Courtesy of The Financial Times, an article on the railway that China hopes will take on the US in Africa: Mukololo Chanda still recalls the glory days of Africa’s “freedom railway”. Almost four decades ago, fresh from high school in Zambia, she began working as a switchboard operator on the railway built by Mao Zedong’s […]
Read more »Via The Diplomat, commentary on how the Chinese government frequently demands that businesses prove their political loyalty – even at the cost of their own financial interests: Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing is squarely in the middle of the latest geopolitical conflict thanks to his port assets in Panama. Following threats made by U.S. President […]
Read more »Via The Economist, an article on why China hates the Panama Canal deal, but still may not block it: “We didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.” Thus spoke Donald Trump shortly after BlackRock, an American investment firm, announced on March 4th that it would buy two ports […]
Read more »Via Foreign Policy Research Institute, a report on Georgia’s pivot towards China: As Georgia pivots away from the West and slides into dictatorship, China emerges as its key strategic partner. While Washington and Brussels struggle to find transatlantic unity and craft a unified approach to Russia and Ukraine, Beijing methodically expands its clout in the […]
Read more »Courtesy of the New York Times, a look at how Georgia’s government sparked an uproar by announcing that a port project on the Black Sea will be awarded to a company from China after canceling a contract with a consortium that included Western firms: For more than a year, pro-Western marchers in Georgia, a former Soviet […]
Read more »Via Bloomberg, a report on Diego Garcia, a remote Indian Ocean island nearly 2,000 miles from the East African coast, boasts clear-blue waters, pristine beaches — and a US-UK military base at the heart of the great-power chess match involving the US, China and India. The British territory in the Chagos Archipelago – which has […]
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