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The following is a transcript of a seven-part Twitter thread written by World Politics Review Associate Editor Chris Olaoluwa Ògúnmọ́dẹdé on what he believes the U.S. doesn't understand about why African governments choose to engage with China.

Because U.S. perceptions of the ideas and preferences underlining Africa-China relations are skewed, it fails to spot the (many) areas of weakness. It also can't offer a credible value proposition, since US policy ends up being at odds with views & developments on the continent.

As I've written about too many times, to say nothing of Africa-China specialists from the continent and elsewhere, African countries don't see ties with China as the be-all and end-all of their foreign relations.

It's a crucial relationship, for sure, but by no means the only one.

Also, and as I constantly feel the need to reiterate, Africa is a continent of 54 countries and an estimated 1.4 billion with different views, cultures and political systems. The U.S. gets so much wrong in its engagement with the continent, but guess what? So does China!

Africans want infrastructure projects and industrialization, for sure. They desire "softer" items like loans and scholarships. But systems and processes also matter to them. It's not binary, but when forced to see it as such, they mostly see only China following through.

All the evidence available suggests that Africans see the merits and drawbacks of the two countries' approaches. They also want better relations w/ both. But because they believe only one side (China) makes a credible effort to improve, Beijing's arguments resonate better by default.

To be sure, Washington's continuous sniping from the side about "China in Africa" has some salience, not least because of Chinese shortcomings on the continent. But inevitably, Africans can *see* evidence of much they like about relations with China.

And that's where Washington's great-power framework will run into trouble on the continent, "Africa strategy" notwithstanding. Africans don't want binaries, but if forced to take a side, they're likely to lean toward those who they believe can be trusted.

Read the thread of Chris Olaoluwa Ògúnmọ́dẹdé's Twitter page.

The re-arrest of a Chinese national deported from Ghana in 2018 for illegal small-scale gold mining (known in Ghana as galamsey) is causing a media sensation and raising many embarrassing questions.

Reporting about the arrest of En (aka Aisha) Huang has now moved to how she managed to acquire a national ID card despite being arrested and deported four years earlier. 

Why the Aisha Huang Incident is Awkward for the Ghanaian Government:

• RE-ENTRY: Huang reportedly entered the country through an official immigration checkpoint. Government spokespeople tried to turn this into a success story, pointing out that the re-entry triggered investigations that eventually led to her arrest.

• IDENTITY CARD: However, the revelation that she managed to acquire a new national identity card under a fake name, even though her biometric details were already on the system, has led to media investigations and derision online. Ghana's National Identification Authority has denied issuing the new card, raising questions about possible corruption within the system.

• BUSINESSES: It also turns out that several businesses owned by Huang kept running, despite her deportation in 2018. Embarrassingly, the government wasn't aware the businesses were still running. They have apparently all been shut down now. 

Huang and three other Chinese nationals have pleaded not guilty to charges of unlicensed mining and mineral trade. Their trial is expected to start on September 14. 

SUGGESTED READING:  

• GhanaWeb: How Aisha Huang Got Her Ghana Card
• MyJoy Online: 'Aisha Huang Does Not Exist in Our System' - NIA Denies Issuing Ghana Card 

The Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD will set up its first production facility in Thailand.

The move is expected to put pressure on other manufacturers who are also foregrounding Thai business due to a coming government subsidy expected to boost the sales of electric vehicles. (NIKKEI ASIA)

A broad cross-section of the international financial community is warning that Sri Lanka's major creditors must move quickly to restructure the country's debts or else full-scale economic collapse is inevitable.

The latest warning signal came from the Hong Kong office of Fitch Ratings which cautioned that Colombo would have to default again on a portion of its debt obligations, this time local bonds, unless the debt restructuring process speeds up. 

Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki last Friday implored Sri Lanka's other major bilateral creditors, specifically India and China, to meet right away to discuss a restructuring deal. Japan and China each own about 10% of Sri Lanka's external debt.

But despite Tokyo's urgent appeal, it does not appear that either New Delhi or Beijing is keen to move quickly as neither has so far responded.

Why is the Debt Situation in Sri Lanka Different Than In Zambia?

