France Seeks to Calm Diplomatic Storm Over Macron’s China-Taiwan Comments 

France is try­ing to lim­it the diplo­mat­ic fall­out after Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron said Europe should reduce its depen­dence on the U.S. and avoid “get­ting caught up in crises that are not ours,” fol­low­ing a state vis­it to Chi­na ear­li­er this month. Crit­ics said Macron’s remarks under­mined the transat­lantic rela­tion­ship at a time of dan­ger­ous geopo­lit­i­cal tensions.…

Russia Sanctions a Boon for Chinese Arms Sales to Africa?

Rus­sia has long been the biggest exporter of arms to sub-Saha­ran Africa, but a new study indi­cates West­ern sanc­tions are mak­ing it hard­er for Moscow to sell weapons, open­ing the door for more Chi­­nese-made arms. Even before the Ukraine war, Chi­na had increased its sales of weapons to sub-Saha­ran Africa, export­ing almost three times as…

From the US to Africa: how China sees the world as Xi’s third term begins

Geopo­lit­i­cal rela­tions China’s pres­i­dent will have to nav­i­gate as coun­try reopens after three years of iso­la­tion As Xi Jin­ping starts his third term as China’s pres­i­dent, high on his agen­da will be strength­en­ing the country’s posi­tion on the world stage. After three years of iso­la­tion as Bei­jing tried to impose a harsh zero-Covid pol­i­cy, China…

China to forgive 23 ‘belt and road’ loans to 17 African countries — Pinsent Masons

Chi­na will con­tin­ue to help with the con­struc­tion of major infra­struc­ture projects in Africa via financ­ing, invest­ment and assis­tance, the min­is­ter said in a speech at a recent meet­ing of the Chi­na-Africa coop­er­a­tion forum.
The coun­try will also be increas­ing imports from Africa, help­ing to devel­op Africa’s agri­cul­tur­al and man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors, and expand­ing co-oper­a­tion in emerg­ing indus­tries such as the dig­i­tal econ­o­my, health, and green and low-car­bon sectors.
The lat­est announce­ment fol­lows China’s can­cel­la­tion of at least 94 inter­est-free loans amount­ing to over US$3.4 bil­lion in Africa between 2000 and 2019.
Finance expert Kanyi Lui of Pin­sent Masons said: “Chi­na has been for­giv­ing inter­est-free loans made to devel­op­ing coun­tries for almost half a cen­tu­ry. When many African coun­tries expe­ri­enced debt dis­tress in the 1980s to 1990s, Chi­na for­gave over 85% of inter­est free loans then out­stand­ing. This lat­est announce­ment shows China’s con­tin­ued lead­er­ship in work­ing with devel­op­ing coun­tries in debt distress.” 
“As the BRI [Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive] starts to shift its focus from mega infra­struc­ture projects to ‘small and beau­ti­ful’ projects which focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty, rais­ing liv­ing stan­dards and social impact, devel­op­ing coun­tries would do well to care­ful­ly con­sid­er their own their inter­ests and devel­op­men­tal needs and how to engage with Chi­na in a man­ner that would max­imise the wel­fare of their peo­ple,” he said.
As of 2020, the African nations with the high­est exter­nal debt to Chi­na as a per­cent­age of gross nation­al income are Dji­bouti (43%), Ango­la (41%) and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go (29%), accord­ing to World Bank data cit­ed in press reports.