Journalists and activists, pointing to the lack of press freedom and weak civil society in China, argue that Beijing's engagement will only encourage the same in Africa.

The startling growth of its economy in the three decades after its war with the United States means Vietnam's strategies are of huge interest to many African states, war-torn or...

More so than China or India, Vietnam has much in common with Africa's developing countries. Hanoi is also showing itself to be keener on learning from African experiences...

A record US$100 million signature bonus for Andry Rajoelina's regime from Chinese investors will not be enough to compensate for the loss of aid funds as Western governments try to...

Economic relations between Luanda and Beijing are getting even closer as Angola struggles with mounting debts while China becomes more dependent on Angolan oil. In mid-August, Finance Minister Carlos Alberto Lopes...

Seeking hard cash and a platform for his disavowals of the West, President Robert Mugabe flew to Shanghai's spectacular trade expo, where on 11 August he thanked Beijing for being...

Singapore is making a renewed effort to boost its African trade. It falls to the Minister of Trade and Industry (MTI), Lee Yi Shyan, to make that happen. In July,...

The cultivation of ties with the African Union is a lynchpin of China's courtship of the continent. To this end, China has built a new conference centre at the AU's...

The Lagos State government, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation signed an US$8 billion deal this month for a 300,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery and a...

Plans to sell the state-owned Nigeria Telecommunications (Nitel) have floundered after China Unicom announced it would not be contributing to the front-running New Generation Consortium comprised of China Unicom Europe, the...