonou
The 30-meter-high Statue of the Amazon ("Statue de l'Amazone") is a tribute to the all-female military regiment in the 18th century Kingdom of Dahomey that is now present-day Benin. Chinese artist Li Xiangqun won the commission to build the ...
How a Small Group of Negotiators in Benin Got China to Play Ball
Chinese loan contracts to African countries are increasingly controversial, raising questions as to how African negotiators can get better deals. One of the world’s foremost experts on Africa-China negotiations, Folashade Soule, recently published a report highlighting how a group of negotiators in Benin bargained with Chinese bodies ...
Scholars, Diplomats in South Africa Discuss the Future of Africa-China Ties
The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) together with the Chinese embassy in Pretoria hosted an online forum last week that featured discussions among Chinese diplomats, including Ambassador Chen Xiaodong, and scholars from both China and Africa to discuss the future of ties between the two ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Xi Bets on Global South in Moscow
Folashadé Soulé on West Africa’s Priorities at FOCAC 8
The triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit is just weeks away now and speculation is now starting to build as to what will be on the agenda. As of now, very little is known as to what's going to happen, ...
Folashadé Soulé on the Key Priorities For West African Countries at This Year’s China-Africa Summit
For much of the past twenty years, since the first FOCAC summit in 2000, China's engagement strategy on the continent has focused predominantly on anglophone countries in southern and eastern Africa like Kenya, Zambia, and South Africa. Angola, of course, was an important exception. ...
China’s Role in “Decolonizing” Healthcare in Africa
I still remember the day I arrived in the quiet city of Natitingou, North-West Benin, after the 7000-mile journey from my hometown in China. I was to be a translator in a Chinese medical team deployed to the local hospital. Over the 13 months ...
China Increases Vaccine Deliveries to Africa According to Latest Distribution Figures
China has significantly expanded the breadth of its vaccine distribution drive in Africa in the past two weeks, according to new government figures (April 4) published by state broadcaster CGTN. The number of African countries that received Chinese vaccine shipments lagged ...
Hundreds of Thousands of Chinese Vaccines Landed in Egypt, Benin, and Niger Over the Weekend
Large shipments of vaccines imported from China landed in North Africa over the weekend, providing some countries with their first jabs needed to kick off national inoculation programs in the region: BENIN: An unknown quantity of Chinese-made Sinovac vaccines arrived in ...