China’s Vice President Han Zheng addressed the UN General Assembly on Thursday. Along with retreads of established Chinese positions on Taiwan, Ukraine, and the Israel/Palestine conflict, his comments also provided interesting clues about China’s messaging to the Global South.
First, he called on the international community to “follow the direction of a multipolar world” with the UN at its center. I wonder how opinion within Beijing’s inner circles breaks down around the bipolarity/multipolarity issue, considering ...
Country: Japan
Japan Moves to Build China-Free EV Battery Supply Chain
Nishimura Yasutoshi, Japan's economy and industry minister, spent last week crisscrossing southern Africa on a five-nation tour at the behest of his country's auto industry that is looking for new supplies of the raw materials needed to power electric vehicles. Japan, like ...
Japanese Minister’s Africa Tour Riles China as Tokyo Looks to Build Its Own EV Battery Metal Supply Chain
Japan's Economy and Industry Minister Nishimura Yasutoshi arrived in Namibia on Sunday for the first leg of a five-nation Africa tour that focuses specifically on securing new supplies of critical resources needed to power electric vehicles. Nishimura will also visit Angola, the DR ...
WEEK IN REVIEW: Japanese Foreign Minister Arrived in South Africa on Tuesday on Three-Nation African Tour
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi arrived in South Africa on Tuesday for the first leg of a three-nation African tour that also includes stops in Uganda and Ethiopia. Hayashi's visit is widely seen as part of G7 countries' broader effort to counteract China and Russia's growing influence on ...
Sri Lanka’s Creditors Push for Greater Chinese Participation in Debt Talks
Three of Sri Lanka’s largest lenders are calling for its debt restructuring process to be sped up and for China to support the process. Officials from India, Japan, and France, the three heads of Sri Lanka’s creditor committee, are also raising new forms of cooperation in a bid ...
Japanese Foreign Minister to Embark on Six-Nation Tour of South Asia and Africa
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will head out this week on a six-nation Asian and African tour to discuss Tokyo's vision for Global South cooperation. Hayashi said at a press conference on Friday that he will first go to India and ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Unpacking Han Zheng’s Messaging to the Global South at the UN General Assembly
U.S.-Led Talks With Asian Countries Aims to Reduce Dependence on Chinese Supply Chains
The 14-member states of the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) met in Detroit on Friday, where they said a deal to diversify supply chains beyond China is "substantially completed." U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo led the talks and said this ...
G7 Leaders Wrap Hiroshima Summit With a Get Tough Message for China
The leaders of the world's seven wealthiest industrial democracies closed their summit meeting in the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Saturday with a blunt message for China: stop causing trouble and play by the rules. The group of six Western countries and Japan ...
China Angry With Japan Over G7 Joint Statement, Labels Accusations as “Hype”
The Chinese government lodged a formal complaint to Japan over the wording of the G7 communiqué published over the weekend. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Saturday that China felt it had been "attacked" and that a number of points ...
UBS Analyst Provides Upbeat Forecast on the Belt and Road, Challenging Skeptics Who’ve Already Written the BRI’s Obituary
If your media diet is predominantly from Western, Japanese or Indian sources, then it's quite likely you've seen one of the countless obituaries this year for China's Belt and Road Initiative. The narrative in articles like Foreign Policy's "China’s Belt ...
Preview: The G7’s China-Global South Problem
While China won’t formally attend this week’s G7 summit, starting from Thursday in Japan, it’s likely to dominate the discussions anyway. The bloc (made up of France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada) is not known ...