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2025 China-Africa Year in Review

In this special year-end edition of The China in Africa Podcast, Eric, Cobus, and Géraud look back on the top stories of 2025 and look ahead to the key trend to watch in 2026.  📌 ...

China-Africa and the Cost of Unused Talent

When it comes to the China-Africa story, most people first think about infrastructure. Those who follow it more closely might think of diplomacy. But China-Africa relations is also a story about hundreds, maybe even thousands, of African students trained in China through scholarships and bilateral partnerships.

Why the U.S.-DRC Mining Deal is Bad News For China

The U.S. and the DR Congo signed a landmark deal on critical minerals during President Félix Tshisekedi's visit to the White House this week. The pact provides the U.S. with extraordinary access to the Congolese mining sector and is widely expected ...

China E-Mobility Weekly Digest: Chinese, Vietnamese Automakers in Africa’s EV Race as Local Innovation Gathers Pace

This is a free preview of the upcoming Africa EVs Weekly Digest, part of the new CGSP Intelligence service. This week, the enhanced technology features of some Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) are proving a challenge after claims that embedded ...

Critical Minerals Weekly Digest:  Strategic Shifts and the New Critical Minerals Landscape

This is a free preview of the upcoming Critical Minerals Weekly Digest, part of the new CGSP Intelligence service launching in Summer 2025. Introduction This week’s developments signal a turning point in global ...

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, ...

China’s Biggest Cobalt Miner Faces a Harsh New Reality in DR Congo

The world’s leading exporter of cobalt, China’s CMOC Group, may turn out to be the biggest loser under the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s new export quota policy, which is set to replace the existing moratorium on cobalt shipments beginning in mid-October.

Glencore Weighs Sale of One of DRC’s Largest Cobalt Mines, Reviving U.S.–China Rivalry Over Critical Minerals

The Swiss mining giant Glencore is reportedly talking with prospective buyers for its 75% stake in the Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the company's flagship assets that is also one of the world's largest producers of cobalt. ...

Africa-Asia Relations Beyond China

Africa was especially hard hit by Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs, which ended years of duty-free access to the U.S. and triggered a rush to find new markets. China's announcement that it will remove all tariffs on African imports undoubtedly provides ...

China’s Battery Breakthroughs May Leave Some Developing Countries Behind

Chinese researchers and firms are accelerating the race towards the next generation of battery technologies, and this will undoubtedly reshape the fortunes of countries heavily reliant on cobalt and nickel exports.  Today, most electric vehicles utilize lithium-ion batteries that are made ...

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 ...

U.S. Bids to Trump China in DR Congo Mining Rush

The United States wants to secure its supply of strategic minerals in conflict-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, hoping to challenge China's near-monopoly on the lucrative sector. While the strategy has been in the works for years, Washington has doubled down on ...

Lobito Corridor Not Intended to Counter China in Africa, Says New CEO

The Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR) corridor is purely a commercial venture with “zero geopolitical considerations," said the new CEO, Nicholas Fournier, in an interview with the South China Morning Post newspaper. Fournier said the upgrade of the massive 1,800km-long railway that ends ...
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