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

Chinese Loans to Africa by Region, 2000-2022

Source: Chinese Loans to Africa (CLA) Database, 2023. Boston University Global Development Policy Center.
From 2000-2022, countries in Southern Africa and East Africa historically borrowed the most from China primarily due to large-scale loans in Angola, Zambia, South Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya. In 2021 and 2022, the ...
by Cobus van Staden

The Emerging Talking Points Restructuring the Africa-China Relationship

L-R: President of the Comoros Azali Assoumani, President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Senegalese President Macky Sall at the China-Africa Leaders' Roundtable Dialogue in Johannesburg in August. Image: Alet Pretorius / AFP
The last few weeks have been punctuated by both an alphabet soup of big summits (BRICS, ASEAN, G20) and much discussion of the optics of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s presence or absence from ...
by Cobus van Staden

G77 Gathering Reinforces the Talking Points of China’s Global South Diplomacy

Li Xi, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (L) being greeted by Cuban President Manuel Diaz Canal at the G77 Plus China. Image: Yamil Lage / AFP
China sent its most senior official in recent years to the G77 gathering in Havana on Friday. The presence of Li Xi, the CPC’s seventh-ranking member and the head of the corruption watchdog, ...
by Cobus van Staden

South China Sea, Infrastructure Top Agenda in China-Malayasia PM Talks

Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim held bilateral talks with his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang on Sunday in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi autonomous region.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim met with his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang on Sunday on the sides of the 20th China-ASEAN Expo in the southern Chinese city of Nanning. The two PMs addressed ...
by Eric Olander

Hun Manet Meets With Xi on First Overseas Trip as Cambodian PM

Cambodia's newly-appointed Prime Minister Hun Manet made his first overseas trip to Beijing where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday. Image via Xinhua.
Cambodia’s new prime minister, Hun Manet, promised even closer ties with China during a meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday. The newly-named Cambodian leader thanked Xi for China’s economic ...
by Eric Olander

Zambian President Returns Home From Week-Long Visit to China, No Updates on Debt Restructuring Deal

Chinese President Xi Jinping reviews an honor guard at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday during a welcome ceremony for Zambian President Haikinda Hichilema. Image via Xinhua.
Zambian President Haikinde Hichilema returned home this weekend from a week-long trip to China that appeared to be as much about sightseeing as it was about conducting substantive diplomacy. During the last stop of ...
by Eric Olander

Chinese Debt Servicing Costs Surge for Angola and Uganda

Debt servicing costs have been steadily rising across Africa, largely due to the falling value of local currencies that are used to repay dollar-denominated loans. But in Angola and Uganda, interest payments to ...
by Eric Olander

China’s Share of Nigeria’s Ballooning Debt Remains Steady at Around 4%

Chinese creditors account for just 4.1%, or $4.7 billion, of Nigeria’s $114 billion total public debt, according to the latest figures released by the Debt Management Office in Abuja. While China’s share is ...
by Eric Olander

Jaishankar: “India is the Only Country in the World Today Standing Eye-to-Eye Against China”

Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar responded to accusations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is "fears" China. Image via India TV.
India’s top diplomat, S. Jaishankar, pushed back forcefully against accusations Prime Minister Narendra Modi “fears China” saying New Delhi is the only in the world today country that stands “eye-to-eye against China” with ...
by Eric Olander

Q&A: Financing a Renewables Shift in African Countries as China’s New “Small or Beautiful” Model Takes Root

Solar power projects like this plant in northern Kenya highlight China's new focus on smaller, more environmentally sustainable infrastructure development in Africa. Image via Xinhua.

If you look at the specific demands of many African countries, they are now more focused on production-related activities rather than fancy highways that lead to nowhere.

by Njenga Hakeenah

WEEK IN REVIEW: Chinese President Xi Jinping Will Not Attend This Week’s G77 Summit in Havana

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa bestowing the Order of South Arica on Xi Jinping during the recent BRICS summit - only his second foreign trip this year. Image: Phill Magakoe / AFP
Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend this week’s G77 Summit in Havana, making this the third major international event in as many weeks that he’s avoided. Li Xi, head of the Chinese Communist Party’s powerful ...
by Eric Olander

43 Arrested in Protests Against Chinese Glass Factory in Indonesia

Presidents Joko Widodo of Indonesia (L) and Xi Jinping of China in 2022. Image: Achmad Ibrahim / AFP
Indonesian police arrested 43 people during large-scale protests against a Chinese-led glass and solar panel factory. The factory that’s being planned for Rempang, a small island close to the border with Singapore, would displace ...
by Cobus van Staden

Philippines Pushing for Permanent Structure on Second Thomas Shoal

A file image of BRP Sierra Madre, a stranded wreck from the Second World War, now at the heart tof a diplomatic dispute between China and the Philippines. Image: Ted Aljibe / AFP
The Philippine parliament is reportedly calling for funding to construct a permanent structure on the Second Thomas Shoal (known as the Ayungin Shoal in the Philippines and Ren’ai Jiao in China.) The atoll is ...
by Cobus van Staden

China Calls for Africa-Focused Reform of the UN Security Council

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning at a press briefing on Wednesday where the reform proposal was announced
On Wednesday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an expansive statement titled “Proposal of the People’s Republic of China on the Reform and Development of Global Governance.” According to FM spokesperson Mao ...
by Cobus van Staden

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 ...

