The China-Global South Podcast

In this special bonus episode, Eric speaks with Kaiser Kuo, host of the popular Sinica Podcast, about China's response to the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro.

Many U.S. and European analysts have framed Maduro's downfall as a "setback" or even an "embarrassment" for Beijing, but while that may be true, Eric argues that it's also premature to make such declarations less than a week after Maduro's downfall. After all, U.S.-led military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya all started well but ended up being very costly...

One of the prevailing narratives that's emerged following the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela and the detention of President Nicolás Maduro is that this is a major setback for China. Some analysts have called it a "strategic failure" on Beijing's part, while others have described it as "reality check" for China's role as a "global player."

But China's ability to influence events in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America is extremely limited, so the assessment that what happened in Caracas was a blow to Beijing may also be overstated.

Alonso Illueca, CGSP's non-resident f...

In this special year-end edition of The China-Global South Podcast, Eric, Cobus, and Géraud look back on the top stories of 2025 and look ahead to the key trend to watch in 2026. 

📌 Topics covered include:

The increasingly acrimonious U.S.-China relationship is the defining trend of this era, upending global politics, economics, and security, especially across the Global South. Countries that have worked hard from having to pick sides in this new competition, may longer have that luxury as this rivalry intensifies.

Jane Perlez, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a former longtime China correspondent for The New York Times, has been covering this story since the 1980s. Now, together with acclaimed Harvard University China scholar Rana Mitter, she's launched season 3 of her award-winning podcast Face Off: The U.S. vs. China...

Soon after USAID was closed in February, speculation circulated that China would move quickly to fill the void left by the United States. That did not happen.

While the Chinese did step in to provide modest additional funding for a handful of programs, like demining initiatives in Cambodia and support for the Africa CDC in Addis Ababa, overall, there's been no significant change in China's foreign aid programs.

That did not surprise Alicia Chen, a PhD candidate at Stanford University, who noted in a recent Foreign Affairs article that Beijing is very tactical with where...

In this episode of the China Global South Podcast, Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden unpack a major question facing middle powers everywhere: What happens when the global security architecture you relied on for decades no longer exists?

Fresh from meetings at Australian National University and the Australasian Aid Conference, Eric shares conversations with scholars, diplomats, and policymakers in Canberra who are wrestling with a new geopolitical reality. Topics include:

Eric and Cobus also break down China's push to promote its Global Security Initiative at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, the limitations of...

China has funded, designed, and built more than 200 government buildings across Africa, including the headquarters of the African Union and Ecowas, foreign ministry annexes in Ghana and Kenya, and at least 15 national parliaments.

Eric and Cobus speak with Innocent Batsani-Ncube, an associate professor of African politics at Queen Mary University of London and author of the new book China and African Parliaments.

Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Lesotho, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, Batsani-Ncube explains how China's parliamentary construction boom works, why African governments welcome it, and what he calls "subtle power"—a form of elite-level influence that...

China's rapid ascent from rural poverty to industrial superpower reshaped the global economy and established a new center of gravity for manufacturing. Today, Chinese factories anchor much of the world's supply chains, producing goods at a speed and scale that few countries can match.

Behind this transformation is a system that author Dan Wang describes in his new book "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future" as the "engineering state," a model defined by massive investments in infrastructure, strategic planning, and so-called "process knowledge" gleaned from the country's rapid industrial development.

Now, more and more...

China is breaking the rules of development. Typically, as countries progress up the value chain, they transition from agriculture to light industry, then to heavy industry, and ultimately to high-technology and services. And as they move up the value chain, this creates opportunities for less-developed countries to advance.

But China's not doing that. Chinese manufacturers are holding on to their immense productive capacity, enabling them to produce both low-tech sneakers and high-tech semiconductors at a scale and cost that are unrivaled.

Now, as developing countries around the world seek to move up the value chain...

As China's economic influence expands, so does its ambition to shape the very system that once constrained it.

In this episode of The China-Global South Podcast, Eric speaks with Greg Chin and Kevin Gallagher from Boston University's Global Development Policy Center about their new book that details China's transformation from a "rules taker" within the Bretton Woods system to a "rules maker" who's now reshaping the international development finance architecture.

Greg and Kevin explore the country's growing role in the IMF and World Bank, its creation of new institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AI...

China sits at the heart of Indonesia's energy paradox — driving the country's ambitious shift toward renewables while remaining deeply entrenched in its coal economy. Chinese financing and technology are accelerating Indonesia's clean energy buildout, from nickel refining to electric vehicles and solar manufacturing.

Yet the same Chinese firms are also behind large swathes of Indonesia's coal infrastructure, including off-grid plants that power the smelters fueling its industrial boom.

Kevin Zongzhe Li, an affiliated researcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis, explored this paradox in a recent report that also details how Ja...

Chinese exports are booming—but ties with the U.S. are collapsing. Across Asia, from Beijing to Manila, Washington's shifting strategy under Trump is reshaping alliances and testing security guarantees that have underpinned the region for decades.

