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

One of America’s Most Prominent Economists Has a Sober Warning for U.S. Policymakers: Don’t Disengage From Africa

One of America’s most prominent economists, Laurence H. Summers, issued a warning to U.S. policymakers to remain engaged in Africa or else risk ceding influence to China in what he says would be ...
by Eric Olander

Taiwan’s New Rep Office in Somaliland is Really Ramping Up Its COVID-19 Donation Diplomacy

Taiwan’s newly-opened representative office in the capital of the self-declared state of Somaliland is ramping up its COVID-19 donation diplomacy with its latest government-to-government handover of PPE.
by Eric Olander

China-Angola Debt Restructuring Deal Close Says Senior Official

File photo. Chinese President Xi Jinping leads the way for Angola's President Joao Lourenco during a welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 9, 2018. Lourenco is on a state visit to China. GREG BAKER / AFP
The Angolan government is reportedly close to finalizing a deal with Chinese creditors to restructure the $20.1 billion of debts that Luanda owes Beijing, according to an unnamed senior government ...
by Eric Olander

Nigeria’s House Speaker Rallies Other Legislative Leaders Across Africa in New Appeal for Debt Relief

Nigeria’s outspoken Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, is mobilizing his legislative counterparts in half a dozen other African countries, including Kenya, South Africa, and Ethiopia, to speak out on the need ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Top Diplomat for Sub-Saharan Africa Details Four Priorities for Chinese Foreign Policy on the Continent

China’s diplomatic lead for sub-Saharan Africa, Wu Peng, published a lengthy statement on Kenya’s Capital FM radio website on Sunday, detailing Beijing’s four main priorities for its foreign policy in Africa. Wu is ...
by Eric Olander

It May Seem Odd to a Lot of People in Africa But Taiwan is a Really Big Issue for Chinese Diplomacy on the Continent

It’s safe to say that what’s happening in Taiwan these days is not a paramount concern for most African stakeholders. But you wouldn’t know that from the emphasis that senior Chinese officials, including ...
by Eric Olander

Foreign Policy Elder Statesman Herman Cohen Explains Why China is “Not a Problem for the U.S.” in Africa

Former United States diplomat Herman J. Cohen is one of Washington’s foreign policy elder statesmen. Ambassador Cohen served as the U.S. envoy to Gambia and Senegal in the late 1970s and then later ...
by Eric Olander

With So many Big Stars Now Playing in China, the CSL May Be Gaining Traction in Africa

There’s been a noticeable increase in recent weeks in the number of news stories published on African media channels about results from the Chinese Super League (CSL), China’s professional soccer league. A few ...
by Eric Olander

The IMF’s New $1 Billion Loan Package for Angola Shows Just How Little We Know About What’s Going on Behind the Scenes

Tweet by Joseph Cotterill, Southern Africa correspondent for the Financial Times.
The International Monetary Fund’s Executive Board said on Wednesday that it will immediate disburse $1 billion to Angola to help ease the country’s worsening financial crisis. What’s surprising about the announcement ...
by Eric Olander

Malpass Surprised Over Lack of Progress on Emerging Market Commercial Debt Relief

World Bank President David Malpass called on governments, including China, to pressure their countries’ private creditor institutions to do more to help alleviate debt pressures in emerging markets. Malpass is apparently surprised that ...
by Eric Olander

Test Run for New Chinese-built Railway in Nigeria Sparks a Lot of Excitement

Test run of the new Lagos to Ibadan standard gauge railway as the train makes it through the city of Agege. Image via @Rosquorasaqy.
Nigerians got their first look yesterday at the brand new Lagos to Ibadan standard gauge railway, as it conducted its first live test run. This new standard gauge railway is one of eleven ...
by Eric Olander

Asia Society Policy Institute: Weaponizing the Belt and Road Initiative

The U.S.-based Asia Society Policy Institute followed up last week’s launch of its new report “Weaponizing the Belt and Road Initiative” with a compelling webinar discussion with the paper’s ...
by Eric Olander

Taiwan’s New Rep Office in Somaliland Donates Relief Supplies

Somaliland deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister Liban Yousuf Osman receives aid from a representative of the new Taiwan rep office in Hargeisa. Image via @Taiwan_SLD.
Just weeks after it opened, Taiwan’s new representative office in the self-declared state of Somaliland embarked on its first foray into African “donation diplomacy” by providing local officials with humanitarian ...
by Eric Olander

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

BRICS Announces Numerous New Initiatives

The BRICS group wrapped up its two-day leaders’ summit in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. The summit’s final communique is a 16,000-word doorstop that covers numerous issues from economics to education.
The communique avoids any direct mention of the United States, and references to “unilateralism” and other coded criticism are also relatively scarce. Rather, the communique keeps the focus on the BRICS’ vision of the strengthening and reform of the global multilateral system ...

