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Published 1st December 2010

Vol 4 (AAC) No 2

Sudan

Beijing’s balancing act

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures
Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Usually a supporter of territorial integrity, Beijing is making plans to adapt to the prospect of an oil-rich and independent Southern Sudan

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 peace deal between the National Congress Party (NCP) of President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the Southern Sudanese people are likely to vote massively for secession in the referendum due on 9 January. The secession would peel off the bottom third of Africa’s largest country. It would also mean the transfer of sovereign control of most of Sudan’s known oil fields to the new government in the South.

Digging deeper

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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New Delhi wants to beat its international competitors in the race for new oil concessions by building strategic partnerships with Angola and Sudan

India’s diplomats are looking for both commercial and ‘preferential’ means to access oil acreage and to increase oil supplies. However, the Indian government will need to speed up ...

The next big plan

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Policymakers face rising expectations and criticisms of Beijing’s trade and investments in Africa

Growing demand for Africa’s minerals, oil, gas and farmland will shape China’s next five-year plan (2011-2015) due to be approved in March 2011. The planning committees have to tak...

How to plan the planning

The ruling Communist Party makes policy and the state bureaucracy implements it but decisions on economic strategy are taking in a wider range of opinion and expertise.

Rust never sleeps

After much stalling, the first privatisation deal with the Zimbabwe government has finally been sealed. An estimated 53% of the country’s largest public company, the Zimbabwe Iron ...

Seoul’s new strategy

A new five-year aid plan sets out Seoul’s goal of matching its economic strength in the diplomatic arena

South Korea is beginning to take its trade and aid more seriously, and Africa stands to benefit. The Seoul government’s hosting of the G-20 Summit in November again shifted the deb...

India sets the pace

Indian and Chinese investors are on the offensive in Central African Republic – even if the country is voted one of the worst in the world for doing business by the International F...

The Asian aid summit

Seoul intends to keep the promises made at November’s G-20 summit and began by hosting a gathering of Asian development agencies on 19 November.

Triangular trade

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 De...

Pointers

Xi Jinping

Vice-President, China

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 privile...

Wu Den-yih

Premier, Taiwan

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 to attend the re-inauguration o...

Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba

President, Gabon

Newish President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba aims to end Gabon’s economic dependence on oil along with its traditional ties to France. A 9-12 November trip to Singapore yielded a deal fo...

Kim Jae-shin

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, South Korea

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-shi...

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