Eric speaks with James Crabtree, a distinguished visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society, about how Asia's leaders are adapting to a world in flux:

China's mix of confidence and anxiety amid its own economic slowdown

How Trump's erratic policy is breaking apart the anti-China coalition

Growing doubts in...

For centuries, the United States was the undisputed hegemonic power across the Western Hemisphere; however, that is no longer the case today. China is now the largest trading partner for the majority of countries in Latin America and is quickly filling the void left by a decades-long U.S. retrenchment.

In his new book, "Economic Displacement: China and the End of U.S. Primacy in Latin America," Francisco Urdinez, an assistant professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, argues that U.S. neglect of the region has created a critical opening for China to expand both i...

In the weeks since Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the new Global Governance Initiative (GGI) during a speech at the SCO summit in Tianjin, Beijing's propaganda apparatus has been working overtime to build support for the new plan, particularly in Africa, Latin America, and other developing regions.

The GGI is the latest in a series of Chinese global initiatives that also focus on development, human rights, and security, which it's using to stake a larger claim for international leadership at a time when the U.S.-led system is collapsing.

Brian Wong, an assistant professor...

It wasn't that long ago when the leaders from India and China couldn't even look at each other when they were in the same room. Today, the situation is very different. Ties between the two Asian powers have improved dramatically from a few years ago, when a violent conflict along their disputed border sent relations into a deep freeze.

But even though China and India have resolved a number of their differences in recent years, serious problems persist, none more so than their disputed border that remains one of the most heavily armed frontiers in the world.<...

China's economic ties with Brazil are booming, and 2024 saw a stunning 113% jump in Chinese investment, totaling $4.2 billion across 39 projects, the highest number ever, according to a new report by the Brazil-China Business Council.

From renewable energy and oil to mining and automotive manufacturing, Chinese companies are pouring capital into Brazil's economy. This investment boom, though, comes at a sensitive time as China is moving aggressively to reduce its reliance on the U.S., particularly in the food sector.

Tulio Cariello, the Council's director of content and research, joins Eric to explain what's driving the surge o...

The reset between India and China appears to be holding. Nearly two weeks after President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin, five years of frigid ties between the two Asian powers are steadily thawing. 

However, it will take more than summits and statements to rebuild trust, particularly among Indian policymakers who remain wary of China's close ties with Pakistan and Beijing's broader ambitions across South Asia.

Constantino Xavier, a senior fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi and co-author o...

Two sharply contrasting foreign policy visions emerged this week from China and the United States. In Beijing, President Xi Jinping outlined an agenda in talks with fellow BRICS leaders that directly challenged Donald Trump's "America First" doctrine, urging instead for stronger multilateral cooperation.

Meanwhile in Washington, reports surfaced of a potential overhaul in U.S. security strategy, shifting the Pentagon's focus away from countering China abroad toward reinforcing defenses at home and across the Western Hemisphere.

No other region around the world has as much at stake in this duel as Southeast Asia, effectively the...

While most of the world's attention at this week's Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin was on Xi Jinping's meetings with leaders from the big powers, namely India and Russia, the Chinese President also spent considerable time with heads of state from many of the world's smallest countries, like the Maldives and Nepal, among others.

This is part of China's longstanding small-state diplomacy strategy, where Beijing cultivates relationships with these countries in the Global South through high-level gatherings and the same diplomatic pomp that leaders from more powerful countries receive when they visit the Chinese capital.

This week's Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin signaled China's ambition to redefine global governance. Leaders from more than 20 countries endorsed the Tianjin Declaration, pressing for a multipolar order, tighter security cooperation, and expanded economic integration.

The joint statement also went further than past communiqués, condemning Israel's actions in Gaza and reflecting the bloc's growing willingness to weigh in on global conflicts.

Eric & Cobus discuss the powerful optics that emerged from this year's gathering, which appeared specifically choreographed to send a clear, unmistakable message to U.S. President Donald Trump.

JOIN TH...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi left Northeast Asia this week, embarking on a two-stop trip that includes Japan and then China, where he will participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, which begins on Sunday.

The PM's visit comes amid a full-scale implosion of India's ties with the United States, following Washington's imposition this week of a massive 50% tariff on all Indian exports to the U.S., the highest duties on any country in Asia, except China.

Derek Grossman, a professor at the University of Southern California and a leading Asia-Pacific affairs analyst in the...

China's rapidly expanding presence in the Middle East has sparked a mix of anxiety and excitement, depending on one's perspective. Washington regards Beijing's support of Iran and the Palestinian cause, among other things, as key threats to its strategic interests. While Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and other regional actors see Beijing as a valuable economic partner.

A new book by two leading China-Mideast scholars, Mohamed Alsudairi at the Australian National University and Andrea Ghiselli from the University of Exeter, explores the future of Chinese engagement in the region by laying out three possible scenarios

🔹 Scenario 1: Con...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday for a three-day visit, following a high-level stop in India earlier in the week, where he met both Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

His trip to Pakistan comes at a pivotal moment. Islamabad has recently repaired relations with the United States after more than a decade of estrangement, just as Washington's ties with India have soured.

