![[GLOBAL SOUTH] Power Shift: China’s Role in Central Asia’s Renewable Energy Transformation](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts122/v4/e5/d7/8d/e5d78dbe-c549-6ef6-30ce-0882a85f9133/mza_16803293295194617219.jpeg/250x250bb.jpg)
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There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the new "small and beautiful" doctrine that now guides China's Belt and Road Initiative. The problem is that a lot of people still do not understand what it actually means in practice.
President Xi Jinping first unveiled the concept at the Third Belt-and-Road Symposium in 2021 when he said that China's overseas development finance would focus more attention on "better connectivity" for telecommunications, energy, and financial services.
China has also had to scale down its financing of large-scale infrastructure projects because of economic challenges at home and debt sustainability issues among borrowing countries.
Lui Kanyi, a Beijing-based project finance lawyer and head of China at a large international law firm, has been closely following the transformation of the BRI for many of his Chinese clients. Kanyi joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the "small and beautiful" trend and what people should know about the future direction of the BRI.
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Two Chinese logging companies are now the largest timber harvesters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with concessions sized at more than 3 million hectares. The firms, Wan Peng and Booming Green, are engaged in industrial-scale logging to export raw timber mostly back to China.
But researchers at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) also discovered that both companies are engaged in a wide range of illegal activities, everything from illegal timber smuggling to bribery.
Luke Allen, a campaign and advocacy officer at EIA, joins Géraud and Cobus to discuss the new report that details the various forestry crimes committed by the two Chinese companies and how the Chinese and DRC governments should respond.
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Even though the five countries in Central Asia are among the world's largest fossil fuel producers, the region faces chronic electricity shortages due to a lack of refining capacity. The energy crunch is further compounded by a reluctance to become overly dependent on Russian fuel.
To solve both problems, several Central Asian governments are looking to source renewable energy technology from China. While wind and solar still account for a small share of Central Asia's total energy production, that may soon change as more affordable Chinese green tech enters the market.
Yunis Sharifli, an independent Eurasia foreign policy analyst, recently explored this trend in an article published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Yunis joins Eric & Cobus to explain the geopolitics powering the green energy transition in Central Asia.
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Just over a million new vehicles were sold in Africa last year, a relatively small number given the continent's enormous population, estimated at 1.5 billion. Chinese auto brands are looking at that discrepancy and think it provides a unique opportunity for rapid expansion, particularly in the budding electric vehicle market.
BAIC Motors, BYD, Xpeng, and Neta are among a growing number of Chinese auto majors that have scaled up sales and manufacturing in Africa.
But selling EVs in Africa is not going to be easy. In many countries, access to reliable electricity is a problem. Then there's the issue of charging stations and the high import taxes many governments impose on foreign-made cars.
Even amid those challenges, Alex Mwanzo, general manager of Equator Mobile — a unit of the investment holding company Maris Africa — is optimistic about the prospects for Chinese EVs. Alex joins Eric & Njenga from Nairobi to explain why Chinese auto brands are well-positioned in the African market.
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India and China have reached a deal to de-escalate tensions along their bitterly disputed border in the Himalayas, potentially ending a contentious four-year stand-off between the two Asian powers.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Monday that the two countries agreed to conduct joint military patrols along the border known as the Line of Actual Control. No details of the pact have been released and the Chinese government has yet to comment on the arrangement.
If the two countries have, in fact, agreed to pull back their forces and disengage, it would have wide-ranging geopolitical consequences throughout Asia. Sushant Singh, a lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University and contributing editor of The Caravan magazine in New Delhi, joined Eric & Cobus to discuss the ramifications of de-escalation along the Sino-Indian border.
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The European Commission's Global Gateway initiative will turn three years old in December. The $300 billion infrastructure initiative was launched with great fanfare to provide developing countries in Africa and elsewhere with an alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative.
Many European stakeholders also hoped that Global Gateway would catalyze a new EU foreign policy agenda for Africa, which many critics contend is now unmoored.
Ahead of the upcoming anniversary, the European Centre for Development Policy Management, an independent think tank in Brussels, published a new report exploring African responses to Global Gateway. Mariella Di Ciommo and Pauline Veron, two of the report's authors, join Eric & Géraud to discuss the current state of Global Gateway and how it measures up against the BRI in Africa.
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Chinese Premier Li Qiang is in Pakistan this week to get ties with its South Asian neighbor back on track after a series of terrorist attacks this year. The latest incident occurred earlier this month near the airport in the southern port city of Karachi when separatist militants with the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) killed two Chinese nationals in a suicide bombing.
Pakistan has vowed to crack down on the militants but, so far, to little avail. In turn, Beijing has become increasingly frustrated with Islamabad's inability to better protect Chinese interests in the country.
Eram Ashraf, a China-Pakistan relations scholar, explained in a column published in The Diplomat how the violence is taking a toll on this vital Chinese diplomatic relationship. She joins Eric & Cobus to explain what's at stake for both sides if the Pakistani government can't contain the BLA.
