The idea for this new podcast series was born from the constant frustration of talking with Western “development experts,” diplomats and aid workers in Africa. In every instance, Westerners were either strikingly ignorant of …

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 …

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 …

This brief interview on Bloomberg Television highlights the dramatic differences in worldview between Westerners and Africans when it comes to their view of China.  Journalist Maryam Nemazee asks Adam Mahamat of the China-Africa Business Council …

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 …

Made in Cameroon Another week, another set of major Chinese deals in sub-Saharan Africa.  Cameroon took the spotlight with an announcement that a Chinese bus manufacturer (still unknown but thought to be Kinglong United Automotive …

By any measure China’s awe inspiring embrace of Africa is impressive.  Let’s put aside the staggering financial statistics on how many billions of dollars Beijing is spreading across the continent or even the scale of …

Scan the headlines about the Chinese in Africa and the predominant theme focuses almost exclusively on the infrastructure-for-natural resource deals.  The Chinese are signing multi-billion dollar oil and mineral deals up and down the continent …

I have been living in Kinshasa for almost three weeks now and since I landed here I’ve been asked countless times what I find the most interesting/bizarre/unusual about life in the Democratic Republic of the …

Living here in Kinshasa, it is immediately apparent that China’s engagement is re-shaping both the Democratic Republic of the Congo but the continent as a whole.    To anyone on the ground here, it should …