Eram Ashraf, a UK-based China-Pakistani relations scholar and author of a forthcoming book on Sino-Pakistani security ties during the Cold War, joins Eric to discuss...

There's been a lot of speculation in the aftermath of the brief U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran that Beijing would step in to bolster its longtime partners in Tehran. Rumors have been bouncing around that China will sell Iran advanced fighter jets and help rebuild the country's ballistic missile program, among other things.

There is no evidence, though, to support any of those claims.

Instead, China seems to be taking a more hands-off approach, providing Iran with bountiful moral support while remaining a loyal oil customer, but little else.

Bill Figueroa, a...

For much of the past two years, we've been told to expect a slimmer, more austere Belt and Road under the new "Small Yet Beautiful" mantra. The days of Chinese mega deals across the Global South were over... or so we thought.

Turns out that Chinese firms, largely from the private sector, are continuing to invest heavily in energy, mining, and construction projects in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, according to new data from Australia's Griffith University and the Green Finance & Development Center in Beijing.

Total BRI engagement in the first half of 2025 topped $123...

Listen in on many of the foreign policy discussions about Vietnam that take place at think tanks and government seminars in Washington, D.C., and you'll hear this sense of optimism that "Hanoi is on our side." They see Vietnam's historical suspicions of China and the country's ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea as key indicators that Hanoi will eventually join a U.S.-led coalition to counter China.

Those presumptions, however, are wrong, according to Khang Vu, a leading Vietnamese political scientist and visiting scholar at Boston College. Khang joins Eric to explain why...

There was widespread disappointment in Iran that China didn't do more to help Tehran during the recent 12-day war with Israel and the United States. Beijing, for its part, offered robust rhetorical and moral support, but little else.

The calculus for Chinese policymakers is that Iran just isn't as strategically important to its foreign policy as other countries in the region, namely Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Jonathan Fulton, an associate professor at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi and a leading expert on Sino-Persian Gulf relations, joins Eric to discuss his new book...

In the first few months of this year, it seemed that China's ties with Israel were on the mend after entering into a deep freeze following the October 7th terrorist attack by Hamas. China had begun to soften some of its rhetoric, and Israeli officials were keen to re-engage Beijing on economic issues.

That momentum stalled in mid-June, though, when Israel launched an attack on Iran that prompted a strong rebuke by China at the United Nations. Now that the fighting has stopped and a tense ceasefire appears to be holding, there are indications both countries may...

China is emerging from the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran in a much weaker position. For years, Beijing counted on Tehran to serve as a bulwark against Washington. Today, though, that's no longer possible as the Iranian government and its proxies across the Middle East have been neutralized, at least for now.

The conflict also exposed a major Chinese vulnerability following threats that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the attacks on its nuclear facilities. This would be devastating for the Chinese economy, given that between a third and half of all...

In this new era of surging instability and geopolitical uncertainty, so-called "Middle Power" states are rapidly diversifying their foreign policies to deepen engagement with other countries in the Global South, while reducing their exposure to the U.S. and China. 

But the approach taken by these middle power countries varies a lot.

A new report by the Körber Foundation in Germany surveyed foreign policy experts from India, Brazil, and South Africa, revealed sharp divergences in how these countries view the global order, the roles of China and the U.S., and the future of mu...

Latin America is the key focal point for the United States in its global competition with China. President Donald Trump has made it clear that he deems China's growing presence in the Western Hemisphere a direct threat to U.S. interests in the region.

This puts most countries in Central and South America in a tight spot, given that many states in this region count China as their largest trading partner and the U.S. as their largest source of investment.

Parsifal D'Sola Alvarado, a longtime China analyst and executive director of the Andrés B...

From Panama to Kenya to Indonesia, a growing number of developing countries are being pulled into the intensifying rivalry between China and the U.S. For these middle powers, the stakes are high as they must carefully navigate the tension to avoid provoking either side and risking serious consequences.

But rather than accommodating the U.S. and China, developing countries should instead pursue a different agenda that puts their interests first.

Jorge Heine, a former Chilean ambassador to China, South Africa, and India and now a research professor at Boston University, joins Eric & Cobus to...

After several months of steadily improving ties, India-China relations appear to be cooling once again following the recent clashes in Kashmir. China's military support for Pakistan during the conflict earlier this month has triggered fresh concerns in New Delhi, with many now fearing that the fragile détente built over the past year is starting to unravel.

Tensions further escalated in recent days after Beijing announced new names for dozens of locations along the disputed border with India, drawing strong backlash from the Indian media. Meanwhile, the Indian government has banned several Chinese state-run media accounts on t...

Donald Trump's return to the Middle East marks a shift toward transactional diplomacy, emphasizing trade, investment, and a retreat from human rights rhetoric. In a striking parallel, China has long pursued a similar approach in the region—prioritizing business ties over political entanglements.

