Live Feed

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

KTN’s Mike Gitonga: “The SGR Has Had Scandals Right From the Word Go”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lhte7wtQzw
KTN News presenter Mike Gitonga discussed The Standard’s reporting on the escalating SGR scandal in his morning “Press Review” segment on Monday.  Gigtonga cited years of “fraud” and “malpractice” allegedly committed by the ...
by Eric Olander

Kenya Railways Dismisses Efforts to Cancel Contract With the Company’s Chinese Partner

SIMON MAINA/AFP
Kenya Railways downplayed reports that it will be forced to cancel its contract with the Chinese-run AfriStar, a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned enterprise China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), that currently operates the ...
by Eric Olander

Zambia Killings Prompt Online Debate Over Compassion and Discrimination

Frustration emerged among some Chinese netizens about the apparent lack of any African response to the murder of three Chinese nationals in Zambia that happened on Sunday. Twitter user @CaliCali2000 started ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Embassy in Zambia: Murder of Three Chinese Nationals Was “Vicious and Appalling”

The Chinese embassy in Zambia responded on Monday to the murder of three of its nationals, calling the attack “vicious and appalling.”  According to local law enforcement, the assailants, ...
by Eric Olander

Lusaka Mayor Personally Shuts Down Chinese Barbershop For Not Serving Local Customers. “This is Not Wuhan!”

Lusaka Mayor Miles Sampa personally shut down a Chinese-run barbershop on Friday for allegedly not serving local customers and threatened the staff with arrest if they continue to only serve Chinese patrons.   “This ...
by Eric Olander

Three Chinese Nationals Murdered and Their Lusaka Warehouse Burned in Apparent Robbery

The fire department in the Zambian capital Lusaka responded on Sunday to a blaze at a warehouse in the Makeni district. When they arrived on the scene they discovered the aftermath of a ...
by Eric Olander

Heritage Foundation to Chinese Government: Thank You for Promoting Our New Report on Chinese Spying in Africa

John Cooper, a senior communications manager at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation think tank, gave a shout out this weekend on Twitter to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian for helping ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe Says Calls for China to Pay Reparations for COVID-19 Are “Absurd”

Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Guo Shaochun.
China’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Guo Shaochun, stridently rejected calls for Beijing to pay reparations to other countries for the economic damage brought about from the COVID-19 outbreak. “Recently, some politicians have been trying ...
by Eric Olander

In a Dramatic Move, Kenya’s Solicitor General Wants to Terminate the SGR’s Contract With Its Chinese Operator

Tweet by Nelson Havi, President of the Kenya Law Society, that responded to the news that Solicitor General Kennedy Ogeto called for an end of the contract with the SGR's Chinese operator.
Solicitor General Kennedy Ogeto is calling for the immediate termination of Kenya Railways’s contract with the Chinese-owned Africa Star Railway Operation Company, two years ahead of the agreement’s scheduled review date. Ogeto’s move ...
by Eric Olander

Background: What Does Kenya Owe? And to Whom?

While there’s widespread concern in Kenya about the country falling prey to a Chinese “debt trap,” the reality is that Kenyans should be far more concerned about the consequences of failing to repay ...
by Eric Olander

With No Debt Relief Deal in Place, Africa’s Economic Crisis Worsens by the Day

The cost of borrowing for many African governments is rapidly rising as the economic crisis on the continent worsens. While the double-digit yields on African bonds is great news for investors looking for new ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Officials Are Rallying Behind the G20’s Debt Relief Efforts But Saying Little About All Those Bilateral Loans

China’s Ambassador to Namibia, Zhang Yiming, Tweeted out a summary of Wang Yi’s comments related to Africa that the foreign minister shared at a press conference in Beijing on Sunday. ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese FM Wang Yi Pushes Back Against Critics in Africa and Offers More Public Support for the G20’s Debt Relief Agenda

Chinese Foreign Minister speaking at a press conference on Sunday in Beijing during the ongoing National People's Conference legislative session.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a press conference on Sunday with both domestic and international journalists during the ongoing 13th National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s annual legislative session. Unsurprisingly, China’s handling of ...
by Eric Olander

He’s Back! China’s Outspoken Former Ambassador to South Africa Reappears on State Media

After hurriedly leaving South Africa in early April to return to China, apparently because of the pandemic-related shutdown of commercial flights between the two countries, former ...
by Eric Olander

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Eye-Rolling Through the Apocalypse

November’s COP30 gathering in Belém, Brazil, marks three decades since COP1 in Berlin in 1995, and raises a sobering reminder of how deep we’ve sunk into a climate morass of our own making amid non-stop warnings. The evacuation of millions of people and the deaths of at least seventeen due to Typhoon Ragasa’s rampage through the Philippines, Taiwan, and China couldn’t have been more pointedly timed as U.S. and Chinese ...

