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

One of China’s Leading Africa Scholars Explains the Difference Between the Chinese and Western “Offer” to Africa

NOTE: This is an update to an earlier story that we showcased this week about a primetime talk show on the national Chinese TV network Dragon TV that featured ...
by Eric Olander

One of China’s Leading Foreign Policy Think Tanks Proposes 5 Ways the U.S. and China Can Work Together To Resolve the Debt Crisis in the Global South

Two scholars at the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies (SIIS), one of China’s most prestigious and influential foreign policy think tanks, published an uncharacteristically direct appeal for the United States and ...
by Eric Olander

In Glasgow, Biden Positioned His Global Infrastructure Plan Against China’s Without Actually Saying “China”

US President Joe Biden addresses a press conference at the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow on November 2, 2021. Brendan Smialowski / AFP
U.S. President Joe Biden addressed the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland on Tuesday. He used some of his time to restate the broad principles guiding his Build Back Better World ...
by Eric Olander

New Chinese-Financed and Constructed Airport Opens in Southern Nigeria

The newly-built Anambra International Airport in Nigeria.
The governor of the southern Nigerian state of Anambra officially took delivery on Saturday of a new international airport from the China Railway Beijing Engineering Bureau. The project was also wholly financed by Chinese ...
by Eric Olander

Why One of the Boldest Experiments in Chinese Infrastructure Financing in Africa May Only Benefit Wealthy Motorists

The nearly completed Nairobi Expressway. Photo by Cliff Mboya/CAP
There’s growing excitement in the Kenyan capital that congestion-weary motorists will finally get some relief, now that the 27-kilometer Nairobi Expressway is nearing completion. Years of construction have further snarled the city’s already ...
by Eric Olander

Kenyan Startup BasiGo Begins Selling Locally-Manufactured BYD Electric Buses From China

The mobility startup Basigo on Tuesday officially launched operations in Nairobi, where it is now manufacturing electric-powered buses from kits imported from the Chinese EV giant BYD. BasiGo will sell ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Man Awarded Honorary Chieftan Title in Central Nigeria

Cong Hui (丛辉) from Shandong Province was awarded the title of Wakilin Raya Kasan Keffi in Nigeria by the Emir of Keffi Shehu Chindo Yamusa III in Nasarawa State.
The chief of the central Nigerian town of Keffi in Nasarawa State awarded a local chieftain title to the Shandong native Cong Hui (丛辉) in appreciation of his contributions to economic development in ...
by Eric Olander

Uganda’s Museveni Calls on China to Grant Full Duty-Free Access For African Products

File image of Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala, on June 4, 2021. Badru KATUMBA / AFP
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called on China to further expand duty-free access to its vast market for African products. In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg News, the president acknowledged that ...
by Eric Olander

How China is Facilitating Africa’s “Structural Transformation”

Source: Aiddata.com, Version 2.0 accessed on October 7, 2021. Note: Composition of the 3,126 completed and “recommended for aggregates” projects in Africa financed or co-financed by China 2000-2017, by sector. The health sector accounted for 24 percent of the total project count. But by amount of finance, energy and transport were the two largest subsectors, as these projects are large in size and long term.
For much of the past 20 years, China has been the indispensable actor in African infrastructure development, financing the construction of thousands of kilometers of new railways and roads along with ports, airports, ...
by Eric Olander

Huawei North Africa CEO Says Company Remains Committed to Africa Amid the Pandemic and Pressure From U.S.

Huawei's CEO for North Africa, Terry He. Image via Huawei.
Huawei’s CEO for North Africa, Terry He (photo), struck a defiant tone in a recent interview with the French newsweekly Le Point about the challenges the telecom giant is facing from ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Embassy in DRC and Sicomines React With Fury to Social Video That Purportedly Shows Exhumation of Mine Worker Killed on the Job

TWEET TRANSLATION: I strongly condemn the defamation and demonization against the Chinese community and businesses. These are unworthy acts which only seek to sow discord between peoples from China and the DRC.
China’s ambassador to the DR Congo, Zhu Jing, reacted angrily on Monday to a video circulating on Congolese Twitter that purportedly shows a Sicomines worker exhuming the corpse of one ...
by Eric Olander

Egypt Takes Delivery of 2 Million Doses of Sinovac Vaccines

Some of the two million Sinovac vaccines that arrived from China in Cairo on Monday.
Two million doses of Chinese-made Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Egypt on Monday, adding to the total of more than 14 million jabs Beijing has provided Cairo. The Ministry of Health said the ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Vaccine Shipments to Africa Edge Up Slightly Last Week But Still Lag Far Behind Other Regions

Shipments of COVID-19 vaccines from China to various African countries is now closing in on 100 million doses delivered. But overall the number of jabs committed to the continent is a small fraction ...
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 ...