• GEOPOLITICS: Getting China and its rivals India and Japan to agree on anything these days is difficult, and even more so under duress. China and India are both suspicious of the other's intentions in Sri Lanka, while Beijing's historically bitter ties with Tokyo make it politically difficult for Xi Jinping to acquiesce to any Japanese demands, especially now in the run-up to the 20th Party Congress.

• NO G20 FRAMEWORK: China likes the structure of the G20's Common Framework (CF) that Zambia employed to restructure its external debt. This is, in part, why China also embraced Ethiopia's debt restructuring process that will also take place as part of the CF. But Sri Lanka didn't sign up for the CF and so there's no formal process other than through the IMF to negotiate a settlement. This might explain, in part, Beijing's apparent reluctance to take the lead in Sri Lanka as it did in Zambia.

SUGGESTED READING:

• The Sankei Shimbun: Aid Sri Lanka, But Ask to Eliminate China’s Influence on Military, Politics by the Editorial Board
• Reuters: Sri Lanka has an IMF deal, now it courts China and India by Marc Jones and Uditha Jayasinghe

Aisha Huang made a stunning reappearance in Ghana this week when she appeared in an Accra circuit court with three accomplices to face charges of illegal mining.

Huang is one of the most famous characters in Ghana's years-long effort to combat illegal mining. In the 2010s, Huang was known as the "Galamsey Queen" for her large-scale illegal mining operations in Ghana. After she was arrested and later convicted, the government deported her back to China, where she apparently changed her identity and snuck back into Ghana.

The significance of this case is that it undermines the long-established practice in many African countries of convicted Chinese nationals being deported rather than forced to serve their jail sentences in the country where they committed the offense. It will be interesting to watch what happens to Huang if she's convicted for a second time and whether the court requires her to complete her sentence in Ghana. (GRAPHIC ONLINE)

China's ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Deng Xijun, published a scathing op-ed in The Jakarta Post on Tuesday aimed at debunking the recently published report on Xinjiang by the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Deng said the OHCHR report was an "illegal document" filled with "lies" and was part of a U.S. "scheme" to discredit China.

None of Deng's arguments are new. Other Chinese diplomats have made the same rebuttal countless times. What's interesting, though, is the fact that he's making such a forceful case in the influential Jakarta Post newspaper, Indonesia's largest English-language newspaper, in the world's largest Muslim-majority country.

China has been very effective in keeping influential Muslim countries like Indonesia, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia on the sidelines of the Xinjiang issue.

The strident tone of Deng's column also speaks to the confidence among Chinese representatives when presenting their case on Xinjiang and the issue of Muslim human rights in countries where that's often a very sensitive issue in other contexts (e.g., when it involves the mistreatment of Muslims by the United States, Israel or India).

Read the full column on The Jakarta Post website.

Chinese embassies in Africa organized the first-ever #ChinaAfricaSpaceTalk on Tuesday that connected young people across the continent with three astronauts aboard the Chinese Space Station.

The event, organized in conjunction with the African Union, was an undeniable public diplomacy success as it generated significant positive news coverage in local African and MENA media and social media.

The three astronauts fielded questions about whether they could see the Sahara desert from space, what kind of food they eat and whether female astronauts receive any preferential treatment.

SUGGESTED READING AND VIEWING:

• CGTN: China Space Station: Shenzhou-14 taikonauts talk with African youths by Cao Qingqing
• Xinhua: Chinese astronauts talk from space with African youth

The Paris-based news service Africa Intelligence published an extensive report on Monday that details how the United States, despite its best efforts, has been unable to diminish China's current dominance of the Congolese mining sector. It reports that Washington is "disillusioned" with President Félix Tshisekedi over the issue.

Africa Intelligence published highlights of the story in a six-part thread on its Twitter page:

Ever since Félix Tshisekedi took power, Washington had hoped he would curb China's huge influence in the country. Four years later, the United States is bitterly disappointed.

In March 2022, Amos Hochstein, an adviser to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, arrived in Lubumbashi. The mining city, which looks like a quaint rural town, is one of the places where cobalt, copper, and a part of the world's energy future are traded.

