Tag: agency

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Africa’s Digital Sovereignty in the Era of U.S.-China Great Power Competition

In the increasingly acrimonious competition between the U.S. and China over technology standards, it's often assumed that smaller countries in places ...

What a Railway in Kenya Reveals About How China Builds Things in Africa

The Kenyan government's controversial decision to end certain subsidies and raise taxes sparked days of violent protests in Nairobi. While the move sparked a massive backlash, President William Ruto nonetheless clearly felt he had no other choice if he wanted to ...

One of China’s Most Famous Experts on African History Draws the Link Between Agency and Development

Africa won’t achieve development if it doesn’t also grasp full autonomy in the international system. This is the view of Li Anshan, one of China’s most prominent academic experts on African history. This subordination to outside powers echoes that of China ...

What Does ‘African Agency’ Actually Look Like? We’ll See…

The moral panic in Uganda about a possible Chinese seizure of the Entebbe airport as a result of a loan default is a rare example of a trend that’s both trivial and serious. In the former sense, the panic is based on misreporting. The loan is still ...

FOCAC PERSPECTIVES: Because of Everything That’s Going on in the World Today, Africa Will Actually Have More Leverage at FOCAC

Every day leading up to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation conference on November 29th and 30th, CAP will feature perspectives from journalists, academics, activists, and business leaders about what they hope will emerge from the FOCAC event in Dakar. If you ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

The Pain of Un-Polarity

“THE G2 WILL BE CONVENING SHORTLY!”
This post by U.S. President Donald Trump in the run-up to his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week may end up leaving a more lasting mark than the actual summit he attended.

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Journalists, Scholars, and Analysts Share What They’d Like to See Emerge From the Upcoming FOCAC Conference

In the run-up to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Conference that will take place in Dakar, Senegal at the end of the month, CAP is soliciting a broad swathe of experts to share their views on what outcomes they would like to see from the event, and ...

Africa Should Negotiate Collectively with China at FOCAC. But That’s Not Going to Happen.

As the next Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) draws closer, the same sentiments and concerns over Africa’s relative position in the 20-year-old arrangement keep coming up. It is widely acknowledged that the continent generally gets the short end of the stick ...

The Other Side of Agency

Last week I ran into a friend who’s a media studies scholar. We caught up about our work – she’s busy with a paper about the media representation of face masks. What am I working on? A paper on China’s provision of coal-powered electricity in Africa. Oh, ...

Unpacking African Agency

Today the South African Institute of International Affairs is holding a webinar featuring new work focusing on African agency in the face of Chinese power. How much power African actors have to shape their engagement with China is one of the field’s most ...

Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama Reflects on Ties With China: We Are Not “Blind and Gullible”

Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama is the latest senior African stakeholder to push back against the accusation that China is taking advantage of Africa in general and his country in particular. "It is not totally accurate to make it sound as if we go into these relationships ...

Africa’s Role in the Ongoing Chinese Debt Crisis Debate

Amid the ongoing discussion over surging debt in Africa, some familiar narratives have emerged about the different actors: Africa is once again being victimized by foreign powers. The West is ...