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

China’s Soft Power Play in Africa: Rapid Industrial Development

The Chinese embassy in Cameroon posted a short, seemingly innocuous video today that commemorated 40 years of development in Shenzhen, a once-sleepy fishing town near Hong Kong that is now ...
by Eric Olander

Tecno Dismisses Malware Allegations, Saying It’s Old News

The Chinese-owned African mobile phone giant Tecno is rebutting new accusations that its W2 phones came pre-installed with malware. In a statement sent to the Nigerian tech news website Silicon ...
by Eric Olander

The COVID-19 PPE Donated by the Jack Ma Foundation Has Turned Into a Complete and Total Mess in Kenya

A consignment of masks, testing kits and protective gear, a donation from the Chinese billionaire and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, are unloaded from a cargo plane operated by Ethiopian airlines on March 24, 2020 after it arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi to help enhance capacity at the COVID-19 coronavirus infection testing centres in Kenya. TONY KARUMBA / AFP
It’s been six months since the first shipment of personal protective equipment and other materials donated by the Jack Ma Foundation arrived in Kenya and still, only 24 of the 81 infrared thermometers have ...
by Eric Olander

Protestors Rally Against Sinohydro for Polluting Water Supply in Eastern Kenya

Protests turned violent this week in eastern Kenya’s Kitui County, where local activists blocked the road to a Sinohydro construction site where they claim the Chinese contractor is polluting the local water supply. ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe Gets Into Media Spat Over the Return of a Controversial Diamond Mine

In a highly unusual move, the Chinese embassy in Zimbabwe published a detailed rebuttal on the Bulawayo24.com website against allegations that they were involved in the return of the controversial Anjin ...
by Eric Olander

Nigeria’s New Standard Gauge Railway Trains Are on Their Way From China

The Chinese state-owned contractor building the rail cars for the new Abuja-Kaduna Railway and Lagos-Ibadan Railway SGR lines proudly announced the trains have started their journey from China to Nigeria. But not everyone’s ...
by Eric Olander

Ghana Renews Fishing Permit for Chinese Trawler That Has Refused to Pay a $1 Million Fine

Ghanaian fishing authorities have reportedly renewed the permit for the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956, a Chinese vessel operated by Rongcheng Ocean Fishery Co. Ltd., even though the company has so far refused to ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Embassy in SA Openly Worried About the Safety of Chinese Diaspora in South Africa After a Spate of Recent Murders

The Chinese embassy in Pretoria published a detailed statement on Monday in which it openly expressed concern about the safety of the Chinese diaspora in South Africa following the brutal murder of 7 ...
by Eric Olander

Pre-Installed Malware on Some Tecno Phones Stole Money, Data From Unsuspecting Users in Africa

An investigation by the mobile security firm Secure-D confirmed that some Tecno phones sold in Africa and other parts of the world came pre-installed with malware. The infected phones would secretly download apps and ...
by Eric Olander

Naspers Stock Rises on White House Assurances That Proposed WeChat Ban Won’t be as Broad as Previously Feared

Investors in Africa’s most valuable public company, Naspers, breathed a sigh of relief on Monday after hearing that any White House measures against WeChat and its parent company Tencent won’t be as broad ...
by Eric Olander

Opposition Leaders in Nigeria’s House of Representatives Concerned about Pause in Investigation Into Chinese Loans

PDP opposition legislators from the House of Representatives took to the media on Monday to voice their concerns that a three-week postponement will jeopardize the investigation into Chinese loans.  The House of Representatives ...
by Eric Olander

Do People Give the Chinese a Pass in Africa Because They Hate the French Even More, Wonders Right-Wing French Legislator

Julie Lechanteux, a conservative French MP in the European Union parliament and a member of Marine Le Pen’s right-wing Rassemblement National party, channeled the growing unease across wide swathes of French society 
by Eric Olander

Gyude Moore on Why Africa Must Steer Clear of Any U.S.-China Conflict

W. Gyude Moore, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. and the former minister of public works in Liberia, wrote another provocative article on U.S.-China-Africa ...
by Eric Olander

Namibian Beef Exports to China Continue While Dozens of Other Countries Halt Meat Trade Due to COVID-19

China is now the largest market for Namibian beef (photo) and could become even larger if Namibian meat processing plants can remain COVID-free. Photo via Xinhua.
China’s General Administration of Customs published a list of 46 meat processing plants around the world that have halted exports to China due to COVID-19 outbreaks among their workers. But ...
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 ...

