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The News Feed is curated by CGSP’s editors in Asia and Africa.

China Rates More Positively Among Young Africans than U.S.: Survey

A survey conducted by the Ichikowitz Family Foundation of 4,507 young Africans across 15 countries named China as the foreign country with the biggest influence on the continent.
A new survey shows that more young Africans see China as a positive influence in their lives than the United States. 76% of respondents rated China as a foreign power with a beneficial impact ...
by Cobus van Staden

Transsion’s Nearly Two-Year Run of Uninterrupted Growth in Africa Comes to an End

Source: Counterpoint Market Pulse Service
Two years of the pandemic, supply chain disruptions and slowing economies in Africa finally caught up with Shenzhen-based African mobile phone giant Transsion. The company released its first-quarter results earlier this month that ...
by Eric Olander

Mobile Phone Giant Tecno Wants a Piece of Kenya’s Booming Mobile Money Market

File image of Tecno representative at one of the Transsion unit's stores in Nairobi. Image via Xinhua.
Transsion’s Tecno brand is expanding its new mobile money service to Kenya this week. “The wallet has pilot launched in Nigeria in May, and roll-out to Kenya in middle of June,” the company said ...
by Eric Olander

BBC Doc Tracks Origin of Racist “Shout-Out” Videos Featuring African Children

The BBC debuted a documentary investigating the origin of commissioned videos of African children being coached to recite messages in Chinese that have gone viral in China. These are frequently starkly racist and reveal the prevalence ...
by Cobus van Staden

WEEK IN REVIEW: China, For the First Time, Will Convene A Horn of Africa (HoA) Conference

File image of Xue Bing, China's Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa. Image via the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
China, for the first time, will convene a Horn of Africa (HoA) conference between June 20th and 22nd in Addis Ababa.  China’s new Special Envoy for HoA, Xue Bing, announced during a tour in ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Media Uses Oft-Used Tactic to Dismiss U.S. Concerns Over PLA Port in Cambodia

HEADLINE TRANSLATION: Cambodia refutes U.S. media's "China to build a military base in Cambodia" as hype: baseless accusation!
The Chinese media reaction to the Washington Post report about the PLAN’s purported desire to build a navy base in Cambodia closely adhered to an often-used template used to challenge unfavorable stories: Discredit ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Rivals Consider Implications of Possible New PLAN Base in Cambodia

China’s reported desire to build a navy facility in Cambodia is prompting careful scrutiny from analysts in rival nations, notably the United States and Taiwan.  Ryan Ho Kilpatrick, a reporter at the Taiwan-government-funded ...
by Eric Olander

PLAN Base Story in Cambodia Fits Nicely With China Threat Narrative in U.S.

Bill Hagerty is a conservative Republican Senator from Tennessee.
The Washington Post story is playing nicely in the United States, where suspicions about China’s military ambitions are already quite pronounced.  It’s notable, however, that Senator Hagerty would consider the small base that ...
by Eric Olander

Wang Yi Wraps Up Central Asia Tour With Promises of Closer Economic and Security Ties

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi poses for a photo with his counterparts from five Central Asian nations during the C+C5 meeting in Kazakhstan. Image via Xinhua.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is heading home after a four-day trip to Kazakhstan this week, where he sought to bolster trade and security ties with five Central Asian countries. The group, known ...
by Eric Olander

Biden Didn’t Say the Word “China” in His Summit of the Americas Speech But He Didn’t Have to Since Everyone Knew It Was on His Mind

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during the opening ceremony of the 9th Summit of the Americas at the Los Angeles Convention Center on June 8, 2022. Jim WATSON / AFP
U.S. President Joe Biden opened the three-day Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles with a new economic plan and a promise to re-engage countries in the Western Hemisphere… that is, friendly countries in the ...
by Eric Olander

Inflation, Supply Chain Woes Hit Chinese Supermarkets in Argentina

Supermarket owner in Buenos Aires. Image via iProfessional.
Supply chain disruptions and inflation are driving Chinese shopkeepers out of Argentina’s major cities to the countryside and even to neighboring countries. An Asian business association said rising rents and staff costs mean ...
by Cobus van Staden

China, Kazakhstan Worry About “Spillover” From the War In Ukraine to Countries in Central Asia

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meeting Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Nur-Sultan. Image via the Kazakh International News Agency.
Concerns that the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine will spread to Central Asia was a key topic of conversation on Tuesday during talks between Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. ...
by Eric Olander

Alibaba Launches New Cloud Computing Venture in Saudi Arabia

TWEET TRANSLATION:The launched its new cloud computing joint venture with China’s Alibaba which includes two data centers in Riyadh. The company will provide cloud computing services to meet growing demand in Saudi Arabia ...
by Eric Olander

Gulf Countries’ Silence on China Uyghur Issue Becomes Focal Point in Anti-Islam Dispute With India

Headline from the popular Indian news channel News18.
The escalating dispute between India and Persian Gulf governments over incendiary anti-Islamic comments made by the ruling BJP’s national spokeswoman Nupur Sharma over the weekend is now drawing attention to Gulf countries’ ...
by Eric Olander

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Revealing Reactions to China’s Festival of Optics

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 ...