With FOCAC Coming, China-Africa Relations Gain New Prominence on National TV in China

China's top diplomat for sub-Saharan Africa, Wu Peng, and Fudan University Professor Zhang Weiwei discuss China-Africa relations on the national network Dragon TV.
Two of China’s leading authorities on Sino-African relations appeared in a nationally-broadcast hour-long show to discuss the current state of Chinese engagement in Africa and to answer questions from a studio audience. The ...
by Eric Olander

Uganda’s Finance Minister Grilled by Parliament Over Chinese Airport Construction Loan, Apologized for Oversights

Uganda Finance Minister Matia Kasaija. Image via the Uganda Ministry of Finance.
Uganda’s Finance Minister Matia Kasaija apologized to parliament last week for the mishandling of the $207 million loan from the China Exim Bank to expand Entebbe International Airport. “I apologize that we shouldn’t have ...
by Eric Olander

Kenya’s Transport Minister Tours Almost-Finished Chinese-Built Nairobi Expressway, Promises Traffic Relief by Christmas

Kenya Cabinet Secretary for Transportation James Wainaina Macharia during an inspection of the Nairobi Expressway. Image via The Star.
Kenya’s Transportation Cabinet Secretary James Macharia led journalists on a tour of the nearly-completed Nairobi Expressway, one day after a small section of the road opened to motorists for the ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Wants to Integrate the Port of Mombasa Into Overland Trade Routes in Asia

China's ambassador to Kenya, Zhou Pingjiang (left) at the Kenya Ports Authority. Image via @Kenya_Ports.
China’s ambassador to Kenya, Zhou Pingjian, met on Friday with leaders from the Kenya Port Authority (KPA) to discuss further integration of the Port of Mombasa with the Belt and Road, specifically linking ...
by Eric Olander

Biden-Tshisekedi Meet on Sidelines of G20

US President Joe Biden and DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi joke during a group photo at the G20 leaders summit on October 30, 2021. Erin SCHAFF / POOL / AFP
DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi met one-on-one with his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, on Friday in the run-up to the G20 summit that took place over the weekend in Rome.  There’s been a ...
by Eric Olander

Why Some of the Most Interesting Discussions Surrounding FOCAC Won’t be in the Conference Hall

Anticipation is growing about the upcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation conference that is expected to take place at the end of the month in Dakar. While we still don’t know what will be ...
by Eric Olander

Week in Review: Sanctions, Supply Chains & Security

South African police investigate the latest in a string of carjackings and robberies targeting the local Chinese community. Image via South Africa Daily WeChat.
Three robbery-hijackings in a week have put South Africa’s Chinese community on edge. The latest incident occurred last week in the Humewood area of Port Elizabeth where like the previous two incidents an ethnic ...
by Eric Olander

The Worst May Be Over For Embattled Chinese Mining Giant Sicomines

TRANSLATION: The Sino-Congolese mining company - Sicomines' impressive contribution in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company is improving DRC's infrastructure and industrial sectors.
The Sino-Congolese mining company Sicomines, which has been under intense scrutiny for the past several months over its 2007 contract with the government, is now communicating with a sense of confidence that gives ...
by Eric Olander

CARI Researchers Critique AidData’s Report on Chinese “Hidden Debt” in BRI Countries

AidData’s landmark research report published last month, “Banking on the Belt and Road,” generated tremendous media coverage around the world, particularly related to the report’s finding that $385 billion ...
by Eric Olander

With New Chinese Money Hard to Come By, Kenya’s Treasury Turns to the Bond Market to Finance Infrastructure

Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP
The Kenyan government is making preparations to float its largest-ever bond offering, a record $1.3 billion (Sh150 billion) issuance. It will be used to settle debts with contractors, possibly including some Chinese companies, ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese State Media: Blame the U.S. For the Coup in Sudan

HEADLINE TRANSLATION: Who's behind the rebellion in Sudan? (they use the characters 黑手 which means "black hands")
Although the Chinese Foreign Ministry has been largely silent this week about the military coup in Sudan, the country’s largest television broadcaster, CCTV (央视新闻), appears to be framing the story in a way ...
by Eric Olander

Two Chinese Experts Call for Beijing to Do More to Provide Non-Vaccine Assistance to Combat COVID in Africa

A shipment of Sinopharm COVID vaccines arriving in the Ivory Coast as part of a distribution through the global COVAX alliance. Image via Xinhua.
Simply shipping more jabs to Africa will not be enough to fulfill Chinese President Xi Jinping’s commitment to make COVID vaccines a “global public good,” argued two experts in a column published this ...
by Eric Olander

In Phone Call With Macron, Xi Pursues Trilateral Development Cooperation in Africa

File image of French President Emmanuel Macron shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 6, 2019. NICOLAS ASFOURI / POOL / AFP
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in a phone call on Tuesday that the European Union should pursue greater autonomy (presumably from the U.S.) in its foreign policy. The ...
by Eric Olander

Jake Sullivan: B3W Will Show How Americans Can Outcompete China on Infrastructure

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaking to the media in the White Press Briefing Room.
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (photo) reiterated what’s has become a common talking point in Washington: that the administration’s Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative is going to challenge China’s Belt and ...
by Eric Olander

If the U.S. is Going to Compete Against China’s BRI, Then It’s Going to Have to Mobilize the Private Sector… And That Won’t Be Easy

If the proposed B3W has any chance of rivaling China’s eight-year-old Belt and Road Initiative, the U.S. government is going to have to persuade development finance institutions, private companies, and Wall Street that ...
by Eric Olander
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