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

Reuters: Zambia Claims It’s Shared Chinese Loan Details With Bondholders, But Investors Say They’re Still in the Dark

File photo of Zambia President Edgar Lungu. SALIM DAWOOD / AFP
The Zambian government, according to Reuters, says it’s doing “everything possible” to avoid defaulting on billions of dollars of Eurobonds, including acceding to investor demands that it reveal the ...
by Eric Olander

No Excuses. China Exim Bank Rejects Uganda’s Appeal For Repayment Delay

Construction on the Karuma dam project in Uganda.
Back in August, the Ugandan government asked the China Exim Bank for a repayment delay on the loans needed to build the $1.7 billion Karuma dam project. A week went by and the ...
by Eric Olander

Why Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway Was Doomed From the Start

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta flags off the inaugural Nairobi-Suswa, Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line constructed by the Chinese Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and financed by Chinese government, on October 16, 2019 in Nairobi. SIMON MAINA / AFP
Kenya’s new multi-billion dollar standard gauge railway (SGR) was destined to fail even before it launched, argued Kenyan legal scholar Luis Franceschi in a new opinion column in the ...
by Eric Olander

What the EU Can Learn From China’s Development Efforts in Africa

Chinese aid deliveries are expected to rise in the wake of USAID's demise but Beijing has no plans to fill the void left by the closure of the U.S. aid agency. Image via Xinhua.
Legacy aid donors in the United States and Europe generally don’t look to China for inspiration on poverty alleviation programs that their aid agencies implement in places like Africa. That’s a big mistake ...
by Eric Olander

U.S. Election: Africans Hope Biden Will Warm Up Relations with Continent

Former United States Vice President Joe Biden. JIM WATSON / AFP
Re-balancing ties between the United States and China emerged as one of the key themes in the stream of analysis that flowed all weekend from African journalists and analysts after Joe Biden formally ...
by Eric Olander

Kenya’s Spiraling Debt Crisis Worsens as the Cost of Chinese Loans Mount, Currency Weakens and Exports Soften

Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP
Kenya is rapidly becoming the next flashpoint in the Africa debt crisis amid a dramatic increase in borrowing that threatens to submerge the economy. The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) warned ...
by Eric Olander

What’s Next For Jack Ma’s Philanthropy in Africa Now That He’s in Real Trouble Back Home?

Alibaba founder and former CEO, Jack Ma. Ludovic MARIN / AFP
Jack Ma, the founder and former CEO of Alibaba, is in trouble with the government at home. Big trouble. Last week, Chinese regulators pulled the plug at the very last minute on Alibaba’s ...
by Eric Olander

How’s the Belt & Road Doing During the Pandemic? Well, the Answer Depends on Who You Ask

Chinese worker carrying materials for the first rail line linking China to Laos, a key part of Beijing's 'Belt and Road' project across the Mekong, in Luang Prabang. Aidan JONES / AFP.
There are conflicting assessments of the health of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and how it’s fared during the past 7-8 months amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A new ...
by Eric Olander

Kenyan Newspaper Pleads With Government to Stop Borrowing Money

The influential financial newspaper Business Daily published a sharply-worded editorial on Wednesday that blasted the government for taking on more debt amid the country’s worsening economic crisis. “The implications of the rapid accumulation ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Decision To Hold on To Its Oil Assets in Sudan May Now Start To Pay Off

ANDREI PUNGOVSCHI / AFP
Sudan’s oil industry is starting to rumble back to life, following this year’s landmark peace agreement with rival South Sudan and a dramatic improvement in ties with the United States, which 
by Eric Olander

Port Competition Along Africa’s East Coast Intensifies With China as a Central Player

Somaliland's Port of Berbera. Image via Wikipedia.
After the Dubai-based ports operator DP World was effectively pushed out of Djibouti by China Merchants Port Holdings (CMPH), the Emiratis packed up and headed a few hundred kilometers down ...
by Eric Olander

Construction Begins on a Massive New Chinese-Financed Cultural Center in Kinshasa

The Chinese embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced that construction had begun on an enormous new art and cultural center in the capital Kinshasa. Work on the enormous new facility ...
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 ...

