Rajpriya Gautam

While China’s Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Xue Bing, is on a tour of regional capitals, Beijing’s other Special Envoy, Zhai Jun, is doing the same in the Middle East. Zhai (second to the right) met on Sunday with the Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit  in Cairo. The Chinese embassy in Egypt did not release details of their conversation. This marketing content will be shown in place of your protected content to anyone who is not allowed to read the post… Get a daily email packed with the latest China-Africa news and analysis. Read exclusive insights on the key trends shaping China-Africa relations. Full access to the News Feed that provides daily updates on Chinese engagement in Africa and throughout the Global South. China, Africa and the Global South... find out what’s happening. Subscribe today for unlimited access. Monthly $15/mo OR Yearly $149/yr (17% Savings) Already a subscriber? Log in Click Here to Learn More The post Ch...

A well-known Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) official in Beijing,  Cheng Wang , dismissed  the Wall Street Journal report  that Saudi Arabia is considering the option of allowing China to purchase oil using yuan rather than U.S. dollars. Cheng called the report “gossip”  shortly after the WSJ published a story that claimed the two countries have accelerated talks about replacing the dollar with RMB. This marketing content will be shown in place of your protected content to anyone who is not allowed to read the post… Get a daily email packed with the latest China-Africa news and analysis. Read exclusive insights on the key trends shaping China-Africa relations. Full access to the News Feed that provides daily updates on Chinese engagement in Africa and throughout the Global South. China, Africa and the Global South... find out what’s happening. Subscribe today for unlimited access. Monthly $15/mo OR Yearly $149/yr (17% Savings) Already a...

China played a central role in testimony from senior generals  on U.S. defense postures in Africa and the Middle East late last week . General Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command in the Middle East and General Stephen Townsend who oversees U.S. troops in Africa  addressed the House Foreign Affairs Committee .   While the hearings ranged across many issues, strategic competition with China in both regions came up repeatedly. It is important to note that the committee will decide budgetary support for U.S. military activity on the continent. General Townsend repeatedly stressed how U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has achieved outsized influence beyond the size of its budget. This marketing content will be shown in place of your protected content to anyone who is not allowed to read the post… Get a daily email packed with the latest China-Africa news and analysis. Read exclusive insights on the key trends shaping China-Africa relations. Full ac...

The President of Somaliland, Muse Bihi Abdi,  spent last week on Capitol Hill and speaking at Washington, D.C.’s conservative think tanks  to make the case for the U.S. to extend diplomatic recognition to the breakaway region.  Bihi received a warm reception from lawmakers from both parties in the House (China and Africa as stand-alone issues tend to foster the rare bipartisanship in Washington) in part because of Hargeisa’s critical stance against China and its budding relationship with Taiwan. This marketing content will be shown in place of your protected content to anyone who is not allowed to read the post… Get a daily email packed with the latest China-Africa news and analysis. Read exclusive insights on the key trends shaping China-Africa relations. Full access to the News Feed that provides daily updates on Chinese engagement in Africa and throughout the Global South. China, Africa and the Global South... find out what’s happening. Subscribe to...

The head of Chinese mining giant CNMC Deziwa, Du Xingrong (杜兴荣) traveled last week to the Democratic Republic of the Congo  to meet with the interim provincial governor of Lualaba Province Fifi Masuka. CNMC Deziwa is the majority shareholder in an $880 million joint venture with the state-owned Congolese mining company Gécamines which operates the massive Deziwa copper and cobalt mine in Lualaba province. This marketing content will be shown in place of your protected content to anyone who is not allowed to read the post… Get a daily email packed with the latest China-Africa news and analysis. Read exclusive insights on the key trends shaping China-Africa relations. Full access to the News Feed that provides daily updates on Chinese engagement in Africa and throughout the Global South. China, Africa and the Global South... find out what’s happening. Subscribe today for unlimited access. Monthly $15/mo OR Yearly $149/yr (17% Savings) Already a subscribe...

Two new articles promoting the idea that the Chinese system represents an alternative form of democracy from that promoted by Western countries have appeared in the South African and Nigerian press this week. While they were apparently written by African journalists, they follow Chinese state talking points and vocabulary quite closely.   Both use the recent occasion of China’s Two Sessions meetings as an occasion to praise the Chinese system and also promote the idea that “democracy” is not uniquely a Western political construct.  SOUTH AFRICA:   Dividends of Chinese Democracy Could Be Lessons for Africa , by Wesley Seale  (IOL) NIGERIA:  A Peep into China’s Consultative Democracy , by Charles Onunaiju  (THE SUN) It’s noteworthy that the South African article appeared in Independent Online (IOL), an outlet co-owned by a consortium of companies with  links to the Chinese government . The author,  Wesley Seale , has published several article...

Readers of African newspapers may have spotted articles that seemingly come off as a little too effusive about China.  A fascinating new article  by the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong reveals why that may be the case and how Chinese authorities use media to influence foreign audiences. The Chinese government has come a long way from paid media placements of stodgy propaganda (although there’s still a lot of that too.) The analysis shows that there’s stiff competition among China’s various state media outlets to find new ways of influencing foreign coverage of occasions like the recent Two Sessions meeting in Beijing. This marketing content will be shown in place of your protected content to anyone who is not allowed to read the post… Get a daily email packed with the latest China-Africa news and analysis. Read exclusive insights on the key trends shaping China-Africa relations. Full access to the News Feed that provides daily updates on Chinese...