Africa’s Richest Man, Alika Dangote, Shares His Perspective on the Impact of China’s Presence in Africa

Chinese businesses are coming to Africa for “what they need” and are not challenging local enterprises in Nigeria and Africa more broadly, according to the founder and president of the Dangote Group, Alika ...
by Eric Olander

China to Stockpile Massive Amounts of Cobalt, Further Boosting the Price of this DRC, SA-sourced Strategic Mineral

A man carries a bag of material dug from mine waste as workers search for leftover cobalt somewhere between Lubumbashi and Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. EDERICO SCOPPA / AFP
The Chinese government will add 2,000 tons of cobalt to its strategic commodity reserve in a move that is expected to further bolster prices of this vitally important mineral that largely comes from ...
by Eric Olander

The Taiwan-Somaliland Union Sparks All-Out Diplomatic Brawl

China and Somalia both turned up the volume of their anger about Monday’s opening of a new Taiwan representative office in the self-declared state of Somaliland. After a subdued reaction on ...
by Eric Olander

Taiwan Was on Wang Yi’s Mind When He Reached Out to Three African Foreign Ministers

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with three of his African counterparts via three separate phone calls this week. The Foreign Minister spoke with Nigeria’s Geoffrey Onyeama, Kenya’s Raychelle Omamo and Nasser Bourita from Morocco.  ...
by Eric Olander

China Issues First Public Statement on Mali Coup

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
The Chinese government offered its first response to the recent coup in Mali. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian addressed this issue at his regular press briefing in Beijing yesterday: Beijing ...
by Eric Olander

UPDATE: Officials Confirm Chinese Mine At the Center of a Water Pollution Controversy Wasn’t Licensed to Mine in the First Place

Quick update on a story that we’ve been following for the past couple of weeks, focusing on allegations of pollution from a Chinese mining project in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, on the outskirts ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Medical Team Arrives in South Sudan

An eight-member Chinese medical arrives in Juba, South Sudan to assist local authorities with COVID-19 mitigation.
Although Chinese officials and media don’t showcase COVID-19 relief efforts in Africa that much anymore, especially compared to the hype these activities received a couple of months ago, medical teams and PPE donations ...
by Eric Olander

Six Months After the Discrimination Crisis in Guangzhou, a Group of Chinese High School Students Goes to See If Anything Has Changed

Shocked by the news of widespread anti-black discrimination back in April in Guangzhou, a group of five high school students from across the country went to the southern Chinese city to see if ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Foreign Ministry Issues First Statement on Taiwan Opening a Rep Office in Somaliland

The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded on Tuesday to Taiwan’s opening of a new representative office earlier this week in the self-declared state of Somaliland in the Horn of Africa. At his regular press ...
by Eric Olander

9 Nigerians Killed, 1 Chinese Kidnapped in Violent Assault on a Road Construction Site in Niger State

A group of heavily armed Muslim Fulani bandits raided at a road construction site on Monday in the central Nigerian state of Niger. The assailants apparently targeted expatriates and began shooting. ...
by Eric Olander

Claims of a Cover-Up and Intimidation Cloud Investigation of Labor Abuse by Chinese Steel Company in Nigeria

Anonymous accusations of widespread labor abuses at a Chinese-owned steel company in the Nigerian state of Abia have sparked a heated controversy, as the company and its allies rebut the charges. Last week, ...
by Eric Olander

The Maritime Implications of Growing China-Iran Strategic Ties

Abhijit Singh, a former Indian naval officer and now a senior fellow who heads the Maritime Policy Initiative at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation explores the implications of a China-Iran strategic partnership ...
by Eric Olander

After Years of Enduring Painful Racist Attacks, Zhong Feifei is Now Having a Moment

The biracial Chinese-Congolese model/popstar/beauty blogger/social media influencer/reality TV star Zhong Feifei endured years of vicious racist attacks online for her skin tone, curly hair, and, well, because she’s far outside of ...
by Eric Olander

Tempers Flare in Nigerian House Hearing on Chinese Loans

Three weeks of steadily building tensions over Chinese loans to Nigeria erupted in a House committee hearing on Monday. Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi and the Chairman of the House Committee on Treaties, Protocols, ...
by Eric Olander

With an Eye on China, G7 Finance Ministers Call on G20 Bilateral Creditors to Keep Their Debt Freeze Promises

US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin testifies before the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill on June 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. Tasos Katopodis / POOL / AFP
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin hosted a teleconference with his fellow finance ministers from the Group of Seven rich countries on Monday and the burgeoning debt crisis in the world’s poorest countries was ...
by Eric Olander

Deborah Brautigam on Whether the Burgeoning U.S.-China Conflict Will Complicate Debt Relief for Africa

Creditors’ debt stock in Africa’s DSSI-eligible countries, 2018. Graphic by CARI using World Bank data.
Professor Deborah Brautigam, director of the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. reflected on the “war of words” between the World Bank, led by longstanding China-hawk David Malpass and ...
by Eric Olander
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