The question now is how will China respond to this rapidly changing geopolitical landscape?

In this special edition of the podcast, CGSP partnered with The ChinaMed Project to organize an online seminar featuring leading experts from China and the United States, exploring how Beijing will adjust its Middle East engagement strategy in the...

Chinese President Xi Jinping urged Latin American leaders on Tuesday to stand with Beijing in the fight against Donald Trump's campaign to upend the international system. Xi made the appeal at a ministerial gathering of leaders and senior officials from across Latin America and the Caribbean that's taking place this week in Beijing.

The President's appeal underscores the challenging position that Latin American states now find themselves in, caught between the escalating great power rivalry between the United States and China.

Alonso Illueca, CGSP's non-resident fellow for Latin America and the Caribbean, joins Eric from...

Two years ago, Daniel Russel and Blake Berger, senior analysts at the Asia Society Policy Institute, embarked on an ambitious project to bring U.S. and Chinese stakeholders together to speak in a safe, controlled setting about their respective countries' aid strategies in the Global South.

This was a big undertaking given how few direct contacts there are today between U.S. and Chinese stakeholders, particularly on a topic like international aid and development that is largely overlooked in the broader Sino-U.S. relationship.

But just as they were about to release their final report...

Central Asia is one of those regions that isn't getting a lot of attention these days, as it's not a major player in the escalating U.S.-China trade war. But that may soon change as both major powers look to the region to source energy, critical minerals, and build new logistics corridors.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spent a few days in the Kazakh capital Almaty meeting with his five Central Asian counterparts to plan an upcoming leaders summit that will take place in June. Meantime, the Uzbek government this month confirmed an ambitious critical minerals...

Donald Trump strongly feels that U.S. security alliances in Europe no longer serve Washington's long-term interest. In his view, the U.S. is being "ripped off" by wealthy countries that can afford to pay for their protection but choose to rely on the United States instead. He also says much the same thing about the U.S. military presence in Japan and South Korea.

Curiously, though, the Philippines is different. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently visited Manila and reaffirmed Washigton's "ironclad" commitment to protect the Southeast Asian country against "China's aggression."

R...

With new tariff threats from the Trump administration and rising tensions across key markets, companies and governments alike are scrambling to understand what decoupling—or de-risking—actually looks like in practice. From electronics and apparel to solar panels and electric vehicles, China's role in global production remains formidable. But is it unshakeable?

In this special bonus episode, Eric is joined by Agatha Kratz, Juliana Bouchot, and Lauren Piper from the Rhodium Group, whose recent report "China and the Future of Global Supply Chains" offers one of the clearest pictures yet of what's happening on the ground.

T...

U.S. President Donald Trump insisted on Monday that he will not back down from his massive tariff campaign that he launched last week and even promised to impose even higher duties on Chinese goods in response to Beijing's 34% tariff retaliation on U.S. imported goods.

Kyle Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University and author of the High Capacity Substack, joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the impact of the escalating world trade war on developing countries and how China is responding by shifting more manufacturing to the Global South.

Show Notes:

China and Vietnam have taken two distinctly different approaches in how they manage their territorial disputes with China. The Philippines is leaning into its alliance with the United States along with new security pacts with more than half a dozen other countries. Vietnam, in contrast, is going it alone.

Ironically, Vietnam is expanding its territorial presence in the disputed South China Sea through island reclamation, while the Philippines is merely trying to hold on to the territory it already claims. Yet, the face-off between Beijing and Manila is far more aggressive. 

Khang Vu, a visiting s...

During his Senate confirmation, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denounced the so-called "liberal international order" that he said was obsolete and no longer working for the United States. Since he and his boss, President Donald Trump, took office eight weeks ago, they have thoroughly upended the post-WWII global order that the U.S. itself established and led for the past 75 years.

The changes in Washington are happening so fast that it's impossible to keep up. Every day, institutions many assumed were invincible have either been closed or censured. Now, the challenges...

U.S. President Donald Trump's decision this week to pause military funding for Ukraine and to align his government with Russia further widens the cleavage between the United States and Europe — effectively breaking what has long been known as "the West."

At first glance, many of China's Western critics will see this as welcome news, but it also means that Beijing must navigate in a much more fragmented and turbulent geopolitical environment.

The Paris-based global affairs think tank Institut Montaigne recently published a detailed forecast of the challenges that lie ahead for China over the co...

When the Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer launched DeepSeek on January 20th, the global AI market for large language model (LLM) systems was turned upside down. Investors dumped nearly a trillion dollars of tech stocks in the U.S., panicked by the prospect that a cheaper, more nimbler alternative would undermine the massive investments that companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple were making in AI.

A month later, those stocks have all largely recovered. Now, as investors have had time to use DeepSeek and better understand what it can do, there's less concern that it'll displace U.S...

At last week's Munich Security Conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi touted his country's 5% economic growth last year as a "benefit to the world" thanks to all of the trade it does with countries around the world.

While countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, among other regions, are no doubt selling more raw materials to China, critics contend, though, that this trade pattern isn't healthy and mostly in China's favor. 

This week, Eric, Cobus, and Géraud debate whether Chinese trade is helping or hurting developing countries and whether China's role as the wo...

When Donald Trump criticized Panama for its management of the canal that he claimed had fallen under Chinese control, many people at first thought this was just another round of Trump's usual bluster. But since his election last November, the President has been relentless in pressuring the government in Panama City and shows no signs of backing down until all Chinese entities have been expelled from the canal zone.

Alonso Illueca, an associate law professor at the Universidad Santa María La Antigua and a specialist in China-Panama relations, joins Eric & Cobus from Panama City to discuss t...

On Monday, January 20, Donald Trump will take the oath of office and return to power as president of the United States. Trump is promising to overhaul U.S. foreign and commercial policy in what many experts believe will mark the start of a very tumultuous period — not just for the United States but also for countries around the world.

Sarah Shidore, director of the Global South program at the Quincy Institute in Washington, D.C. joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the impact of the coming Trump presidency on developing countries and how he expects China to respond.

China is deeply unpopular in the U.S., UK, Japan, and most other wealthy countries, and given the politics in those regions, there's no indication that's going to change anytime soon. It's a very different story, though, in large parts of developing Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Middle East where public opinion surveys reveal generally favorable views of the Chinese.

A new "poll of polls" by the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) on global public opinion about China reveals a lot more nuance about how people in the Global South feel about their countries' ties with...

2024 will be remembered as a seminal year in China-Africa relations with a rebound of Chinese lending to the continent and renewed diplomatic engagement in the run-up to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit that took place in Beijing.

Africa also emerged again as a centerpiece in the U.S.-China duel as leaders from both major powers visited the continent in 2024.

And while stakeholders in the U.S. and Europe struggle to get their businesses to see the opportunities available in Africa, Chinese firms have no such concerns as they expanded their presence this year...

A few months ago, China looked like it had all its Mideast diplomacy figured out. Israel and the U.S. were taking heavy hits in the court of global public opinion over the devastation caused by the war in Gaza.

Each harrowing image of Palestinian civilians enduring unimaginable suffering steadily undermined U.S. and Israeli claims that their war against Hamas was justified. Beijing eagerly criticized Washington's hypocrisy in championing universal human rights—except when it came to Israel, the U.S. military, and other selective American interests.

But now that Israel has decapitated Hamas' le...

Tensions between China and the Philippines over territorial disputes in the South China Sea flared anew in December after another confrontation at sea. Soon after two vessels collided near the contested Scarborough Shoal, representatives from both sides took to the airwaves to blame the other for the latest incident.

Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Philippines counterpart Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. have made it clear they will not concede even a single inch of territory they claim rightfully belongs to their countries.

Don McLain Gill, a Manila-based lecturer at De La Salle University, joins Eric...

India's External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told the lower house of parliament last week that "some improvement" had been made in resolving the ongoing border dispute with China. But he also cautioned that a lot more work has to be done and that it will take years to "reset" relations with Beijing.

The two sides have pulled back their military forces from seven points along their contested boundary in the Himalayas, so they're no longer in close proximity to one another, but those troops are nonetheless still stationed there and haven't yet been redeployed.

Daniel...

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is not a fan of the Biden administration's climate legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), describing it as a "green scam." Trump has promised to repeal it, which will undoubtedly be welcome news in Indonesia.

Indonesia is home to the world's largest nickel reserves, a critical ingredient for manufacturing EV batteries. But the IRA aims to limit China's role in the battery supply chain, presenting a huge headache for Indonesian nickel suppliers given the outsized role that Chinese smelters play in the country's mining sector.

Putra Adhiguna, managing d...

Chinese contractors have been renovating the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia for the past two years, leading to widespread suspicion that the upgraded facility could eventually serve as a future outpost for the PLA Navy in Southeast Asia.

Despite compelling evidence that Chinese naval forces have been stationed at the base for much of the year, both the Chinese and Cambodian governments deny these claims.

Christopher Woody, an independent defense journalist based in Bangkok, argues that while it seems the Chinese military is set to maintain a presence at the base, it may not resemble...

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has already indicated that the Middle East is going to be a central focus of his second term's foreign policy. He's already named Elise Stefanik, a fiercely pro-Israel lawmaker, to be his ambassador at the United Nations and he's been in regular contact since his election last week with both Arab and Israeli leaders.

But Trump is coming back to power at a time when the region is very different than when he left office in 2020. Back then, China was a marginal player in Mideast diplomacy which is no longer the case...

There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the new "small and beautiful" doctrine that now guides China's Belt and Road Initiative. The problem is that a lot of people still do not understand what it actually means in practice.

President Xi Jinping first unveiled the concept at the Third Belt-and-Road Symposium in 2021 when he said that China's overseas development finance would focus more attention on "better connectivity" for telecommunications, energy, and financial services.