Reuters: Bondholders to Reject Zambia’s Request for Debt Repayment Delay

File photo of Zambian president Edgar Lungu. GULSHAN KHAN / AFP
A source close to the Zambia External Bondholder Committee, a coalition that holds the bulk of Zambia’s $3 billion of Eurobonds, told Reuters that investors plan to vote against the government’s request for a ...
by Eric Olander

Africa in the New Era of Great Power Competition Among Europe, China, and the United States

Regardless of who comes out ahead in Tuesday’s presidential election in the United States, the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy on the continent will likely not change dramatically and continue to focus on ...
by Eric Olander

Two Totally Different Reactions From the U.S. and China About Tanzania’s Recent Elections

The late Tanzanian President John Magufuli. ERICKY BONIPHACE / AFP
The United States and China have issued starkly different assessments of last week’s presidential elections in Tanzania. Incumbent John Magufuli declared victory with 84% of the vote, with some international observers ...
by Eric Olander

China Takes Its Messaging on Xinjiang to Nigeria, the World’s 5th Largest Muslim Country

China appears to be increasingly confident about promoting its position on Xinjiang in countries that have large Muslim populations, like Nigeria. The Chinese embassy in Abuja on Tuesday posted criticism of ...
by Eric Olander

With Prices Low Again, China To Go on Another Oil Buying Binge That Will Help Some African Countries More Than Others

China’s Ministry of Commerce is going to allow private companies and other “non-state entities” to buy 20% more oil next year in a move that will be enthusiastically welcomed ...
by Eric Olander

Australia’s Billion Dollar Copper Export Business is Now in China’s Crosshairs, Can African Producers Get the Business?

Image by D-Vu from Pixabay
Chinese media is hinting that copper may be the next Australian export to suffer from the worsening dispute between the two countries that began back in April when Canberra ...
by Eric Olander

How Does China’s Lending to Africa Compare to That of Other Emerging Market Countries?

Source: World Bank
London-based emerging markets strategist Gregory Smith posted an interesting thread on Twitter today that compared China’s lending patterns in Africa to those of other emerging markets, particularly from the Persian Gulf region. Using ...
by Eric Olander

China, Ethiopia Showcase Ties Following Trump’s “Blow Up the Dam” Comment

Director-General of the Department of African Affairs in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wu Peng, meeting with Ambassador Teshome Toga Chanaka of Ethiopia in Beijing. Image via @WuPeng_MFAChina.
There’s been a noticeable, albeit slight, increase in China-Ethiopia diplomacy and propaganda this week, prompting some speculation that Beijing may be discreetly moving to take advantage of the fall-out from 
by Eric Olander

A U.S. Military Withdrawal From Somalia Would Only Benefit Russia and China in the Region, Warns Oxford Researcher

A U.S. Army soldier provides security for a U.S. Air Force C-130 Super Hercules during a stopover in Somalia on February 6, 2020. Image via AFRICOM.
President Donald Trump’s reported request to withdraw the 650 to 800 U.S. military personnel stationed in Somalia would be a major setback for the U.S. in the Horn of Africa and would bolster Russia ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Cryptocurrency Now Has a Foothold in Places Like Africa With the Introduction of Huawei’s Latest Phone

Huawei unveiled its new Mate 40 smartphone on Friday that for the first time comes preinstalled with a built-in e-wallet that uses China’s digital yuan or cryptocurrency. Although the Mate 40 ...
by Eric Olander

China Dominates Almost Every Layer of East Africa’s Mobile Technology Sector

By koneki.com. May 2020.
Chinese technology permeates nearly every level of the East African mobile technology stack with the notable exception of operating systems that are still dominated by Google and Apple, according to ...
by Eric Olander

China Responds to Accusations That It’s Not Doing Enough To Help Resolve Zambia’s Escalating Debt Crisis

The Chinese government is responding to critics who charge that Beijing is not doing enough to resolve the rapidly escalating debt crisis in Africa, especially in Zambia. “We have signed debt-relief agreements with the ...
by Eric Olander

“China Needs to Increase Transparency,” says Ministry of Commerce Researcher

The exterior of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce headquarters in Beijing. Image via CGTN.
China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) blamed heightened nationalism, protectionism and populism among U.S. and European governments for the growing lack of trust among Africa’s international creditors.  “While China is actively promoting the implementation ...
by Eric Olander

Africans Borrowed Heavily From China and Other Bilateral Creditors. Now That Debt is Getting Away From Them

Former U.S. Treasury official and current Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Brad Setser, is providing some of the sharpest, most insightful commentaries on the worsening debt crisis in Africa and ...
by Eric Olander

The G20 is Going to Try One More Time to Get Everyone Together to Come Up With a Debt Relief Plan for Poor Countries

FAYEZ NURELDINE / AFP
Finance Ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 will convene an extraordinary meeting on November 13th in a bid to come up with a more robust debt relief plan for ...
by Eric Olander

There’s Good News and Bad News About Kenya’s Ballooning National Debt

Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP
After Angola and Zambia, Kenya is high on the list of countries at risk of encountering severe debt distress due in part to extensive borrowing from China to fund major infrastructure projects like ...
by Eric Olander
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