Saudi Arabia to Boost Oil Sales to China Next Year

Source: China's General Administration of Customs via S&P Global
Saudi Arabia is preparing to increase oil shipments to China in 2024 to meet growing demand from a crop of new refineries that will come online next year, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights. ...
by Eric Olander

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Arrived in Beijing on a High-Speed Train

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro arrived on Tuesday on one of China's new high-speed trains at the Beijing South rail station ahead of a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Video via @NicolasMaduro.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro arrived in Beijing on Tuesday in a rather unusual manner for a visiting head of state. Rather than fly into Beijing’s sprawling Capital Airport on the outskirts of the city, 
by Eric Olander

Zambian President Haikinde Hichilema Does the Rounds of Shenzhen’s Tech Giants

Zambian President Haikinde Hichilema at EV giant BYD (top left), Huawei (top right), Tencent (lower left) and ZTE (lower right). Images via @HHichilema.
Zambian President Haikinde Hichilema devoted the third day of his week-long China tour to visiting some of the country’s largest tech companies headquartered in the southern megacity of Shenzhen. The president visited the ...
by Eric Olander

Forget About Everything Else, Hichilema’s in China to Resolve Zambia’s Still Unfinished Debt Restructuring Deal

Debt issues are widely-seen as the top priority for Zambian President Haikinde Hichilema during his week-long tour of China. Image via @HHichilema.
Zambian President Haikinde Hichilema is spending much of this week visiting Chinese business hubs in Shenzhen and Shanghai, but the real focus of this trip will be dealt with later in Beijing, where ...
by Eric Olander

Two Weeks After the Coup, It’s Business as Usual For Gabon’s Chinese Community

Shelves are well-stocked at this Chinese supermarket in Gabon's capital Libreville. Image via Xinhua.
Other than a 6 p.m. curfew every night, daily life for most of the 3,000 Chinese expatriates in Gabon hasn’t changed much since the military overthrew the government of longtime dictator Ali Bongo ...
by Eric Olander

New “Chinese Savior” Medical Drama Set in Africa Now Streaming

A new big-budget Chinese medical drama set in a fictitious African country was released this week on major Chinese streaming platforms, the latest installment in the burgeoning genre of “Chinese savior” narratives. “Welcome ...
by Eric Olander

Remember Those Exploitative African “Blessing Videos” on Chinese Social Media? They’re Back. This Time in the West.

One of the numerous "blessing video" services that are now advertising widely in the U.S. and Euroe on Instagram and TikTok.
It was once very easy for Chinese social media users to spend between $15 and $40 to get a bare-chested man, a scantily clad woman or even a child to do demeaning performances ...
by Eric Olander

Proposed India-Middle East-Europe Trade Route Could Take India-China Rivalry to Israel

This map of the proposed corridor has been circulating on X
Few people have been as enthusiastic about the announcement of an ambitious proposed trade corridor linking India and Greece via Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and Israel as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. ...
by Cobus van Staden

Cambodia’s New PM to Visit China

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet at the ASEAN Summit in early September. Image: Yasuyoshi Chiba
Cambodia’s new Prime Minister, Hun Manet, will visit China for two days from Thursday, one of his first official overseas visits since taking over from his father, Hun Sen. He will meet with China’s President ...
by Cobus van Staden

Venezuela Wants to Join BRICS

File image of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Photo: Frederico Parra / AFP
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s six-day visit to China has included stops in the economic and tech hubs of Guangdong, Shanghai and Shenzhen. He is also likely to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Venezuelan ...
by Cobus van Staden

China Thinks New India-Mideast-Europe Railway Announced at G20 is Really About China

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden attend a session as part of the G20 Leaders' Summit at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on September 9, 2023. Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP
The Chinese Communist Party is not impressed with the “historic” announcement made at the G20 summit in New Delhi on Saturday that aims to build a vast multi-modal transportation corridor linking India to Europe ...
by Eric Olander

This Chart Explains Why Xi Jinping Will Probably Go to Next Year’s G20 Summit in Brazil

Source: China's General Administration of Customs, GeoEconomics Center Calculations
Until recently, there was never any doubt that a Chinese president would participate in major summits like the G20 or ASEAN. Chinese leaders in the post-Mao era saw their attendance at these events ...
by Eric Olander

U.S., EU Unveil Next Steps in the Expansion of Angola’s Lobito Corridor Railway

The United States and the European Union are moving forward with a plan to upgrade the 1,300-kilometer Lobito rail corridor that links the copper and cobalt belts in Zambia and the DR Congo with ...
by Eric Olander

Biden says U.S. Not Looking to Contain China Following Diplomatic Upgrade With Vietnam

U.S. President Joe Biden (left) made his first visit to Vietnam on Sunday where the two sides agreed to upgrade diplomatic relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP). Image via The White House.
U.S. President Joe Biden pushed back against the accusation that newly-elevated diplomatic ties with Vietnam are part of a larger effort to “contain China” or start a new “Cold War.” “I think we ...
by Eric Olander

China Blocks Vietnamese Fruit Trucks From Entering One Day After Hanoi Upgrades Diplomatic Ties With Washington

Hundreds of containers of bananas, dragonfruits and durians, on their way to China, have suddenly been stopped since 9 September 2023. Image via @ngahpham
Hundreds of Vietnamese trucks carrying fresh fruit are backing up at Chinese border crossings due to newly introduced inspection requirements. The timing of these new inspections is prompting speculation that it could be ...
by Eric Olander

Philippines and Chinese Coast Guard Face Off Again in South China Sea With the U.S. Air Force Overhead

A China Coast Guard vessel almost rammed a Philippine Coast Guard ship on Friday in the latest confrontation between the two sides over disputed territorial claims in the South China Sea. Video by Barnaby Lo.
The Philippines Coast Guard and Navy successfully outmaneuvered a Chinese blockade to bring food and other provisions to a remote outpost in the South China Sea — but not before several harrowing confrontations with ...
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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