Reflections on the legacy of Jiang Zemin, China’s president from 1993 to 2003, who passed away on Wednesday, emphasized how he presided over a decade of explosive economic growth. Fewer have pointed out that he was also a key architect of China’s current relationship with Africa.
After the Mao era, emblematized by Chinese involvement in African anti-colonial struggles, the relationship went dormant as China focused on building economic ties ...
Country: Thailand
Thailand’s Chinese-financed High Speed Railway Gets Boost After Xi Visit to Bangkok
The long-delayed 609-kilometer China-Thailand high-speed standard gauge railway is once again a top priority for both sides following Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Thailand last week, where the project topped the agenda in bilateral talks. With a price tag of ...
A Look Back on a Week of Intense Chinese Diplomacy in Southeast Asia
Chinese President returned home from a week of intense diplomacy in Indonesia and Thailand where he attended a pair of summits and held more than a dozen bilaterals with other international leaders. Both the G20 ...
Xi Seeks to Contrast China’s Approach in Asia Against the U.S.
Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a week-long diplomatic sprint in Southeast Asia this weekend with the conclusion of the APEC summit in Bangkok. Prior to his return to China on Saturday, President Xi restated his ambition to "foster an open, fair and non-discriminatory trade ...
Few Noticed One of the Most Important Sideline Meetings at APEC
Chinese President Xi Jinping held dozens of quick sideline bilateral meetings with various international leaders over the past several weeks but few were as important as the one with Chile's Gabriel Boric at the APEC summit in Bangkok on Friday. President ...
China Revealed Diplomatic Double Standard in Dealings With Some International Leaders
Xi Jinping did not disappoint China-watchers when he re-emerged on the international stage. After remaining in China during the pandemic, the last few weeks saw him greeting visiting leaders in Beijing and attending summits in Southeast Asia. He was a commanding ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Jiang Zemin Created the Africa-China Relationship As We Know It Today
Xi Jinping’s Summit Tour Continues to APEC in Thailand
This week’s carnival of summitry continues with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ministerial meeting in Bangkok. While many leaders - including China’s President Xi Jinping - are continuing straight to Thailand from the G20 summit in Bali earlier this week, U.S. President Joe Biden ...
C’Mon Joe! You Gotta Show Up If You Want to Be in The Game!
U.S. diplomats in the Bangkok embassy are no doubt gnashing their teeth over reports that started to circulate this week claiming U.S. President Joe Biden plans to skip the upcoming APEC summit that's set to take place in the Thai capital next month.
Why Developing Countries Should Be Worried About Xi’s Congress Speech
Watching Xi Jinping's big speech at the 20th Party Congress, I kept wondering if anyone at the foreign ministries in Kenya, Chile, or Morocco was also watching the live feed. My guess is probably not very many. I get it, listening ...
Free Trade Agreements, China and the Art of Small State Diplomacy
By Jorge Heine The story goes that during the negotiation of the China-Chile free trade agreement (FTA) in 2005, Chile was keen to include wine, one of its leading export products, in the list of duty-free items, but China was reluctant ...
China and the Race to Dominate EV Battery Supply Chains
A new movement is underway in the U.S. to strip China out of the global supply chain for electric vehicle batteries -- everything from the extraction of the minerals and metals to the processing of those resources to make the battery ...