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

African Ambassadors to China and UN Officials in Horn of Africa Hold Talks

The United Nations Resident Coordinator in China, Siddharth Chatterjee, convened an online forum on Monday that included his peers from UN missions throughout the Horn of Africa (HoA) and a group of HoA ambassadors in Beijing ...
by Eric Olander

Israeli Counter Intelligence Services Scramble to Collect Every Mug Given as a Gift By Chinese After Discovering Bug

Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet is moving quickly to identify all foreign gifts given to government officials after locating a listening device in a thermal mug given by China, according to reports from ...
by Eric Olander

China’s DRC Envoy Seeks to Mend Fences With the Country’s Powerful Mining Company

WEET TRANSLATION: [During my meeting] with Mr. Alphonse Kaputo, CEO of Gécamines, I reiterated China's desire to sustainably support the DRC in the recovery of its mining sector and to [help the country] become an industrial power.
China’s ambassador to the DR Congo, Zhu Jing, paid a visit on Monday to meet Alphonse Kaputo, the powerful chairman of the country’s state-run mining company Gécamines. The courtesy call was no doubt part of ...
by Eric Olander

Zhu’s Other Message in Katanga: See, We Are Building That Infrastructure We Promised

TWEET TRANSLATION: Delighted to visit the l’Hôpital de Référence in Lubumbashi, donated by the Chinese government, which will be operational soon, hoping that this new treasure of cooperation ???? will indeed benefit the people of Katanga.
China has faced withering criticism in the DR Congo over the past year that it has failed to live up to the promises it made to build infrastructure in exchange for access to the country’s ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese State Media: Kenyan Police Detain Terrorism Suspect Scoping Out the New Nairobi Expressway

Police in Nairobi have reportedly detained an individual on Sunday they suspect might have been scoping out the newly-built, soon-to-be-opened Nairobi Expressway to commit an act of terrorism. David Mulinge Kasimbi was allegedly ...
by Eric Olander

Rear Admiral Gives the Clearest Hint to Date About Why the U.S. Is So Concerned About a Chinese Military Base in West Africa

File image of U.S. Rear Admiral Jamie Sands who oversees Special Operations Command for Africa. Image via U.S. Navy Recruit Training Command.
One of the Pentagon’s most senior military officers for Africa provided the clearest indication so far as to why the United States is becoming increasingly anxious over the purported Chinese ambition to build ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Ban on South African Wool is Hitting Farmers Hard

South Africa’s agriculture sector is reeling from China’s decision to ban all imports of products derived from cloven-hoofed animals and their products, following an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the country. ...
by Cobus van Staden

Russia Presses BRICS to Allow Payment Routes Around Sanctions

File image of Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. OLGA MALTSEVA / AFP
As Russia is being squeezed by Western sanctions, it is reaching out to its partners in the BRICS bloc (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) to allow transactions in their local currencies and ...
by Cobus van Staden

Pakistan’s Constitutional Crisis Complicates China’s Position in the Region

Supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of dismissed Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan, take part in a rally in his support in Peshawar on April 10, 2022. Abdul MAJEED / AFP
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan is out, after losing a last-minute no-confidence vote in the country’s parliament on April 9. This follows a dramatic week of maneuvering to avoid the vote, which Khan has blamed on a ...
by Cobus van Staden

Against Debt Trap Allegations as Financial Crisis Worsens

People wait in a queue to buy diesel at a Ceylon Petroleum Corporation fuel station in Colombo on April 9, 2022. The shortages of essentials have been caused by a wide-ranging import ban as Sri Lanka seeks to conserve its meager foreign currency reserves to pay its debts. AFP
As Sri Lankan society buckles under an economic crisis fueled in part by an enormous debt burden, China is pushing back against allegations that it stranded the desperate country in a ‘debt trap.’ ...
by Cobus van Staden

Language Barriers Make their Expected Appearance in Zim-China Fight

Tawanda Majoni and African Empire Group chairperson Steve Ke Zhao
As the battle between Chinese companies and civil society groups in Zimbabwe drags on, spokespeople for the Chinese side are drawing on some evergreen classics of Africa-China discourse: language barriers and unfair press coverage. Speaking ...
by Cobus van Staden

How a Small Group of Negotiators in Benin Got China to Play Ball

Chinese loan contracts to African countries are increasingly controversial, raising questions as to how African negotiators can get better deals. One of the world’s foremost experts on Africa-China negotiations, Folashade Soule, recently published ...
by Cobus van Staden

Congress Needs to Fund AFRICOM to Combat Growing Chinese and Russian Influence in Africa, Says Commander

AFRICOM Commander General Stephen Townsend testifying before the House Armed Services Committee. Image via @HouseForeign.
The commander for U.S. forces in Africa (AFRICOM), General Stephen Townsend, was back on Capitol Hill to testify before lawmakers about why it’s critical they continue to support his operation. Not surprisingly, China ...
by Eric Olander

Fears that China Will Seize Mombasa Port Unfounded: Upcoming Report

One of the many inaccurate headlines that was published in the Kenyan press about the country's Chinese loans used to build the Standard Gauge Railway.
Throughout the last two years, Kenya has been rattled by reports that its debt to China for the troubled Standard Gauge Railway could lead to the seizure of the Port of Mombasa. Since then this ...
by Cobus van Staden

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

CGSP Take: How Does the Venezuela Crisis Affect China’s Relationship with the Global South?

By Cobus van Staden, CGSP Head of Research,
China has sharply criticized the Trump administration’s incursion into Venezuela and its detention of President Nicolás Maduro. 

