Live Feed

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

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

More Unsubstantiated Reports of Chinese Troop Deployments to Africa

Longstanding fears of Chinese troop deployments to Namibia resurfaced last week when a legislator claimed, without evidence, that 3,500 Chinese soldiers are currently in the country. Defense Minister Peter Hafeni Vilho didn’t help ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Port-building Along the BRI: “There’s a Lot More Than Meets the Eye”

Daniel R. Russel and Blake Berger, two scholars at the New York-based Asia Society Policy Institute, have published a new report that looks at the broad security implications of China’s Belt and Road ...
by Eric Olander

Taiwan’s New Rep Office in Somaliland Opens Twitter Account

If you’d like to follow what’s going on at Taiwan’s newly-opened representative office in the Horn of Africa in Hargeisa, capital of the self-declared state of Somaliland, you can do so on their ...
by Eric Olander

Zimbabwe Government Responds to Public Outrage Over Chinese Coal Mining in Hwange National Park

In a surprise reversal, the Zimbabwean government announced an immediate ban on all mining activities in the country’s five national parks. The move was in response to widespread outrage over the government’s decision ...
by Eric Olander

Somaliland President Says Ties With Taiwan “Bonded by Shared Democratic Values and Freedoms”

The president of the self-declared state of Somaliland, Muse Bihi Abdi, published a short video statement on Wednesday following the opening of a new representative office in Taiwan. President Abdi ...
by Eric Olander

Jonathan Fulton: China’s Proposed Strategic Partnership With Iran is “Overstated”

Jonathan Fulton, a leading China-Persian Gulf scholar, warned U.S. policymakers not to misread China’s proposed strategic partnership with Iran, which has sparked widespread concern in Washington. Fulton testified towards the end of a ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Embassy in Burkina Faso Admonishes Hiker and Tells Him to Go Home

The Chinese embassy in Burkina Faso took the rare step of issuing a public statement on its website that called on 26-year-old hiker Lu Jiabin to give up his mission to cross ...
by Eric Olander

Somaliland Opens New Representative Office in Taiwan

Taiwan Foreign Minister Jason Wu and Somaliland envoy to Taipei Mohamed Hagi formally open the new Somaliland representative office in Taipei. Photo via @MOFA_Taiwan.
The self-declared state of Somaliland opened its new representative office in Taiwan today in a move that is bound to further anger officials in both Somalia and China.  In his address ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Overall Approval Rating in Africa Dips But Not by Much According to New Survey

Positive public perceptions of China in several of Africa’s largest countries have fallen in recent years but only by a little, according to the latest results from the independent, non-partisan public opinion research ...
by Eric Olander

ICYMI: 7 Myths Debunked About Chinese Engagement in Africa’s Hydroelectric Market

File image of Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that involves a number of Chinese companies in construction, support, and power transmission. Photo via CGTN
For some additional context about Chinese energy engagement in Africa, particularly in the hydroelectric sector where the role of various Chinese stakeholders is often overstated and exaggerated, it’s worthwhile to refer back to ...
by Eric Olander

Widespread Outrage Over Chinese Businessman Named as Chief in Ghanaian Village

The appointment of Sun Qiang, a Chinese businessman, to the position of Development Chief (Nkosuohene) in the small southern Ghanaian town of Kwahu-Abetifi has prompted widespread outrage.  Sun was awarded the honor after ...
by Eric Olander

Why African Countries in Debt to China Should Pay Close Attention to What’s Happening in Laos

A Chinese state-owned company will take control of the power grid in Laos, one of Asia’s poorest countries, in a deal to stave off default of its multi-billion-dollar debts to China. The two ...
by Eric Olander

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Plugging into African Agency

After several years of declining funding, the African end of the Belt and Road Initiative seems to be roaring back. The newest Griffith University/Green Development Finance Center data on the Belt and Road Initiative shows that engagement with Africa jumped by 395%, while a few big projects boosted engagement in Nigeria alone more than twelvefold.
These shifts indicate a window of opportunity for African electrification. 60% of Africans still ...