China has also had to scale down its financing of large-scale infrastructure projects because of economic challenges at home...

Even though the five countries in Central Asia are among the world's largest fossil fuel producers, the region faces chronic electricity shortages due to a lack of refining capacity. The energy crunch is further compounded by a reluctance to become overly dependent on Russian fuel.

To solve both problems, several Central Asian governments are looking to source renewable energy technology from China. While wind and solar still account for a small share of Central Asia's total energy production, that may soon change as more affordable Chinese green tech enters the market.

Yunis Sharifli, an independent...

India and China have reached a deal to de-escalate tensions along their bitterly disputed border in the Himalayas, potentially ending a contentious four-year stand-off between the two Asian powers.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Monday that the two countries agreed to conduct joint military patrols along the border known as the Line of Actual Control. No details of the pact have been released and the Chinese government has yet to comment on the arrangement.

If the two countries have, in fact, agreed to pull back their forces and disengage, it would have wide-ranging...

Chinese Premier Li Qiang is in Pakistan this week to get ties with its South Asian neighbor back on track after a series of terrorist attacks this year. The latest incident occurred earlier this month near the airport in the southern port city of Karachi when separatist militants with the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) killed two Chinese nationals in a suicide bombing.

Pakistan has vowed to crack down on the militants but, so far, to little avail. In turn, Beijing has become increasingly frustrated with Islamabad's inability to better protect Chinese interests in the country.

...

Chinese lending to African countries rebounded in a big way in 2023 after seven consecutive years of decline. Last year, Chinese lenders approved loans totaling $4.61 billion to African borrowers, a dramatic increase over the $922 million lent in 2022, according to Boston University's Global Development Policy Center (GDPC).

In the past, China lent billions to countries like Kenya and Nigeria to build massive infrastructure projects like ports and railways. That is no longer the case today as Chinese lending focuses on smaller, more sustainable initiatives, mainly in the energy, telecom, and logistics sectors.

Kevin Gallagher, director of the...

The rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon prompted a strong reaction from the Chinese government this week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib on Monday at the UN in New York and condemned Israel's actions as "indiscriminate attacks against civilians."

It's notable, though, that neither Wang nor other Chinese officials made any mention of Hezbollah's missile strikes on targets in Israel, including those that hit civilian areas.

The deteriorating security environment in the Middle East is a critical time for China, which is transitioning from...

For much of the past thirty years, since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been largely unrivaled in its power in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Today, that is no longer the case as the U.S. faces new challenges both from regional powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as international competitors, including China and Russia.

This transition to multipolarity is transforming the region and served as the thesis of a special edition of the academic journal Middle East Policy that came out earlier this year.

Three...

2024 has been a pivotal year for Brazil-China relations. Last month marked 50 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations, and in celebration of this milestone, President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Brazil by the end of the year.

This visit comes as economic ties between the two countries are booming. Bilateral trade is on track to surpass last year's $157 billion, and recent data shows Chinese investment in Brazil jumped by 33% in 2023.

Beyond economics, Presidents Xi Jinping and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva share similar ideological views on key global issues, posing a growing c...

U.S. officials have spoken at length about the urgent need to end their country's dependency on China for the critical resources needed to power next-generation mobility and technology.

Part of the solution, they say, is to compete directly with the Chinese for lithium, cobalt, and other critical mineral mining rights around the world. The problem is few U.S. mining companies today do that kind of work in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia where these resources are found.

But the U.S. is geologically endowed, prompting loud calls to mine these resources at...

In September 2023, just weeks before Hamas' devastating terrorist attack on October 7th, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his foreign policy advisors were preparing for a summit meeting in China with President Xi Jinping. There were even whispers Beijing would help facilitate a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia much as it did between Riyadh and Tehran.

Now, almost a year later, everything has changed. Sino-Israeli political ties have soured as China aligned with the Arab world and the rest of the Global South in opposition to Israel's war on Gaza. However, while China's standing in Israel has...

Many small and middle-power countries are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the contentious Great Power rivalry between China and the United States. Even though both Beijing and Washington repeatedly state that they don't want to force other countries to choose one side or the other, it isn't always that simple.

Vietnam, however, stands apart from other developing countries in its ability to effectively manage relations with the major powers, including Russia. The main architect of that strategy, known as "bamboo diplomacy," was Nguyen Phu Trong — the long-serving Communist Party General Secretary who passed away last month.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has long touted the East's rise and the West's decline, the kind of thinking that's triggered his supporters to fantasize about a post-Western geopolitical order.

While it's indisputable that U.S. and European countries, which represent the foundational pillars of the Western system, have seen their power diminish in the post-Cold War era, there's little credible evidence of a full-blown collapse of Western influence.

Instead, King's College scholar Samir Puri argues in his new book "Westlessness," that the role of the West in the international system is changing and not going...