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World Bank Raises the Alarm About African Debt Distress (Again)

Chart showing the composition of external debt and risk of debt distress for eastern and southern African countries under the SDFP, as of December 31, 2021. Source: World Bank, International Debt Statistics Database.
For the second time in a week, the World Bank has raised the alarm about mounting debt in Africa. A new blog post shows that not only has public debt in Southern and Eastern Africa ...
by Cobus van Staden

U.S. Moves to Cut Russia Out of the G20 Could Hit African Economies

U.S. Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen testifies during a US House Committee on Financial Services hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on April 6, 2022. SAUL LOEB / AFP
The U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Russia should be expelled from the Group of 20 (G20) the forum of leading economies that plays a major role in international economic management. She also ...
by Cobus van Staden

Chinese-Made Electric Buses Launch in Nairobi

A still from a CGTN report on the launch of BYD buses in Nairobi
The Kenyan mobility startup BasiGo has assembled its first electric buses, using components from the Chinese automaker Build Your Dream (BYD). BasiGo closed a $4.3 million seed funding round in February to assemble and sell ...
by Cobus van Staden

Zimbabwe’s Chinese-Built Parliament Building Completed

The newly-built Zimbabwe parliament building that was financed by the Chinese government.
Zimbabwe’s new Chinese-built parliament building has been completed and is now awaiting official validation, according to a government spokesperson. Shanghai Construction Group is reportedly adding the final touches to the building’s exterior. The ...
by Cobus van Staden

African Takedown of Western Stereotypes Goes Viral in China

Nigerian TikTok influencer Charity Amaka Ekezie, whose video making fun of stereotypes about Africa went viral on Chinese social media
This video of a woman addressing many of the demeaning stereotypes about Africa and Africans is now going viral on the Chinese social video site Bilibili where it’s been re-posted multiple times and ...
by Cobus van Staden

Nigerian Garment Union Calls Out Local Officials in Fight Against Cheap Chinese Imports

File image of Nigeria Customers Service officer.
Nigeria’s national union of textile workers is complaining about the complicity of customs officials in the flooding of the local market by Chinese textiles. While cheap imports from China have long been blamed ...
by Cobus van Staden

Transsion Financial Disclosure Provides Rare Insights Into Its Booming Mobile Phone Business in Africa

Ad for Tecno Mobile, one of Transsion's three mobile phone brands that now dominate the African market. Image via Transsion.
Shenzhen-based African mobile phone giant Transsion provided a rare glimpse into its financial performance in a disclosure document that went out to 244 Chinese institutional investors. Even though Transsion is a publicly-traded company on ...
by Eric Olander

Understanding the Middle East’s Unique Opportunities and Challenges for China

China's Special Envoy for the Middle East, Zhai Jun, meeting with Saudia Arabian Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir during a March 2022 visit to Riyadh. Image via the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
China is rapidly escalating its relationships with countries in the Middle East. However, the region still represents a tricky set of challenges for Beijing. So argues Andrea Ghiselli, a prominent watcher of China-Middle East relations at ...
by Cobus van Staden

China’s ASEAN Ambassador Warns U.S. About the Dangers of Encircling China the Way NATO Did With Russia

File image of Deng Xijun, China's ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Image via Xinhua.
Chinese anxiety about being encircled by the United States and its allies goes back decades but is taking on a new urgency today amid the ongoing war in Eastern Europe. Almost immediately after ...
by Eric Olander

Japan Wants to Keep India in the Quad, Aims to Enlarge the China-Containing Bloc, Says Former PM

Keeping India in the Quad is crucial, even though New Delhi has so far refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. The Quad (short for Quadrilateral ...
by Cobus van Staden

All Smiles as DR Congo’s New Ambassador Takes up Duties in China

DR Congo Ambassador François Nkuna Balumuene presented his credentials to Hong Lei from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Image via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
François Nkuna Balumuene, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s new ambassador to China, presented his credentials to Hong Lei, the Director-General of the Protocol Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week. The new ambassador ...
by Cobus van Staden

Chinese Embassies in Africa Commemorate the Lives Lost in African Infrastructure Projects 

Staff from Chinese two Chinese diplomatic missions in Equatorial Guinea commemorate the annual Tombs Sweeping holiday and pay tribute to fallen Chinese expatriates. Image via @EmbChinaGE.
Chinese embassies in several African countries this week commemorated Chinese personnel who died while building African infrastructure. The occasion was this week’s Qingming (Tomb-Sweeping) Festival (清明节) when people clear the graves of relatives ...
by Cobus van Staden

China Donates Trucks, Non-Lethal Equipment to the Kenya’s Military

For the second time in a month, China is providing an East African military with a sizable donation of non-lethal equipment and support vehicles. On Monday, Kenya’s Defense Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa took delivery ...
by Eric Olander

Zimbabwe’s Top Leaders Bestow Awards on Chinese Steel and Mining Companies

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa along with VP Constantine Chiwenga and Mining Minister Winston Chitanda awarded three Chinese steel and mining companies with the country’s inaugural Mining Excellence Awards last week at a ceremony at the ...
by Eric Olander

Illegal Fishing, Human Rights Abuses Rampant Aboard China’s Distant Fishing Trawlers in SE Asia and Africa, Says NGO

There are new allegations of widespread environmental abuses and human rights violations committed by crews aboard China’s distant water fishing fleet operating in Southeast Asia and West Africa in particular. A new report ...
by Eric Olander

A Full-on Freak Out is Underway About China’s New Security Pact With the Solomon Islands

A joint security agreement between the Solomon Islands and China is sparking considerable anxiety among government officials, security analysts, and scholars in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States who see it as a direct ...
by Eric Olander
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