There Are NO Plans for China to Build a New Military Base in Kenya

Seemingly feeding off one another, Kenyan media outlets whipped themselves into a flurry over a rumour that China plans to build a new military base in the country. These stories were predicated on ...
by Eric Olander

NGO Takes Zim Government to Court to Stop Chinese Mining Operations in the Hwange National Park

Elephants drinking at a pond in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park. Photo by Christine Donaldson on Unsplash
The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association announced that it will take legal action to stop Chinese mining operations in the Hwange National Park. Last week, the Zhongxin Mining Group Tongmao Coal Company began ...
by Eric Olander

U.S., Europe Becoming Increasingly Worried Over China’s Dominance of the World’s Cobalt Supply Chain

With ties between China and the U.S. and Europe becoming increasingly strained, there’s growing concern in Washington, Brussels, and other European capitals about China’s dominance over the supply for strategically vital metals and ...
by Eric Olander

Pandemic? Pfffff! Chinese Phone Giant Transsion Still Generating Huge 2020 Profits

Nigerian Afrobeats superstar, Davido posing for ad campaign for Transsion's Tecno line of popular phones. Photo via Tecno.
Transsion, the Shenzhen-based African mobile phone giant, posted surging revenue and profits for the first half of 2020. The ongoing pandemic doesn’t appear to have dented demand for its phones and ...
by Eric Olander

Facing the Prospect of Getting Booted Out of the U.S., TikTok Looks to Expand in Africa

The Chinese-owned short-form video platform TikTok appears to be ramping up its staffing in Africa as it faces an uncertain future in the United States.  The company recently posted an ...
by Eric Olander

Join a Virtual “Open Day” Tour of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital Hosted by Chinese Construction Company’s Odd Mascot

China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) held a virtual “Open Day” (kind of like an open house) for everyone to see how the construction of the new Egyptian administrative capital ...
by Eric Olander

China’s New Ambassador to Kenya Will Face Many of the Same Challenges He Encountered in Nigeria

Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta receives the credentials from newly-appointed Chinese ambassador Zhou Pingjian.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta received credentials from six new envoys on Wednesday including China’s Zhou Pingjian. The new Chinese ambassador replaced Wu Peng who recently returned to Beijing to become ...
by Eric Olander

Morocco Isn’t Going to Rely Only on China For a COVID-19 Vaccine

With more than 65,000 COVID-19 infections, Morocco is one of Africa’s major hot spots in the ongoing pandemic, so it’s not surprising that the government is moving quickly to position ...
by Eric Olander

Cobus van Staden Has a Warning For Rich Countries: Either You Pay Now to Help Africa With COVID-19 or You Will Pay Later

John MACDOUGALL / POOL / AFP
Cobus van Staden, the senior China-Africa researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg and co-founder of The China Global South Project, published a sharply-worded commentary that condemned the international ...
by Eric Olander

Forget About Oil, Cobalt is the Resource of the Future

Strong demand for electric vehicles in China and Europe is expected to bolster the output of cobalt and copper in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s mining sector. Today, the DRC is the ...
by Eric Olander

Heather Li Introduces You to Some of China’s Most Dynamic Young African Entrepreneurs

Heather Li is the bubbly, always smiling, endlessly energetic force of nature behind the Shanghai-based Dot Connector, a PR/marketing initiative focused on African tech start-ups and entrepreneurs in China. She’s kicked off a ...
by Eric Olander

Book Review: “What Is China up To in Africa? Read This Book.”

Laura Seay, a well-known professor of African politics at Colby College in the United States, gave a glowing review in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage column this week to the new ...
by Eric Olander

Angola Gets a Brief Debt Repayment Holiday From Wealthy Creditors, but Still No Word on What China’s Going To Do

The Paris Club of wealthy creditor states announced a breakthrough in debt repayment talks with Angola, providing Luanda debt service relief through the end of the year. According to ...
by Eric Olander

Debt Relief Helps But It’s Still Not Enough to Offset the Economic Impact of COVID-19

The Beijing-based consultancy Development Reimagined (DR) released a new data set this week that tracks COVID-19 developments in African countries and their economic impact. Their reports and infographics provide a useful ...
by Eric Olander

Dambisa Moyo: China Using Current Market Instability to Take Power Away From US, European Societies

International development economist Dambisa Moyo. AFP.
China is using the current economic downturn “as an opportunity to take geopolitical power away from Western societies,” said international development economist and best-selling author Dambisa Moyo in an interview with the institutional ...
by Eric Olander
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Developing Countries’ Debt Servicing Costs to China Are Significant, but Nowhere Near as Much as Other Creditors
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