Archivos: Migrated Posts

Click for full-size image The French radio network “Radio France Internationale” has published a very interesting interactive map detailing Chinese investments, populations and infrastructure projects across Africa.  Although the map is in French it’s ...

For most people, the Chinese engagement with Africa is an enigma.  The combination of these two peoples, cultures and, increasingly their politics, are just so foreign to most of us that we do not have the necessary reference points to form an opinion. Instead, what emerges, is a series of ...

Both China and France share a common frustration with the international media and that their country’s “story” is not being accurately conveyed via the CNNs, BBCs and Al Jazeeras of the world.  After years of bitterly complaining about the injustices of international (read ...

There is a discernable generational divide when it comes to opinions about the Chinese in Africa.  It isn’t subtle and the split lines up according to age.  In almost every instance, those over 40 years old frame the issue in “colonial terms” clearly influenced by their own early education of ...

Transparency is a loaded word in the development business.  The idea that aid and investments in places like Africa should be subject to external audits and review is a sacrosanct principle within the industry.  Never mind the irony that organizations like USAID, the United Nations and the World Bank among ...

It may be hard to believe but half of all construction work underway in Kenya is now being done by Chinese firms, according to the U.S. public radio program “The World” (audio link below).  It appears the Chinese infrastructure building juggernaut in Africa is ...

The Dutch-based new media organization Couscous Global recently posted an interesting little gem of a video on You Tube that asks young South Africans to express how they feel about the country’s Chinese population. It opens with a young Chinese ...

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation sent their Beijing correspondent to do some rather extensive reporting on the surge of Chinese investment in Africa. In contrast to much of the other recent coverage of the topic, Anthony Germain’s reporting from Zambia was refreshingly ...

For most outsiders, the Chinese operations in Africa run largely as an opaque mystery.  Seemingly every Western book or in-depth news article on the subject features the same complaint of not receiving any help from either Chinese officials or businesses there about how the mechanics of their investments in the ...

China is walking down the same path towards empire in Africa as the once former European powers did a century ago writes former New York Times Shanghai and Africa correspondent Howard French in a new article for the U.S. magazine “The ...