The company behind the racist Chinese laundry detergent ad that sparked widespread online outrage around the world issued a...
The Chinese presence in Africa has been so sudden and so all-encompassing that it’s left a lot of people confused. Chinese farmers now compete for space and customers in Lusaka’s open-air markets, Chinese textiles are undercutting...
Despite many problems, China’s involvement in Kenya is a net positive, as most trade relations in the world tend to be.
The Western and African media have long fueled the myth that Chinese investors are buying up vast tracts of land across...
Chinese companies around the world, particularly in Africa, have a well-earned reputation for being bad corporate citizens. There are countless stories of labor rights violations, disregard of environmental policies, and lack of...
China signed an initial 10-year lease for their base, and will pay $20 million per year in rent.
Remember when the BRICS were going to power the global economy? Well, the past few years have not been kind to Brazil, Russia...
Amid a prolonged economic downturn and a weakening yuan, Chinese investors have turned their focus to buying overseas assets. While there are a number of complicated reasons behind the massive capital outflows over the past 18...
How foreign journalists report on the China-Africa story is often determined by the national origin of their news organization. While there are no doubt exceptions, the U.S. news media frequently frame China as the neo-colonial...
Welcome to ChinaFile’s inaugural “Depth of Field” column. In collaboration with Yuanjin Photo, an independent photo blog published by photographers Yan Cong and Ye Ming on the Chinese social media platform WeChat, we will...
For their new book, Continental Shift: A Journey into Africa’s 21st Century, South African authors Kevin Bloom and Richard Poplak embarked on a 14-country odyssey across two continents...
China’s lofty ambition to revive its ancient silk road trading routes is now becoming a reality. When complete, One Belt...
Thousands of Chinese migrants who settled in Africa over the past 10 years now face mounting uncertainty as economic growth slows across the continent and back home in China. While there are no reliable estimates as to how many...
China’s engagement in Africa is often seen by many observers in a vacuum without a broader understanding of how the relationship compares to Beijing’s strategy in other regions of the world. South America, in particular, provides an interesting...
“When the buying stops, the killing can too,” reads the popular slogan that WildAid uses in its anti-ivory campaign to raise awareness in China. WildAid, along with most Western environmentalists, contend that curbing demand in...
Chinese president Xi Jinping’s three-country tour of the Middle East and North Africa offers yet another example of Beijing’s expanding...
Chinese special operations forces are training in the western deserts of Xinjiang in complex search...
China’s trade with Africa grew to $222 billion last year, making it
Terrorism and security issues will likely move close to the top of the agenda when Xi Jinping meets with 50+ African counterparts at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit. China’s vulnerability to terrorism was brazenly exposed when ISIS...
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Zimbabwe on Tuesday, the first visit by a Chinese leader since 1996.
The Africa-China summit will provide an opportunity to see how the Chinese President is responding to democratic developments in Africa.
China is set to announce new aid to African nations when President Xi Jinping visits Zimbabwe and South Africa next month.
China’s Commerce Ministry publicly admitted that Chinese investments to Africa had fallen by 40 percent in the first half of this year.
As we approach the sixth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit in Johannesburg, we try better to understand the main issues that surely will arise when Chinese President Xi Jinping and South African President Jacob Zuma meet on...
Their arrests are emblematic of a slowly brewing backlash against Chinese immigration to Africa.
The U.S.-based online news site Quartz is among a growing number of international media companies that is investing resources to better cover Africa. The company launched...
Among the most durable myths surrounding the China-Africa relationship is the fear that the Chinese government and private enterprises are buying vast tracts of African farm land and have plans to transplant millions of Chinese peasants to live...
The sixth Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) that will be held in December in Johannesburg comes at a critical time in the Sino-African relationship. The combination of China’s...
Chad is one of the poorest, most corrupt, and, increasingly,...
Western pundits have a narrative about China’s activities in Africa.
“A common perception is that China is supporting Chinese enterprises to acquire land abroad as part of a national food security strategy.”
The tremors in China’s faltering economy are being felt across Africa. Now that China has replaced Europe and the United States as most African countries’ largest trading partner, there is understandable concern that slowing demand in the P.R.C....
News organizations from across Africa and around the world are devoting more resources to covering China’s engagement on the continent. The overall quantity of coverage has undoubtedly increased over the past decade. The key question, though, is...
Economic slowdown in China exacerbates strain for trading partners in Africa.
When African policy makers scan the globe in search of inspiration on how to structure their economies, that search often leads to...
Government auditors are taking a closer look at U.S.$10 billion worth of offshore oil investments by state-run China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) that owe their existence to a Hong Kong businessman with a flair for networking in the...
China goes to great lengths to differentiate its engagement in Africa from the continent’s former European colonizers by emphasizing so-called “win-win development.” Chinese leaders regularly visit Africa where they emphatically reject the...
The difference between U.S. and Chinese foreign policies in Africa was on stark display in July when president Barack Obama made his landmark visits to Kenya and Ethiopia. The president brought along with him a vast agenda that transcended trade...
In Mark Kapchanga’s view, the West, particularly the media, really does not understand what the Chinese are doing in Africa. Kapchanga, a provocative Nairobi-based journalist and columnist, isn’t shy in arguing his case that on balance China’s...
After oil prices fell, leaving a huge hole in Angola's finances, it became clear sub-Saharan Africa's third largest economy needed - and President Jose Eduardo dos Santos signed multi billion dollar loans with China.
South Africa’s tourism sector is in crisis as a series of new visa regulations have prompted dramatic falls in arrivals, particularly from the...
The number of Chinese visitors to South Africa has dropped 32 percent after new visa regulations make travel difficult.
Though all countries have an interest in region peace and stability says China's Defense Ministry, it declines to confirm Djibouti military base.
The Chinese and South Africa governments have signed a pact, or a “plan of action,” where Beijing will provide a broad array of...
China’s surprise announcement that it will phase out the trade and manufacturing of ivory came as a rare piece of good news for Africa’s...
Fifteen minutes into almost any conversation about the Chinese in Africa, the question about Chinese labor invariably comes up. “The Chinese are exporting convicts to work on construction sites,” according to one of the pervasive myths, or, “...
When riots broke out in the U.S. city of Baltimore in May 2015, the reaction across the Chinese social web was sadly predictable as Internet users posted countless anti-black racist comments. However, what was interesting about their posts is how...
Sam Pa is a mysterious man, largely unknown to the outside world. Yet Pa, who goes by at least seven different aliases, represents the nefarious side of China’s engagement in Africa. Sam Pa and his associates in the Hong Kong-based consortium...
When critics of the Chinese in Africa make their case, the Collum coal mine in Zambia is invariably on their list of grievances. The controversial mine has been the site of violent labor disputes that have severely injured, even killed, both...
Chinese immigrants in South Africa have not been spared from the violent, anti-immigrant riots...
Several days ago, a Chinese friend and I were discussing the protests in Baltimore that erupted in response to the death of...
Fifty-seven countries, including two from Africa, are among the founding members of China’s new development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). While the new bank’s primary objective will be to develop infrastructure projects...
The Chinese government has spent billions of dollars in Africa on public diplomacy initiatives that are intended to improve the country’s image. Central to that strategy is the growing network of Confucius Institutes (CIs) spread across the...
