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Update on the Chinese Debt Situation in Africa

Chinese debt relief talks are underway in a number of African countries including Angola, Zambia, Kenya, and Ethiopia among others but you wouldn't really know it. Officials on all sides aren't saying much and there's relatively little press coverage on the ...

Peking University Professor: Chinese Loan Losses in Asia and Africa Reinforce Painful Lessons Learned in Venezuela

The following is a transcript of a nine-part Twitter thread posted by the prominent China economist Michael Pettis, a professor at Peking University. As I have been writing since 2011, China’s development lending was always likely to follow the ...

Why Africa’s Oil Exporters Should be Very Concerned About the Proposed China-Iran Mega-Deal

Iran and China are reportedly nearing completion of a wide-ranging oil-for-infrastructure deal that would pave the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investment in Iran's energy, telecommunications and financial service sectors in exchange for a 25-year supply of oil.

China Says It’ll Work With Angola on G20 Debt Relief, But Remains Vague About Status of Bilateral Loans

The Chinese government on Wednesday reaffirmed its position that it will cooperate with the G20's ongoing debt relief initiative in Africa but refused to provide any specific details about how Beijing plans to reschedule its vast loan portfolio in Africa, specifically in Angola.

How China Finances All That Infrastructure Construction in Africa is Starting to Change. Here’s How.

For several years now, as debt levels in a number of African countries have risen to alarming heights, Chinese and African officials have reportedly been looking for new ways to evolve the traditional resource-for-infrastructure (RFI) deals that critics on both sides of this relationship contend saddles African ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

The G20 Summit and the Half-Life of a Joke

When it was announced in 2023 that the African Union would become a full member of the G20, I darkly joked on a podcast that the AU’s entry into the body could very well mark the moment the G20 lost its status as one of the most important global coordination forums. Mark my words, I said, soon The Economist will be like “Uhhh, the G20 is OVER – it’s the ...