China got itself into trouble a few times when lenders who got into problems paying back debts. When China offers the same loans commercial banks can offer but without political ties, China has not so much extra to give, says strategic analyst Harry Broadman about the country’s’ international debt policies in the Africa Report, taking Zambia as an example.Read More →
As the Black Lives Matter movement took over some of the headlines, China typically dismissed racism as a Western problem. Author Zhang Lijia begs to differ, in The Wire. “The Chinese government claims to have “zero tolerance” for racism, but there have been no reports that anyone has been punishedRead More →
Countries in Europe, Africa and other parts of the world have turned to China to seek for help in their struggle against the coronavirus, as the European Union and the US are failing to offer assistance. But China expert Howard French wonders at the Intercept whether China can face up to this new challenge.Read More →
Many stories about China and the Chinese in Africa are simply myths, says journalist and author Howard French, of China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa. He discusses how Chinese entrepreneurs ended up in Africa. “There was no big masterplan by the Chinese state to do so,” he says at The Columbia Global Centers in Nairobi.Read More →
One of the major global initiatives by China was the massive Belt and Road Initiative, reviving the old silk roads. In May 2017 a major international conference showed what our experts were already expecting: now all roads lead to China. Even countries who suffered from difficult relations with China, including both Koreas, appeared in Beijing.Larger than the former Marshall Plan after the Second World War, OBOR is going to redefine global trade.Read More →
China is nowadays even compared with former colonial powers when it comes to its economic rise in Africa. Journalist Howard French, the author of China’s Second Continent, takes a step back and looks at how it all started in the 1960s for Worldpoliticsreview, and how it relates to South Africa.Read More →
Transparency is not a natural thing for China, not domestically nor internationally. But African states can ask China for more transparency, argues journalist Howard French, author China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa, to Inkstone.Read More →
Religion is on the rise in China, despite worries from the government. China’s diaspora’s are a source of Christianians, as a growing number of Chinese return home with their newly found religious feelings, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, at CNN in a story on Kenya.Read More →
Where do they go to, where do they stay. The travel industry is eagerly looking at the luxury traveler from China. The latest Hurun Chinese Luxury Traveller report shows some answers: they increasingly go for luxury homes instead of hotels, says Hurun chairman Rupert Hoogewerf to the South China Morning Post.Read More →
China routinely dismisses accusations it is copying the behavior of former colonial powers in Africa, but is missing the point, says journalist Howard French, author of China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa, at the Sydney Morning Herald.Read More →
Western media have been portraying China’s massive investment program One Belt, One Road (OBOR) or Belt Road Initiative (BRI) as a colonial trick to put developing countries into debt, and then seize their assets. Business analyst Andy Mok sees debt problems as a normal business risk in highly complicated investments on infrastructure, he tells at the state-owned CGTN.Read More →
China is adamant when it says it does not want to replace the United States as an international player. But what does it want, asks The Diplomat Shaun Rein, author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order. ” Many nations feel Western, historically ethnically white nations have an outsized say in institutions like the World Bank or IMF and feel the U.S. contains their growth.”Read More →