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U.S. President Joe Biden was supposed to be in Angola this week, fulfilling a pledge to visit the continent he made back at the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. But with massive hurricanes pounding the southern United States, the president was forced to postpone the visit.
The trip to Angola would have marked a major milestone for Biden. The southwestern African country is the showcase for the president's global infrastructure investment program, which is widely seen as Washington's effort to rival China's Belt and Road Initiative.
What does the president's cancellation of his trip this week say about Washington's larger Africa policy? Not a whole lot, according to Judd Devermont, the former senior director of African Affairs at the National Security Council and now an operating partner at Kupanda Capital in Washington, D.C.
Judd joins Eric to discuss the latest trends in U.S. foreign policy in Africa and what role China now plays in the White House's strategy.
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Chinese lending to African countries rebounded in a big way in 2023 after seven consecutive years of decline. Last year, Chinese lenders approved loans totaling $4.61 billion to African borrowers, a dramatic increase over the $922 million lent in 2022, according to Boston University's Global Development Policy Center (GDPC).
In the past, China lent billions to countries like Kenya and Nigeria to build massive infrastructure projects like ports and railways. That is no longer the case today as Chinese lending focuses on smaller, more sustainable initiatives, mainly in the energy, telecom, and logistics sectors.
Kevin Gallagher, director of the GDPC, and Diego Morro, a data analyst at GDPC, join Eric & Cobus to discuss the latest trends in Chinese development finance in Africa and a few of the surprises their research uncovered about which countries are getting the most financing.
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Africa is the only region in the world where access to electricity is actually shrinking. Prolonged drought across large swathes of the continent has severely impacted hydropower production, triggering large-scale electricity outages — most notably in Zambia.
China plays a critical role in this crisis, both as a major financier of African power infrastructure development and as one of the largest contractors that builds new facilities like the Karuma Power Station in Uganda, which came online last month.
But how these infrastructure projects unfold in different African countries depends a lot on the competence of the negotiators who sit across from the various Chinese stakeholders.
Adjekai Adjei, a PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town, joins Eric & Cobus to discuss her research that compared the outcomes for the Bui Hydropower Plant in Ghana and the Karuma facility in Uganda.
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The U.S. and China plan to spend billions of dollars refurbishing key railway lines in southern Africa that link critical resource mining hubs in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo with ports on both sides of the continent.
For the U.S., it's the Lobito Atlantic Railway that goes from the copper belt in Zambia 1,300km west across Angola to the Atlantic Ocean. However, China is looking in the other direction: proposing to spend upwards of a billion dollars to refurbish the TAZARA railway, which also begins in Zambia and heads almost 1,900km West to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salam on the Indian Ocean.
But building and managing these railways isn't going to be easy given the complex politics in the region. Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika, a former managing director of the TAZARA railway, and Solange Chatelard, a prominent China-Zambia scholar at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, join Eric & Géraud to discuss why Beijing and Washington face such formidable challenges in this new logistics competition.
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The rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon prompted a strong reaction from the Chinese government this week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib on Monday at the UN in New York and condemned Israel's actions as “indiscriminate attacks against civilians."
It's notable, though, that neither Wang nor other Chinese officials made any mention of Hezbollah's missile strikes on targets in Israel, including those that hit civilian areas.
The deteriorating security environment in the Middle East is a critical time for China, which is transitioning from a strategy of "hedging" to one that is increasingly focused on "wedging."
Jonathan Fulton and Michael Schuman, senior nonresident scholars at The Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., join Eric & Cobus to discuss their new report on China's Mideast strategy and Beijing's new regional priorities.
SHOW NOTES:
The Atlantic Council: China’s Middle East policy shift from “hedging” to “wedging” by Jonathan Fulton and Michael Schulman: https://tinyurl.com/286pyh3o Subscribe to The China-MENA Newsletter by Jonathan Fulton: https://chinamenanewsletter.substack.com/ Subscribe to The China-MENA Podcast on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/256tdywuJOIN THE DISCUSSION:
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China's new ambassador to Ghana, Tong Defa, spoke out forcefully this week to condemn the ongoing problem of illegal mining in the country and issued a fresh warning to his compatriots that if they are caught breaking the law, the embassy will not be there to bail them out.
Also, Kenyan President William Ruto traveled to Germany where he was once again pressed by the media to answer the ridiculous question of whether he prefers Western or Chinese investment.
Eric & Géraud also discuss a recent Congressional hearing in the United States about China's role in Africa and why the proceedings desperately needed a fact checker.
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For much of the past thirty years, since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been largely unrivaled in its power in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Today, that is no longer the case as the U.S. faces new challenges both from regional powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as international competitors, including China and Russia.
This transition to multipolarity is transforming the region and served as the thesis of a special edition of the academic journal Middle East Policy that came out earlier this year.
