Tag: Africa

In State Visit, Eritrea and China Signal Deeper Partnership

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WASHINGTON —  When Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki arrived in China for a four-day state visit, he was greeted with fanfare that included a red carpet, a guard of honor military procession and a 21-gun salute. Analysts say Eritrea and China need each other and are working to strengthen already-existing ties. During a speech in Beijing’s Great Hall, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China and Eritrea “share a deep bond of friendship (in) an uncertain and unstable world.” “A strong China-Eritrea relationship is not only in line with the common and…

DR Congo Leader to Visit China This Week, Minerals Trade Deal Signing Expected 

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Beijing —  The president of minerals-rich Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, will visit China from May 24 to 29 and is expected to meet President Xi Jinping to review and sign several key trade deals. A meeting would pave the way for the two countries to formally overhaul and seal a $6 billion infrastructure-for-minerals deal with Chinese investors. The visit was announced by the Chinese foreign ministry on Monday. Tshisekedi instructed his government at a Cabinet meeting on May 19 to move ahead with talks on the deal with…

Zelenskiy uses G7 summit to reach beyond the west for support

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Normally G7 summits are about battling for the free world comma by comma, as diplomats parse lengthy communiques of ephemeral significance long into the night. Words, after all, constitute much of a diplomat’s work. At the Hiroshima G7 some of the communiques emerging from the summit do matter, notably the toolbox on de-risking trade with China, but the true significance of the summit lay in Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s scene-stealing visit courtesy of a ride in Emmanuel Macron’s French aircraft. It was the culmination of a Ukrainian realisation that for months they…

China and Eritrea Should Enrich Strategic Partnership – Premier Li

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Beijing —  China’s Premier Li Qiang told visiting Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki on Monday their countries should “deepen mutually beneficial win-win cooperation and continuously enrich their strategic partnership” at a meeting in Beijing. On the Red Sea, Eritrea could be geopolitically important for China, with its access to the Suez Canal and Europe to the north and the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean to the southeast, as China seeks to bolster its presence in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea also shares a border with Djibouti, where China’s People’s Liberation Army…

Mysterious Killing of Chinese Gold Miners Puts New Pressure on Beijing

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The Chinese embassy in the Central African Republic had a stark warning for its compatriots in the landlocked nation: Do not leave the capital city of Bangui. Kidnappings of foreigners were on the rise, and any Chinese person outside of Bangui was to leave those areas immediately. Less than a week later, on March 19, a group of gunmen stormed a remote gold mine far away from Bangui and killed nine Chinese workers. The Central African government has said that it investigated the massacre and concluded that a leading rebel group had…

Why China Is Investing in Africa’s Green Energy Future

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Johannesburg —  A wind farm in Namibia and a floating solar farm on Zimbabwe’s massive Kariba Dam are among the new green energy projects Chinese companies are looking at investing in this year after Beijing pledged to help African countries address their energy problems with renewable sources rather than fossil fuels. “Chinese overseas renewable energy investments aim to deliver China’s international climate commitments of accelerating the energy transition away from fossil fuels in Africa, China’s largest trading partner,” Lei Bian, a policy fellow at the The London School of Economics…

James Cleverly on taking a new approach to foreign policy – and belting out the Beatles with Blinken

Chin@Strategy

In the early hours of Friday morning New Zealand time, James Cleverly was holed up in the British high commission in Wellington calling international partners about the mounting crisis in Sudan. It didn’t take long for him to realise that he would have to cut short his visit and make the long journey back to London. Emergency meetings were already under way in Whitehall preparing for the evacuation of British diplomats from Khartoum. The clashes, which began last weekend as a power struggle between rival military factions, have derailed a…

Why China Is Building Africa’s New Parliaments

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Johannesburg —  Zimbabwe’s new parliament gives an architectural nod to the country’s famous ancient ruins; Lesotho’s has a design resembling a “mokorotlo,” the conical straw hat that’s part of national dress; and Malawi’s has a dome that looks like a calabash. These local elements make these modern parliaments notable departures from southern Africa’s old European-style legislatures built in colonial times, but in fact the new buildings were also designed and built by a foreign power: China. Despite the African design elements, the imposing buildings aren’t that different from China’s own…

G7 Foreign Ministers Highlight Concerns About Russia, China

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Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven nations condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine and highlighted the need to engage with China to address global challenges as they closed their meetings in Japan on Tuesday. While noting the importance of working with China on issues such as climate change and global health security, the ministers expressed concerns in a joint communique about China’s actions in the East and South China Seas and its stance toward Taiwan. “We reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable…

Pressure Mounts on China to Offer Debt Relief to Poor Countries Facing Default

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WASHINGTON — China, under growing pressure from top international policymakers, appeared to indicate this week that it is ready to make concessions that would unlock a global effort to restructure hundreds of billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries. China has lent more than $500 billion to developing countries through its lending program, making it one of the world’s largest creditors. Many of those countries, including several in Africa, have struggled economically in the wake of the pandemic and face the possibility of defaulting on their debt payments.…