China

Asia is responding to President Robert Mugabe’s calls for solidarity in the time of cholera – but not in the way that Harare had envisaged. The economic meltdown...

Ideological rather than commercial motives led to the 2003 launch of Zimbabwe’s ‘Look East’ policy, but as the country’s economic position has deteriorated, Harare has tried to woo...

The provincial leaders who have driven China’s economic boom and commercial charge into Africa insist that history is on their side. Ancient China’s Emperors – powerful as they...

The twinning of provinces and cities in China and Africa is central to Beijing’s strategy of allowing provinces to take a lead role in trade matters. For Beijing,...

The diplomatic battles between China and Taiwan – often played out on African soil – are on hold. There is no formal truce yet because China’s strategists...

Worsening international economic conditions, tighter credit lines and Nigeria’s weak industrial policy have led to a sharp cutback in the US$3.3 billion cement manufacturing deal between China’s Sinoma...

China’s billion dollar contracts in Congo are at the centre of a new propaganda front in rebel General Laurent Nkunda’s war against President Joseph Kabila’s government in Kinshasa....

Though the Dalai Lama has recently hinted at retirement, his capacity to ruffle China’s feathers is undiminished. His lecture in Lagos, Nigeria, on 28 November passed without incident...

In August 2008, the sun shone brightly on the Beijing Olympics. With Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping providing behind-the-scenes muscle, the government forced factory closures and enacted draconian traffic...

The catastrophic failure in November of Nigeria’s US$340 million, Chinese-built satellite NIGCOMSAT-1, launched only a year ago, is the latest, most visible indication of increasing difficulties...

The International Monetary Fund has given Kinshasa a stark choice: the Bretton Woods financial institutions or the Chinese. On a visit in September, an IMF delegation led by...

Second in command of China’s Communist Party Wu Bangguo has just completed a tour of Algeria, Gabon, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Seychelles from 3-14 November. He visited the allies in rough...

Many European Union diplomats believe their continent’s influence is being sidelined as China boosts its investments and profile in Africa. One man in the European Commission is working to channel those...

The thwarted voyage of the An Yue Jiang – a Chinese freighter with a cargo of ammunition, mortars, mines and artillery bound for President Robert Mugabe’s government –...

China is worried about the 'deadlock' in Darfur and is looking for new ideas, its Special Representative for Africa and Darfur, Liu Guijin, told a leading Sudanese civic...

Britain’s Conservative Party, which has been campaigning against the Sudan government’s Darfur policy, faces charges of hypocrisy after it accepted more than US$800,000 in contributions from a United...

China’s trade with Africa is to reach US$117 billion this year, according to an internal report by Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID). China will also be...

The European Union’s Africa policy is in a shambles after the diplomatic disaster of the Economic Partnership Agreements, the multilateral trade accords which so many African states have...

Officials from Guinea’s Ministry of Mines are due in Beijing to negotiate a US$21 billion countertrade deal to swap bauxite and iron ore concessions for investments in dams,...

Accelerating China-Africa trade and diplomatic relations are the dominant topic in the Africa-Asia nexus – even if India and Japan have taken the spotlight with grand African summits...

After a spate of high-profile contract awards, local contractors are accusing their Chinese competitors of using political influence and state subsidies from Beijing to dominate Zambia’s construction market....

Ambassador to Africa’s biggest oil producer, Xu Jianguo has presided over a rapid expansion of commercial and diplomatic ties since his posting to Abuja in September 2006. Chinese...

China's activities in Congo-Kinshasa began with mining, moved into infrastructure and are now more ambitious still: they are diversifying into national development planning. Relations were strengthened by President Joseph Kabila's visit for...

A new phase in China's relations with Sudan began on 1 September when Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun inaugurated the new Chinese Consulate in Juba. This was an historic move...

Huawei is China's largest producer of telecommunications equipment, built by an enigmatic figure, Ren Zhengfei. Born in 1944, Ren attended Chongqing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture.

African states are competing to host China's special economic zones in the expectation they will bring in billions of dollars of investments and create tens of thousands of jobs -in...

Mauritian Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam began negotiations to make his country China's second special economic zone at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation held in Beijing in November 2006, after the Indian...

Talks on a complex three-party investment deal between China and Angola and the ailing Air Tanzania Company are nearing conclusion, officials have confirmed in Dar es Salaam. The aim...