Heritage Foundation: China’s Construction of Government Buildings in Africa Potentially Enhances Beijing’s Spying Capabilities

The conservative Heritage Foundation in the United States published a new report on Wednesday arguing that China’s intelligence capabilities are potentially enhanced by Beijing’s drive to construct government buildings across ...
by Eric Olander

How is China Going to Approach the Debt Crisis in Africa?

Exterior of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce headquarters in Beijing. Image via CGTN.
One of the big questions around the burgeoning debt crisis in Africa is how will China respond? With an estimated $152 billion of outstanding loans on the continent, Beijing is by ...
by Eric Olander

Under Mounting Pressure From the U.S., Europe, and Australia, China Leans on Its Ties in Africa For Support

Chinese President Xi Jinping addressing the World Health Assembly on Monday via video conference from Beijing. Image via People's Daily.
Hong Kong-based CNN journalist Jenni Marsh reports on the prominent role that Africa played in Monday’s speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the World Health Assembly. Marsh, who’s covered China-Africa relations for ...
by Eric Olander

World Bank President Frustrated About the Slow Pace of Private Debt Relief for Africa

World Bank Group President David Malpass speaks at a press briefing on COVID-19 in Washington, DC, on March 4, 2020. NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP
World Bank President David Malpass said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that he is disappointed that Africa’s private creditors aren’t doing more to provide badly-needed relief for poor countries struggling ...
by Eric Olander

African Leaders Criticize Wealthy Countries For Lack of Progress on Debt Relief

Five African heads of state participated in Tuesday's first-ever virtual roundtable sponsored by New York Forum Institute. Photo via NYFI.
Five African presidents, from Kenya, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Niger, decried the lack of meaningful progress by wealthy industrial countries on debt relief and financial assistance to the continent amid the worsening ...
by Eric Olander

Deborah Brautigam: Don’t Expect China to Cancel Africa’s Debts, They’ll Probably Just Reschedule Them

So long as there’s no official word from the Chinese government as to how they specifically plan to address the $150 billion of outstanding debts that African governments owe Bejing, everyone’s speculating as ...
by Eric Olander

African Countries Sign on To Global Inquiry Into COVID-19 Origin

All African countries under the banner “The African Group and its Members States” are now part of a group of 110 countries who signed a World Health Organization draft resolution on Monday that ...
by Eric Olander

Evan Feigenbaum: U.S. Making a Strategic Mistake in Challenging WHO Just as China Announces New COVID-19 Measures

Evan Feigenbaum, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment and a leading foreign affairs commentator in the United States, said the timing of President Donald Trump’s threat ...
by Eric Olander

Africa Emerges as a Key Theme in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Address to World Health Assembly

Chinese President Xi Jinping addressing the World Health Assembly on Monday via video conference from Beijing. Image via People's Daily.
Chinese support for Africa and other developing regions around the world emerged as a key message point in President Xi Jinping’s Monday address to the World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting. The WHA is ...
by Eric Olander

In These Polarized Times, Talking About China is Not Easy

University of London Ph.D. candidate Li Hangwei commiserated on Twitter with Stanford University Political Science Professor Yiqing Xu about the perils of talking about China, both on social media and when ...
by Eric Olander

Professor Carlos Oya: How Can Chinese Companies Create More and Better Jobs for Africans?

University of London Professor Carlos Oya is among the world’s leading scholars on Chinese labor practices in Africa. Last July, he published a ground-breaking report that challenged widely-held perceptions about the ...
by Eric Olander

CGTN Creates New Facebook Page to Promote Ongoing Chinese COVID-19 Medical Mission to Algeria

China’s international television network CGTN is experimenting with new ways to promote China’s COVID-19 medical deployment in Africa. The mission that’s now underway in Algeria, with 20 medical professionals who ...
by Eric Olander

In Xi-Ramaphosa Call the Chinese President Gently Reminds His South African Counterpart About Taiwan and Beijing’s “Core Interests”

Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone on Friday with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa. The bulk of the discussion, according to a summary published by the Chinese Ministry ...
by Eric Olander

There’s an Interesting Debate Underway Among Scholars Over Whether China is Hiding Its Overseas Lending

A discussion over the extent of China’s “hidden loans” in Africa and other developing regions has been bubbling all spring in Washington’s think tank and scholarly circles. It all started back in late ...
by Eric Olander

Kenya’s Dilemma: If It Wants G20 Relief Then It Can’t Issue More Bonds or Take out More Loans. So How Does It Close a Gaping Budget Deficit?

Kenya, and likely many other African countries, is in a bit of a pinch right now: it desperately needs to raise money to close an estimated $7.7 billion budget deficit. But if the ...
by Eric Olander

Wang Yi Works the Phones With African Foreign Ministers

FILE PHOTO. Chinese counterpart Wang Yi is pictured during a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the capital Cairo, on January 9, 2020. Mohamed el-Shahed / AFP
In another sign that Beijing is paying more attention to COVID-19 in Africa, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi appears to be increasing the frequency of his outreach to his African counterparts. This week ...
by Eric Olander
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