Tag: Africa

Silence on China Protests, but Analysts Say Africa Watching

Chin@Strategy

JOHANNESBURG —  With China seeing the biggest anti-government protests since 1989, analysts say African governments are watching closely, mainly with economic concerns. For the past few days, the eyes of the world have been on the outbreak of mass protests in cities across China, with demonstrators furious at continued strict COVID-19 lockdowns as part of President Xi Jinping’s unpopular “zero-COVID” policy. The protests have also taken on a political angle, leading to comparisons to Tiananmen Square, with protesters being heard shouting: “Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!” The…

Study: South Africa Resilient to Chinese Attempts to Influence Media 

Chin@Strategy

Johannesburg, South Africa —  South Africa’s free press has been largely successful at resisting efforts by the Chinese government to influence its content, say analysts, affirming a recent study by the U.S.-based think tank Freedom House. “In South Africa, we have a deep historical suspicion of state media,” said Anton Harber, professor of journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. South Africa’s wariness of state media, he said, stems from the country’s legacy of apartheid, the former state policy of racial segregation and discrimination that ended in 1994.…

Food of Emperors: China’s Appetite for South African Abalone 

Chin@Strategy

Abalone has been a luxury food in China since imperial times. Poachers are feeding the country’s appetite for the pricy little mollusk resulting in a drop in the abalone population in South Africa’s once-large natural reserves. Reporter Kate Bartlett visited one abalone aquaculture farm in Hermanus, South Africa with more. Camera: Gianluigi Guercia VOA

UN body reaches long-term aviation climate goal of net zero by 2050

Chin@Strategy

A United Nations body has agreed to a long-term aspirational goal for aviation of net-zero emissions by 2050, despite challenges from China and Russia, as countries aligned overwhelmingly with airlines amid pressure to curb pollution from flights. Nevertheless, environmentalists criticised the non-binding nature of the agreement as toothless. The decision, described as a compromise by several European countries who wanted a more ambitious target, was met with applause by members at the 193-nation International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) assembly, held every three years. China, backed by Russia and Eritrea, questioned…

In Global Slowdown, China Holds Sway Over Countries’ Fates

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — When Suriname couldn’t make its debt payments, a Chinese state bank seized the money from one of the South American country’s accounts. As Pakistan has struggled to cope with a devastating flood that has inundated a third of the country, its loan repayments to China have been rising fast. When Kenyans and Angolans went to the polls in presidential elections in August, the countries’ Chinese loans, and how to repay them, were a hot-button political issue. Across much of the developing world, China finds itself in an uncomfortable…

Ukraine war to take centre stage at UN as west and Russia vie for support

Chin@Strategy

The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle – between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other – for global support over the fate of Ukraine, as the global south fights to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of famine and the climate crisis. With a return to fully in-person general debate, presidents and prime ministers will be converging on New York, many of them direct from London, where the diplomacy got under way on the sidelines…

Blinken makes case for democracy at start of sub-Saharan Africa tour

Chin@Strategy

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has appealed to “governments, communities and peoples” across Africa to embrace Washington’s vision of democracy, openness and economic partnership in the first major speech of three-nation tour of sub-Saharan Africa. Blinken was speaking in South Africa on the first stop of his tour, which will include the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. The new diplomatic effort comes after several years during which Washington appeared uninterested in sub-Saharan Africa. The tour has been portrayed as an attempt to counter recent efforts by…

China funnels its overseas aid money into political leaders’ home provinces

Chin@Strategy

China’s financing of overseas projects has disproportionately benefited the core political supporters of incumbent presidents or prime ministers of those countries that receive the funds, according to a new book. During the 20th century, China was mostly known as a recipient of international development finance. Its overseas development programme was modest – roughly on a par with that of Denmark. But over the course of one generation, as Beijing emerged as the world’s second-largest economy, its footprint began to extend far beyond its borders – often in the form of…

Economic Headwinds Mount as Leaders Weigh Costs of Confronting Russia

Chin@Strategy

The interruption of wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia, which together account for 28 percent of global exports, along with supply chain disruptions, a severe drought in India that has caused it to ban shipments of grain and Covid-related lockdowns in China, are also causing food prices to spiral and increasing global hunger, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. The question for both American and European policymakers is how to corral leaping prices without sending their economies into recession. The Federal Reserve has begun raising interest rates to tame…

Secret British ‘black propaganda’ campaign targeted cold war enemies

Chin@Strategy

The British government ran a secret “black propaganda” campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas, newly declassified documents have revealed. The effort, run from the mid-1950s through to the late 70s by a unit in London that was part of the Foreign Office, was focused on cold war enemies such as the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and…