Namibia Construction and South Africa's Murray & Roberts claim that a N$74.4 million (US$9.5 mn.) contract awarded last year to China Nanjing International for the construction of a new headquarters for...

A new player treads the boards of the African stage: Li Jinjun, Vice-Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China's Party's Central Committee. The party's International Department forges...

SINOSURE: China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) was established in December 2001 through a merger between the People's Insurance Company of China and the insurance arms of China Exim Bank....

CHINA EXIM BANK: Established in 1994 under the Policy Banks Law, China Exim Bank is currently the third largest export credit agency in the world. China Exim Bank is tasked...

China Exim Bank and Sinosure are together expected to become the world's largest export credit agencies by 2010, according to the Export-Import Bank of the United States, just two decades after...

Beijing's multi-billion dollar plans for Congo-Kinshasa are hitting new obstacles as questions are being asked about the transparency of the new deals and the behaviour of Chinese companies on the ground....

Relations between Angola and China are steaming ahead, despite the wishful thinking of some Western diplomats. China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited Luanda on 23 June and signed an agreement for...

A specialist in the Middle East and North Africa, Zhai is responsible for China's West Asian and African relations. The Hebei native joined the Foreign Ministry after finishing university and...

The CADF has passed its first birthday. Announced to much fanfare at the 2006 China-Africa summit, it was formally established in June 2007 by the China Development Bank. The 50-year...

Washington politicians are re-evaluating the significance for United States' policy in Africa in light of China's increasing engagement with the continent. On 4 June, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee...

p>Chen Yuan is one of the ’princelings’, as children of Mao Zedong’s revolutionary compatriots are known. His father, Chen Yi, was a key player in the Communist revolution,...

Angola and China are to set up a'new model partnership'. This will involve the'sharing of risks' and will'complement existing models', said Gao Jian, Vice-Governor of the China Development Bank (CDB) on...

Kinshasa's Commission Ministérielle Chargée de la Revisitation des Contrats Miniers has revised the terms of China's biggest contract in Congo-Kinshasa, signed with the joint venture Sicomines, as part of a wider...

Facing a growing demand for agricultural products while its wealthy business people seek new opportunities, Chinese companies are searching for investments in Africa that go beyond energy and mineral...

A sizable and much-ballyhooed credit line looks to be little more than a goodwill gesture from China to Nigeria, promising much but delivering little. The brief fanfare attached to the initial...

When China evacuated 400 construction workers from Mongomo in Equatorial Guinea in early April, it marked the culmination of a labour dispute with a difference. In several African countries, notably Zambia...

Wang Yi has been appointed President of Sinosure, China's export credit insurance agency, after he resigned as General Manager of the People's Insurance Company of China (PICC) on...

Agreements signed this month between Dangote Industries of Nigeria and China's Sinoma International Engineering Company to build 13 cement production lines across Africa at a cost of US$2.8 billion will give...

Tension and recriminations continue to mark relations between Zambian workers and Chinese investors, two months after the end of a two-day strike at a US$200 million copper smelting...

Why are China's importers of raw materials so interested in Africa rather than other continents, such as Latin America? Latin America's natural resources are largely controlled by giant companies from...

At the end of May, Justin Yifu Lin will succeed France's François Bourguignon as Chief Economist at the World Bank. The Peking University professor will be the first economist from a developing...

Chinese peacekeepers in Southern Sudan have been awarded United Nations Peacekeeping Medals two months early to coincide with the Lunar New Year Spring Festival, celebrated on 7 February. Events in Chad...

The new Defence Ministry building in Accra is under construction by Chinese contractors. Chinese companies built the Tamale and Sekondi stadiums, which were used in February’s 2008 African...

A combination of strong economic growth and institutional neglect of investment in infrastructure has created a serious problem: South Africa, the continent’s largest and most developed economy, is running...

It could be another three years before China launches its US$3 billion investment into Katanga’s vast reserves of copper and cobalt, according to Congolese mining officials who met their counterparts...

Table

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi visited South Africa on 7 January 2008 to deepen a relationship which has been elevated to a ‘strategic dialogue’. The visit was to...

Angola's Finance Ministry has strengthened its policy to promote greater transparency in public finances, with the disclosure of new details about Chinese credit lines that support an array of projects...