Zimbabwe and China’s tango. A senior Zimbabwe official is always visiting China; at least that is what it seems like, from media reports. And because this is China, the reasons for the trips are straightforward: money. Zimbabwe is broke, has… Continue Reading
An opportunity: “African environmental reporting group, the Oxpeckers Center for Investigative Environmental Journalism, is offering an experienced Chinese environmental investigative journalist a three-month reporting Fellowship based in Southern Africa. The 2015 Fellow will work alongside the Oxpeckers core investigative team,… Continue Reading
The relationship between Zimbabwe and China is often held up as a model of the wider China-Africa relations, according to a paper written by Zhang Chun and published by the South African Institute for International Affairs. This is because of… Continue Reading
Two months ago, the Southern African Tourism Services Association (Satsa) said anxiety about South Africa’s new visa regulations was keeping tourists away, especially those from the key markets of China and India. However, those regulations were yet to take effect,… Continue Reading
A Greenpeace report accused Chinese vessels of illegal fishing in West African waters. According to the report, the “number of Chinese-flagged or Chinese-owned fishing boats operating in Africa has soared in recent decades, from just 13 in 1985 to 462… Continue Reading
The West still regards Africa as “the third world,” South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma told Russian television network RT, and sees its relationship to the continent as one of former master-former subject. The same perspective informs economic relations between the… Continue Reading
China is “growing less tolerant” of its “cheque book” diplomacy strategy. The strategy has seen China become the biggest lender to developing nations, a good number of them unstable or poorly governed (like Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe). China has lent billions of dollars to the developing world so it can “win friends and commercial advantage,” and also, ultimately, burnish its credentials as leader of the developing world. But the risks of the strategy might come to outweigh the benefits. Continue Reading
It was a week of billion-dollar deals. China Railway Construction Corp Ltd signed two deals in Nigeria and Zimbabwe worth a combined $5.5 billion. In Nigeria the Chinese-state owned corporation signed a $3.5 billion contract with the Ogun State government to… Continue Reading
In swallowing humble pie to start courting Western financiers again, Mugabe and his strategists must have looked into the crystal ball and contemplated a scary scenario of total collapse of an already fragile economy. That all the painstaking assurances to turn a new leaf and play by the book – respect for property rights for instance – were largely snubbed by Western financial and economic entities, is a fact that explains Mugabe’s turn to the familiar Look East policy. Continue Reading
This article by Kizito Sikuka was originally published on The Southern Times I MUST confess. I have never watched the movie “When China Met Africa” directed by two British filmmakers, Marc Francis and Nick Francis. I have only watched the… Continue Reading