China’s invitation to South Africa – rather than South Korea – to join the developing-country top table group of Brazil, Russia, India and China in December has irritated...

Africa is another theatre in which North and South Korea play out their rivalries. This has led to unintended consequences, especially in the case of a South Korean...

West Africa is only a recent target of Tokyo’s donor diplomacy and commercial overtures, and just last year Japan opened embassies in Mauritania and Mali. Parliamentary Vice-Minister for...

On 29 December, Park Young-june, an associate of President Lee Myung-bak and a familiar face in South Korea-Africa relations, hosted 13 African ambassadors at the Korea-Africa Round Table...

India is seeking African supplies to cope with a looming coal shortage. Dependent on coal, India has large reserves – 58.6 billion tonnes in 2009 – but environmental...

With the other Asian powers vying for business elsewhere, Singapore has focused on two sluggish oil-producing countries in Central Africa: Congo-Brazzaville and Gabon. President Denis Sassou-Nguesso’s government is...

Born in 1953 to a prominent Communist revolutionary, Xi Zhongxun, China’s presumed president-in-waiting, is a ‘princeling’ groomed to the elite class. Xi Jinping grew up in privilege in...

Taiwan has kept a low-profile in Africa lately but that will change in late December when Premier Wu Den-yih pays a visit to Burkina Faso. Wu is set...

South Korea’s new Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Kim Sung-hwan took office in October, pledging closer engagement with Africa. His first emissary is Deputy Minister Kim Jae-shin, whose...

Sudan is set to split into two next year, and China – the Khartoum regime’s most important international backer – is stuck in the middle. Under the 2005...