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 ...
Tag: One Belt One Road
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Terrorists in Pakistan Again Target Chinese Nationals in What’s Become an Unprecedented Challenge For the Belt and Road
Residents of the Pakistani port city of Gwadar gathered this weekend to mourn the death of two children killed on Friday by a suicide bomber who once again targeted Chinese nationals. A group called the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack, the third ...
G7’s Global Infrastructure Initiative Will Have to Contend With China’s Massive Lead in Africa
The recent announcement of an initiative to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has generated a lot of debate among scholars and policyholders trying to understand its feasibility, particularly in Africa. What is not in doubt is that the G7’s Build Back Better World (B3W) plan ...
New BRI Index Reveals China’s Contractors Are Bullish on Building New Infrastructure in ASEAN, Not So Much in Africa
The Chinese state-owned insurance giant Sinosure and the China International Contractors Association released their new BRI Infrastructure Development Index that indicates where they think conditions are best for infrastructure growth. There's a lot of interest in Southeast Asia, much less so in Africa. Respondents ...
Leading Development Experts Try to Decipher the B3W and Whether It Can Present a Viable Alternative to China’s BRI
There's been a lot of discussion since the Group of 7 countries announced the creation of the new Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative. It is nominally intended to help developing countries build badly-needed infrastructure. But B3W also includes an underlying political objective: presenting an alternative, some ...
$25 Billion of Deals Signed During Annual Silk Road Forum in China
The Fifth annual Silk Road International Exposition ended on Saturday in the northwestern Chinese city of Xi'an where officials announced that $24.6 billion worth of investment deals were reportedly signed during the five-day event. In all, organizers say 72 ...
Council on Foreign Relations Report: U.S. “Inaction” and “Withdrawal” Bolstered China’s BRI
A group of scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York published a critical report today that attributes U.S. "inaction" and "withdrawal" for creating a vacuum in the international arena that China filled with its Belt and Road Initiative. The authors detailed how ...
China’s Risky “Build It and They Will Come” Development Strategy
There's widespread speculation that Chinese financial support for its hugely ambitious Belt and Road Initiative may be waning due to the current economic crisis and the desire among senior Chinese policymakers to focus more attention on the domestic front. ...
African Diplomats in China Are Spending a Lot More Time These Days Talking About The Belt and Road Initiative
Ethiopia's ambassador to China, Teshome Tog Chanaka, shared his enthusiasm on Twitter Tuesday about his participation in the latest forum on how to integrate Africa into the Belt and Road. The event was organized by the Algerian embassy and the Taihe Institute, an international policy ...
Weaponizing China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Since its inception in 2013, Chinese government officials have insisted that the Belt and Road is solely an economic initiative and does not have any military motivations. But the BRI's civil-military distinction is no longer as clear cut as it used ...
It’s Been a Busy Month in Algiers With Visits From the U.S. Defense Chief Followed by Yang Jiechi, One of China’s Highest Ranking Officials
Yang Jiechi, one of China's top foreign policy officials and also a member of the politburo, spent last weekend in Algiers where he held talks with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum. Yang's visit comes just ...
Confused About China’s Belt & Road Agenda? You’re Not Alone
37 foreign heads of state came to Beijing this week to take part in the second Belt and Road summit hosted by Chinese president Xi Jinping. Some leaders like Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta came with expectations to sign huge infrastructure ...
China-Africa Relations as Seen Through the Lens of a New Generation
Independent filmmakers Jidi Guo and Philip Man join Eric & Cobus to discuss their new documentary about how a new generation is responding to China’s growing influence in Kenya. This is the first documentary produced by the Shanghai-based pair who took 10 days of ...