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The Infrastructure Cold War 

This week, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee heard testimony about foreign investments channeled by the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), an agency founded in the late Trump era and key to the implementation of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), the Biden administration’s global infrastructure rollout ...

Why the United States Struggles to Compete With China in Building African Infrastructure: Report

When it comes to building infrastructure in Africa, the U.S. dreams of competing with China, but in reality, there is hardly any contest to speak of. This is the main thrust of a new report by the Chinese research body, the Institute for International and Area Studies, ...

Chinese Press Dismisses Blinken’s Africa Tour

The reaction in China to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Ivory Coast, Cape Verde, Nigeria, and Angola has been relatively muted. The trip is likely seen as sensitive, which means that commentary is mostly appearing in the foreign policy-facing press.

The Real Challenge Facing Antony Blinken in Africa

It has become customary, as the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tours Africa, to rebuff journalists’ endless questions about China. Senior officials have made it clear that, unlike the Trump era, the Biden administration doesn’t want to put China threat narratives at the heart of their engagement ...

U.S. Lawmakers Want to Sell More Stuff to Africa and Latin America to Counter China

Tucked away in a remote corner of the U.S. Senate's version of the massive $875 billion proposed budget for the U.S. Defense Department is a small piece of legislation that aims to boost U.S. exports to Africa. The legislation, known as the ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Plugging into African Agency

After several years of declining funding, the African end of the Belt and Road Initiative seems to be roaring back. The newest Griffith University/Green Development Finance Center data on the Belt and Road Initiative shows that engagement with Africa jumped by 395%, while a few big projects boosted engagement in Nigeria alone more than twelvefold.
These shifts indicate a window of opportunity for African electrification. 60% of Africans still ...

U.S.-Africa Summit Strengthened Relationship but Didn’t Revolutionize It

As the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit wraps up today, one is struck by a paradox: while several notable new deals were announced, the summit as a whole has been slightly underwhelming.  The United States seemed determined to combat two interrelated narratives. First, ...

Oh, the Talking Points: Why It’s Sometimes Better When U.S. Officials Leave China Out of the Africa Conversation…

At the outset of the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit, one message was clear: African countries hate being made to ‘choose sides’ between the U.S. and China. So, U.S. officials were determined to avoid the appearance of making them do so. That meant steering away from China-related discussions as ...

U.S.-Africa Summit Showcases New Biden Strategy, Amid Republican Complaints

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris opened the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit yesterday with an optimistic message focusing on Africa’s youth. President Joe Biden is scheduled to join the summit today, and his administration has leaned into new cooperation initiatives. These include an additional $100 million to expand the Obama-era Youth African Leaders ...

Critical Report from African Think Tank Name-Checked in Beijing’s Response to Summit

While the Biden administration is trying to steer discussions of its Africa summit away from its geopolitical competition with China, the opposite is true in Beijing. At a press briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin framed the summit as a geopolitical tool: 

Chinese Press: The U.S.-Africa Summit is All About China

The Chinese press and think tank coverage of the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit is echoing the geopolitics-focused response from the Foreign Ministry. China’s state-owned nationalist tabloid Global Times set the tone by arguing that the summit is a continuation of Trump-era “America First’ approach, saying that “whether the ...

Prominent Africa Scholar Shapes Beijing’s Summit Talking Points

Chinese experts play a key role in shaping Beijing’s messaging on the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit. Key among them is He Wenping, a researcher at the Institute of West Asian and African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She is one of the most prominent Africa ...

Tanzanian Presidential Visit to Washington Raises Questions about Africa Focus

Press coverage of Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington DC on Friday revealed how geopolitics are reshaping U.S.-Africa relations. While Tanzanian coverage of the meeting focused on investment pledges, Voice of America framed the visit in the context ...