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Published 1st March 2012

Vol 5 (AAC) No 5

Zambia

Lusaka welcomes Asia, again

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures
Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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President Michael Sata tries to balance Chinese investors’ interests and his populist policies

The former scourge of Chinese investors, President Michael Chilufya Sata, has reshuffled his Patriotic Front government to placate Asian and other investors and to streamline economic policy. On 3 February, he moved the outspoken Labour Minister, Chishimba Kambwili, who had lambasted Chinese and Indian economic interests and upset the Chinese Ambassador among others, to the Sports Ministry. Ambassador Zhou Yuxiao publicly lamented that there was only one political party in Africa that had made China a domestic political issue.

Beijing resets its Africa policy amid economic success

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Hit by wars, piracy and corruption claims, Chinese companies adapt to Africa’s fast-changing politics

Hostage-taking, festering regional disputes and rising domestic criticism are all complicating the politics of Beijing’s Africa policy.

New pressure on Beijing

China is caught in the escalating fight over oil revenues between Sudan and South Sudan. Its newest African partner, President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s government in Juba, has asserted...

Chinese traders set up shop

Small-scale Chinese merchants have established operations in major urban centres and rural outposts, leading to increased competition, violence and calls for government intervention

Containers of corruption

The government of West Africa’s leading narco-state remains tight-lipped about a corruption case involving three officials of the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry who were arrested in November 2011...

Trading places

Large numbers of Chinese nationals have been heading to Africa’s major cities to get their own slice of skyrocketing China-Africa trade

Traders are the visible target for the merchants, unions, consumers and politicians angered by the impact of China’s growing ties to Africa. Nevertheless, some African governments are resisting...

Cementing ambitions

President Idriss Déby Itno inaugurated a new cement factory at Baoré in Mayo-Kebbi on 16 February. Chad’s first cement plant was built by China CAMC Engineering Company, thanks...

Too much competition

A group of 33 Malawian merchants in Karonga has petitioned the government to oust the Chinese nationals whose businesses, the traders complain, are increasing competition in the northern...

The railway’s coming

Work will begin soon on the long-awaited new Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway. The two governments and their Chinese contractors are creating a US$1.5-billion trade corridor from Addis Ababa to the Djibouti...

Pointers

Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town

Human rights campaigner Desmond Tutu is not winning many friends in Beijing. The Archbishop drew China’s ire in October last year by inviting the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, to his 80th...

Wang Shenyang

Director, Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation, Commerce Ministry, China

Wang Shenyang led a group to Libya in February to review the remains of Chinese projects and determine what could be salvaged. Chinese companies had some US$20 billion in housing, railway...

M.D. Mallya

Chairman, Bank of Baroda, India

With healthy overseas profits, Bank of Baroda is looking to Africa as a ‘centre of growth’, according to Chairman M.D. Mallya. The state-owned bank plans to expand operations in Botswana,...

Sun Yusheng

Vice-President, China Central Television

In January, China’s state broadcaster CCTV opened a studio in Nairobi, Kenya, taking the ‘win-win’ relationship to the airwaves. CCTV Vice-President Sun Yusheng, a man with solid journalistic...

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