The foreign ministers from China, the U.S., Japan, and Russia, among others, all passed through the Laotian capital, Vientiane, over the past several days, ostensibly for an ASEAN gathering. But the real action took place on the sidelines of the meeting, where the ministers held a series of bilaterals that revealed the hardening battle lines among the major powers.

The tense discussions highlight the frontline role that Southeast Asia now plays in this burgeoning geopolitical competition that appears to be intensifying over disputes related to Taiwan, the South China Sea, and surging Chinese influence in the...

The violent confrontation between China and the Philippines on June 17th near the Second Thomas Shoal marked a sharp escalation in tensions between the two countries over their rival territorial claims in the South China Sea.

After the melee that severely injured one Filipino sailor, the two countries engaged in a second battle, this time in the media, to shape the narrative of what happened and where this burgeoning crisis goes from here.

Alex Vuving, a professor at the Pentagon-backed think tank Asia-Pacific Security Studies Center in Honolulu, joins Eric to discuss why the events...

Even just a few years ago, it would have stretched credulity to argue that China was a major diplomatic player in the Persian Gulf. Today, that is no longer the case as Beijing is fast becoming one of the key actors in the region.

China is now the largest energy buyer from Gulf countries, it was instrumental in the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Beijing has become a forceful advocate for the Palestinian cause at the UN and other major international fora.

A new book, "A Dragon's Odyssey: China's Rise in the Gulf"...

With memories still fresh from the first Cold War, leaders in Africa, Asia, and across the Global South have repeatedly said they do not want any part of a second Great Power rivalry. But as tensions between the U.S. and China steadily deteriorate, the pressure on these smaller, non-aligned countries is going to surge.

The geopolitical dynamics are changing very fast.

Jane Perlez, a renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who spent more than thirty years reporting for The New York Times as a foreign correspondent, laid out the challenges in a new eight-part podcast series...

BYD announced that it opened its 100th dealership in Brazil, highlighting the South American country's growing importance to the Chinese electric vehicle giant. It's a similar story across the board in tech, agriculture, and natural resources, among other sectors.

Trade and investment between China and Brazil is booming and is unlikely to slow anytime soon.

Tulio Cariello, director of content and research at the Brazil-China Business Council joins Eric & Cobus from Rio de Janeiro to explain how Brazil is benefitting a lot from Beijing's souring ties with Washington.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION:
X: @C...

Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto will take office later this year at a critical time when regional tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea are surging.

And this won't be just a foreign policy challenge for the new president. Chinese ships have crossed into Indonesia's exclusive economic zone near the Nantuna Islands at the bottom tip of Beijing's controversial ten-dash line.

Managing the escalating crisis in the South China Sea is going to be a "pivotal" challenge for Prabowo, according to Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of the China-Indonesia desk at the Center of Economic...

It wasn't that long ago the Persian Gulf was a no-go zone for Chinese diplomacy. Back then, China didn't source much energy from Gulf countries, and its diplomats were ill-equipped to handle the region's contentious politics. That is no longer the case.

The six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council collectively form one of China's largest trading blocs anywhere in the world... and not just for energy. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others are now major destinations for Chinese investment in tech, autos, and other non-oil sectors.

But this relationship is still relatively new...

Senior U.S. leaders have once again called on China to use its considerable economic leverage to persuade Iran to change its behavior in the escalating conflict with Israel. Various U.S. have made this same request on several occasions already, going back all the way to the day after Hamas launched its assault on southern Israel on October 7th.

Each time, though, those U.S. appeals have largely been ignored by the Chinese.

That raises two important questions: why does the U.S. keep asking if nothing happens? And, even if Beijing was willing...

Former Cambodian strongman Hun Sen was in Beijing last week lobbying the Chinese government to move forward with the $1.7 billion Funan Techo Canal project which his son, President Hun Manet, has made the centerpiece of his new administration.

The new canal would connect Phnom Penh's inland port to Kep province on the Gulf of Thailand, creating a new transport link for Cambodia's garment and agricultural exporters, among others.

However, the project is also raising concerns in neighboring Vietnam. Officials there are worried the new canal will divert water from the fragile lower Mekong Delta ecosystem...

Enthusiasm for electric vehicles is waning in both the U.S. and China, but that is definitely not the case in other parts of the world where EV adoption rates are steadily rising. In fact, at the Bangkok Motor Show this week, Chinese EV brands are grabbing all of the attention.

Throughout the Global South, Chinese EV brands are expanding their presence in both manufacturing and sales. And unlike U.S.-made EVs that are largely expensive luxury vehicles, the Chinese brands are focusing on small, affordable cars that are within the price range of consumers in...

U.S. and European officials often lament that they've fallen behind China when it comes to engaging Africa, Asia, the Americas, and other developing regions. Western governments aren't set up to rapidly deploy the kind of money and resources that Beijing's done with its Belt and Road Initiative over the past ten years.

While the U.S. and Europe are now trying to catch up, author Jeremy Garlick writes in his new book Advantage China: Agent of Change in an Era of Global Disruption that their efforts are hamstrung not only by money...