China’s Ambassador to Ethiopia is the Latest High Profile Envoy to Rotate Out

Outgoing Chinese ambassador to Ethiopia Tan Jian speaking with Foreign Affairs Minister Gedu Andargachew. Photo via @mfaethiopia.
China’s outgoing ambassador to Ethiopia, Tan Jian, stopped by the Foreign Ministry in Addis Ababa on Wednesday to say good-bye to Foreign Affairs Minister Gedu Andargachew.
by Eric Olander

Nigeria’s President Buhari Responds to Debt Critics: “We Just Have to Take Loans to do Rail, Roads and Power”

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
President Muhammadu Buhari finally weighed on the debate currently raging in Nigeria over the government’s decision to borrow billions of dollars, including from China, to build badly-needed infrastructure. “We have so many challenges ...
by Eric Olander

CCP “Training Class” With Congo’s Ruling Party Highlights Deepening Chinese Party-to-Party Engagement in Africa

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is steadily making inroads with Africa’s ruling parties by convening seminars like the one held earlier this month with the Republic of Congo’s incumbent Party of Labor. 
by Eric Olander

U.S. & Chinese State-Run Media Channels Go At Each Other in a Seemingly Fruitless Effort to Sway African Public Opinion

With relations between the United States and China rapidly deteriorating, each country’s state-run propaganda outlets are ramping up cynical coverage of the other in an apparent attempt to sway international public opinion against ...
by Eric Olander

StarTimes’ African Voice Actors Are the Newest Faces of Chinese Soft Power

The hugely popular Chinese-owned African pay-TV service StarTimes has always tried to put some distance between itself and the Chinese government, reminding anyone who asks that it is a private enterprise. Regardless of ...
by Eric Olander

Gyude Moore: Amid Heightened U.S.-China Tensions, Europe Can be a Stabilizing Force for Africa

With both Europe and Africa uncomfortably stuck in the middle of the increasingly acrimonious U.S.-China conflict, Gyude Moore, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Development in Washington, 
by Eric Olander

Debt Trap? Nah, We’re Too Disorganized For Anything Like That Says China’s Chargé d’Affaires in Nigeria

China’s Chargé d’Affaires in the embassy in Nigeria, Zhao Yong, provided an uncharacteristically frank rebuttal last week to the persistent accusations that Beijing is engaged in predatory lending in Nigeria and Africa writ ...
by Eric Olander

How the World’s Great Powers Are Exacerbating the Security Crisis in the Sahel

Malian soldiers parade as they arrive by military vehicle at Independence Square in Bamako on August 18, 2020, after rebel troops seized Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse in a dramatic escalation of a months-long crisis. AFP
Russia-MENA analyst and Oxford University PhD candidate Samuel Ramani argues in a compelling new article in Foreign Policy that a combination of narrow political agendas, unilateral actions and a bias towards ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Donation of Motorbikes Highlights Police-to-Police Ties With Lesotho

China’s ambassador to the tiny landlocked southern African country of Lesotho led a handover ceremony last week of dozens of police motorbikes donated by China’s Ministry of Public Security (China’s domestic law enforcement ...
by Eric Olander

New TV Ad Controversy With Anti-Black Racial Overtones Erupts

Star Wars star John Boyega resigned from his role as spokesperson for Jo Malone today after the British perfume brand replaced him with Liu Haoran, a popular Chinese actor, for the version of ...
by Eric Olander

Africa’s Major Economies Sinking Under the Weight of Surging Debt, Reduced Trade, and Massive New Social Welfare Costs

The economic fundamentals in a growing number of Africa’s major economies are showing signs of rapid deterioration amid the ongoing economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Seemingly every week there’s a ...
by Eric Olander

China’s New Ambassador to Kenya Makes the Rounds

Newly-arrived Chinese ambassador to Kenya Zhou Pingjian paid a courtesy call to James Macharia, CS for Transport, Infrastructure, Housing，Urban Development and Public Works. Photo on September 11, 2020 via @chineseembkenya.
Given China’s extensive involvement in building transportation infrastructure in Kenya, it’s not surprising that Chief Secretary James Macharia was high on the list of key cabinet stakeholders to meet, as the newly-arrived Chinese ...
by Eric Olander

The Chinese Embassy in Harare Responds to Zimbabwe’s National Park Mining Ban

The Chinese embassy in Harare responded late last week to the Zimbabwean government’s surprise decision to ban all mining activities in the country’s five national parks and in most river ...
by Eric Olander
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