Three of the journal's editors on this project, Andrea Ghiselli from Fudan University in Shanghai, University of Naples China scholar Enrico Fardella, and Durham University international relations professor Anoushiravan Ehteshami, join Eric to discuss how the different countries in the region are adapting to the Sino-U.S. rivalry.
SHOW NOTES: Download the Spring 2024 edition of Middle East Policy (you'll need institutional access or have to pay a small fee): https://bit.ly/3XvvLUm
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For decades, African governments have tried to lure Chinese manufacturing companies to set up factories in their countries with the promise of an abundant supply of low-cost labor. Other than a few high-profile companies, Chinese companies, for the most part, have balked — preferring instead to offshore production closer to home in Southeast Asia.
But now that may be starting to change. With the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement now up and running, Chinese firms see an opportunity to manufacture goods for local and continental markets.
Three scholars recently surveyed Chinese manufacturing trends in 34 countries between 2003 and 2014 and published their findings in a new Boston University Global Development Policy Center working paper. Keyi Tang, an assistant professor at the ESADE Business School in Barcelona and one of the report's authors, joins Eric & Cobus to discuss their findings and what it says about the future prospects for Chinese manufacturing on the continent.
SHOW NOTES:
Download the BU Global Development Policy Center Report: Chinese Economic Ties and Low-carbon Industrialization in Africa: https://tinyurl.com/26affcwq
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The three-day Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit wrapped up in Beijing on Friday. The big headline from this year's gathering was the announcement that China will provide $50.7 billion in financing to African countries over the next three years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the customary mega pledge as part of a ten-point action plan that will guide China's relationship with the continent through 2027.
In this special double episode of the show, Eric, Géraud, and Cobus discuss key events from this year's FOCAC summit and why it's best not to focus too much on that big financial package.
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U.S. officials have spoken at length about the urgent need to end their country's dependency on China for the critical resources needed to power next-generation mobility and technology.
Part of the solution, they say, is to compete directly with the Chinese for lithium, cobalt, and other critical mineral mining rights around the world. The problem is few U.S. mining companies today do that kind of work in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia where these resources are found.
But the U.S. is geologically endowed, prompting loud calls to mine these resources at home — which raises another problem.
In his new book "The War Below," Reuters correspondent Ernest Scheyder explains how powerful stakeholders have made it very difficult for U.S. mining companies to operate domestically. Ernest joins Eric & Géraud to explain why the politics of mining make it nearly impossible for the U.S. to compete with China for critical resources.
PURCHASE THE WAR BELOW ON AMAZON: https://tinyurl.com/24ng24tm
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This year's Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit comes at a critical time for governments in both regions. While China is embroiled in an increasingly contentious great power duel with the United States, African governments are under mounting economic and social pressures.
These challenges are prompting Chinese and African scholars to wonder aloud whether it's time to introduce new reforms into the FOCAC process, particularly more transparency and accountability.
Last month, University of California at Irvince scholar Paa-Kwesi Heto and Paul Nantulya, a researcher at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C., convened an independent working group of some of the world's foremost Africa-China scholars to discuss this week's FOCAC summit.
Normally, these gatherings are conducted off the record, but this time, the participants agreed to allow CGSP to record the discussion and share some of the highlights for the podcast. In this special bonus edition, you'll hear insights from:
Li Hangwei, Senior Researcher, German Institute of Development and Sustainability Pamela Carslake, Executive Director, Sin-Africa Centre of International Relations Sanusha Naidu, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Global Dialogue Cliff Mboya, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Johannesburg Centre for Africa-China Studies Frangton Chiyemura, Lecturer in International Development Education, The Open UniversityJOIN THE DISCUSSION:
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Final preparations are underway for the upcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit, which begins on September 4th in Beijing. This year's event comes at a particularly fraught time amid wars in Europe, the Middle East and the simmering Great Power rivalry between the United States and China.
David Monyae, director of the Centre for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg, joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the politics that will frame the summit and why a growing number of African leaders increasingly see their interests aligned with China rather than the West.
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In September 2023, just weeks before Hamas' devastating terrorist attack on October 7th, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his foreign policy advisors were preparing for a summit meeting in China with President Xi Jinping. There were even whispers Beijing would help facilitate a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia much as it did between Riyadh and Tehran.
Now, almost a year later, everything has changed. Sino-Israeli political ties have soured as China aligned with the Arab world and the rest of the Global South in opposition to Israel's war on Gaza. However, while China's standing in Israel has fallen since October 7th, it surged across the rest of the Middle East as more countries in the region regard Beijing as an emerging alternative to the United States.
Gedaliah Afterman, head of the Asia Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations at Reichman University, and Research Analyst Allie Weinberger tracked China's Mideast power trajectory in a new article published by the Australian Security Policy Institute. Gedaliah and Allie join Eric to discuss what's behind China's growing influence in the Mideast.
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