Hochstein, who is said to be close to US President Joe Biden, is one of the people devising the new U.S. strategy on the subject. He led the Bureau of Energy Resources under Obama, an office involved in the country's energy security.

In Lubumbashi, Hochstein enquired about the fight against child labor and fiscal transparency at Gécamines. But above all, he was focused on the delicate question of the renegotiation of mining contracts.

The majority of current Congolese contracts were sealed under Kabila. Among those signed in vague circumstances with Chinese groups, the US is particularly interested in the Tenke Fungurume copper and cobalt mine, a subsidiary of the Chinese group CMOC.

Washington wants to take advantage of its proximity to Tshisekedi to audit these contracts and reduce Beijing's influence. CMOC is suspected of deliberately underestimating the mine's available reserves in order to avoid paying royalties to its Congolese state partner.

The head of one of China's largest mining companies in the DR Congo, Li Sheng, traveled last week from the southern cobalt and copper belt in the south to do some in-person lobbying in the capital Kinshasa.

Top of the agenda was a meeting with Infrastructure and Public Works Minister Alexis Gisaro to provide a personal reassurance that the billions of dollars of promised roads, power stations and other infrastructure are still on schedule.

Li is undoubtedly concerned about the mounting problems that China Moly is experiencing at the massive Tenke Fungurume mine, currently embroiled in a bitter stand-off with state-run mining company Gécamines. The dispute has led to a blockade of the mine, with trucks no longer able to leave.

Sicomines said the meeting was productive although it's hard to tell since Gisaro did not comment nor was there any local news coverage of the occasion.

Read more on the Li-Gisaro meeting in Kinshasa on the Africa Yellow and Black WeChat page (in Chinese).

Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa said he's willing to send charter planes to China to bring back engineers and other high-skilled infrastructure experts to Zimbabwe so they can finish critical infrastructure projects.

The President made the offer during a tour of the Hwange Power Station and the Gwayi Shangani Dam. Construction on both projects was disrupted due to Chinese COVID-19 travel restrictions. Many of the engineers returned to China in January for the Lunar New Year holiday and could not return to Zimbabwe. (ZIMBABWE CHINESE NETWORK)

China and Japan are collectively financing half a billion dollars worth of Kenyan infrastructure projects in the current fiscal year, more than any other country, according to new data from the National Treasury in Nairobi.

Chinese loans and grants in the 2022-2023 fiscal year total $245 million, while Japanese creditors have provided $258 million for various roads and other projects currently in development.

The report also listed France ($175 million), the United States ($93 million) and Germany ($84 million) as the other top funders of Kenyan infrastructure this year.

Key Japanese and Chinese-financed Infrastructure Projects in Kenya:

• CHINA: Construction of the Nairobi Western bypass ($43 million), the Konza Data Centre ($30 million) and power generation and transmission projects valued at more than $200 million.

• JAPAN: Tokyo pledged $146 million over the 2022-23 financial year in infrastructure projects in Mombasa County alone. These include Phase 2 of the Mombasa Port Area Road Development Project ($42 million), construction of the Mombasa Gate Bridge ($80 million) and the Dongo Kundu Special Economic Zone ($21 million).

Read more on this story on The Standard website.

A report in the state-run newspaper China Daily that touted China's "investments" in Africa's burgeoning sustainable energy sector was misleading and highlights a common problem surrounding the use of the word "investments" in the context of Chinese economic engagement on the continent.

"Chinese investments in renewable energy are increasing rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa," the article stated right from the beginning. The problem is that "investment" is a rather flexible word. All the examples cited in the article were of projects financed via Chinese loans or built by Chinese contractors. But none were investments in the conventional use of the word, where the Chinese side assumed the risk by taking an equity stake in the projects.

The bulk of the risk associated with the projects cited in the article was on the African borrowers' side. The Chinese creditors and contractors assumed much less risk and often benefited from the security of sovereign-backed loans -- meaning the likelihood of repayment is almost guaranteed.

So, it's not accurate that China is "investing" in Africa's clean energy market -- at least according to the conventional definition of investment. Instead, it's providing financing and competitive contracting services, which are no doubt important but not the same as actually investing and sharing the risk burden.