Huawei’s Former Premium Brand Phone Tries to Reboot in South Africa

The latest line of HONOR 70 Series from the Shenzhen-based company that used to be a unit of telecom giant Huawei. Image via HONOR.
Huawei’s now independent high-end smartphone brand HONOR, which was spun off in 2020 in response to crippling U.S. sanctions, is now setting its sights on the South African mobile market. The company said ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Top Africa Diplomat is Getting Back on the Road Again

Wu Peng is the Director-General of the Department of African Affairs at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
China’s top diplomat for Africa, Wu Peng, embarked on a seven-nation tour of the continent on Tuesday, his first visit to the continent since last November.  He’s far more ...
by Eric Olander

U.S. Worried (Again) About New Chinese Military Base… This Time in Cambodia

File image of Cambodian navy personnel at the Ream naval base in Preah Sihanouk province, which China is reportedly expanding. TANG CHHIN Sothy / AFP
Ream Naval Base, a naval facility in Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand currently being expanded by Chinese contractors, will accommodate Chinese military vessels, according to reports in The Washington Post and other publications.  ...
by Cobus van Staden

New Mining Project in Eritrea Proves Again China Willing to Invest Where Others Dare Not

Chinese ambassador Cai Ge, cutting the ribbon to inaugurate Eritrea's new Asmara polymetallic mine. Image via Chinese embassy in Eritrea.
A new half a billion-dollar mining project in Eritrea reaffirms China’s reputation for investing in countries that others find too risky. China’s ambassador to Asmara, Cai Ge, led a groundbreaking ceremony last week ...
by Cobus van Staden

Kenyan Election Campaign Targets Chinese Loans

File image of Garissa Township MP Aden Duale, an outspoken critic of Chinese lending to Kenya. TONY KARUMBA / AFP
Chinese loans are looming large as Kenya gears up for its presidential election. Aden Duale, an MP for the opposition leader William Ruto’s Kwanza Coalition, singled out loans as a cause of corruption at an ...
by Cobus van Staden

Communist Party of China Appoints New Diplomatic Head

File image of Liu Jianchao, the Communist Party of China's top foreign policy lead. KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP
The Communist Party of China (CPC) has appointed Liu Jianchao as the new head of its International Liaison Department, the Party’s diplomatic arm. Liu is the former ambassador to Indonesia and the Philippines. He also headed the Central Commission ...
by Cobus van Staden

China is Failing Big Time in Its Effort to Get the Jerusalem Post to Unpublish Interview With Taiwan FM Joseph Wu

Chinese embassies around the world, particularly in small and middle-sized countries, are accustomed to using aggressive tactics with local media whenever they feel an outlet has violated one of Beijing’s so-called “red lines” ...
by Eric Olander

Kenyan Parliament to Investigate Debunked SGR Rumors

A Kenyan parliamentary oversight committee wants to review the controversial contract for the Chinese-built Standard Gauge Railway. But rather than addressing the contract’s opacity, it will again focus on the rumor that it ...
by Cobus van Staden

Mapping China’s Influence Tools in Africa

How does China build influence in Africa and the wider Global South? A new report from the hawkish U.S. think tank, the National Bureau of Asian Research features prominent researchers’ accounts of different ...
by Cobus van Staden

WEEK IN REVIEW: Chinese Oil Major Sinopec and Algerian Oil Giant Sonatrach Signed a $500 Million deal to Drill for Oil and Gas

Johannes EISELE / AFP
Chinese oil major Sinopec and Algerian oil giant Sonatrach signed a half-a-billion dollar deal to drill for oil and gas in the Zaarzaitine field, 1500km from Algiers. Under the new agreement, the two ...
by Eric Olander

China’s About to Buy a Lot More Russian Oil and That’s Bad News for Iran

Iran’s once steady business of selling large quantities of oil to China’s independent refineries may soon become the latest casualty of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  For years, China provided Iran a vital cash ...
by Eric Olander

Republican Senators Find New Reason to Hate the Iran Nuclear Deal… China

Marsha Blackburn is a Republican Senator from Tennessee.
Conservative Republicans in the U.S. Senate are well-known for their disdain for Iran. They’re also equally opposed to the Communist Party of China. So, it’s a no-brainer then to combine the two into ...
by Eric Olander

China Tried (and Failed) to Intimidate Israeli Newspaper Editor Over Interview With Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu

Yaakov Katz is the Editor in Chief of the Jerusalem Post newspaper.
Chinese diplomats around the world have a well-earned reputation for personally calling journalists and their editors (including this publication) to express their objections, often rudely, when there is coverage they don’t like — ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese, Algerian Legislative Leaders Meet

TWEET TRANSLATION: The Speaker of the National Assembly Algeria, Salih Gojil, spoke on Tuesday, via video, with Wang Yang, chairman of the National Council of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference China, where they reviewed ways to advance bilateral relations in the interest of the two peoples and two countries. Two friends.
The head of Algeria’s National Assembly, Salih Gojil, met on Tuesday with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yang, chairman of China’s rubber-stamp legislature known by its acronym CPPCC. Based on the read-out from the ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Tecno Brand Dominates Kenyan Mobile Phone Market

Tecno retailer in Nairobi, Kenya. by Cliff Mboya/CGSP.
Kenya’s mobile phone market shrank by 9% in the first quarter of the year, according to new data from technology consultancy IDC, but even a drop that large didn’t budge Transsion’s Tecno brand from ...
by Eric Olander

The Chinese-Built Standard Gauge Railway Turned Five This Week

Celebrations at the debut of the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya on May 31, 2017. Simon Mania/AFP.
This week marked the five-year anniversary of the Chinese-financed and built Standard Gauge Railway that officially launched on May 31, 2017. The milestone was largely ignored by the Kenyan press but was noted ...
by Eric Olander
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