The escalating tensions between China, the Philippines, and the United States in the South China Sea highlight how Southeast Asia is now the most dangerous frontline in the burgeoning Great Power competition between Beijing and Washington.

But as this week's ASEAN summit in Australia highlights, there is no consensus in the region over how the Southeast Asian bloc's 11 member states are responding to the rapidly changing geopolitical environment.

This week, Eric spoke with Prashanth Parameswaran, a highly regarded analyst on Southeast Asian affairs and founder of the widely-read ASEAN Wonk newsletter, for some perspective on...

A lot of EV consumers bought new battery-powered cars in the hope it would be better for the environment than a vehicle with a conventional internal combustion engine that runs on fossil fuels. By some measures, that's no doubt true.

But many of these early adopters are also unaware their supposedly "green" cars aren't quite as carbon neutral as promised and that there are serious labor and human rights problems related to the metals used to manufacture the batteries that power those EVs.

Krista Shennum, a climate and human rights researcher at Climate Rights International...

Editor's Note: we're sharing this bonus episode of the China in Africa Podcast given that the topic is so relevant for our audience interested in China-Global South issues.

Academics and think tank analysts, predominantly in the U.S. and Europe, spend a lot of time debating whether it's appropriate to use the nomenclature "Global South" to describe developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, among other regions.

In those regions, it's actually less of an issue where framings like "South-South" are commonplace. The use of the word "South" doesn't seem to be as sensitive...

They're still counting the votes in Indonesia after last week's election but it's all but certain that Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto will become the country's next president. While some of the world's major powers, like the U.S. and India, are holding back their official congratulations, the Chinese weren't so reserved.

Ambassador Lu Kang went to Prabowo's private residence on Sunday and was photographed playing with the likely president's cat, Bobby -- a clear signal Beijing is keen to build a close relationship with the new administration in Jakarta.

CGSP's Southeast Asia Editor Antonia Timmerman...

For much of the past year, there's been a lot of talk about China's new leaner, more focused Belt and Road Initiative that goes by the mantra "Smart and Beautiful." The problem is very few people actually know what it looks like in practice.

But that's starting to change, particularly in regions like Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) where two seemingly contradictory investment trends are taking place: overall Chinese FDI in the region is down but in key areas, so-called "new infrastructure," Chinese investments in LAC countries have been going up.

Margaret Myers, director...

There was a lot of speculation in the U.S. last year that an upgrade of diplomatic ties with Vietnam would prompt Hanoi to be more aligned with Washington in its rivalry with China. While Vietnam did embark on a flurry of diplomatic upgrades with China's rivals in Japan, South Korea and the United States, among others, China nonetheless remains the Southeast Asian country's primary foreign policy priority.

And that's never going to change regardless of what the U.S. and others offer Hanoi, according to Khang Vu, a doctoral candidate in Vietnamese foreign policy at Boston...

Together, the United States and China import $40 billion worth of timber products each year, quite a bit of which is harvested illegally from West Africa's rapidly shrinking forests. But cracking down on this illicit trade is extremely difficult given that many of the region's governments are actively complicit.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an NGO based in the U.S. and UK, recently traced how Chinese merchants trafficked rosewood timber from the forests Equatorial Guinea back to China and eventually all the way to store shelves at Home Depot in the United States.

Last year...

This year's COP28 gathering is wrapping up in Dubai and it turned out to be the most controversial climate conference in years where China was at the center of many of the most contentious discussions on how to mitigate the impact of global warming.

China's positions at the conference were difficult to decipher. Chinese negotiators positioned themselves as a still developing country that's suffering the consequences of climate change while at the same time aligning many of their critical votes at COP28 with the fossil fuel-producing countries.

Anika Patel, a China analyst at the online...

There's mounting concern in the U.S. and Europe that their global reputations, particularly in developing countries, will be among the latest casualties of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

In the Global South, anger is rising against the West over what is perceived to be a double standard by the West's unconditional support of Israel even as it bombs civilian neighborhoods in Gaza while at the same time lecturing other countries, namely Russia, for violating the rules of war when it does the same.

CGSP Southeast Asia Editor Antonia Timmerman joins Eric & Cobus from Jakarta to...

Prior to the October 7th terrorist attack by Hamas in southern Israel, China had positioned itself as a new power broker in the Middle East. Chinese officials were brimming with confidence after they finalized a détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia earlier this year, hinting they could do the same in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But in the wake of a full-scale war that's now underway, those same Chinese officials are much more circumspect.

In this week's episode, CGSP Middle East Editor Jony Essa and Eric speak with three of the world's leading China-Mideast scholars t...

Amid a slowing economy at home, more Chinese companies are now looking to invest abroad in search of higher returns. While there's been a lot of hope in recent years that some of that money would find its way to Africa and other less-developed regions, that's not happening.

Instead, Chinese companies are investing in countries closer to home in Asia, according to Chim Lee, a China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Chim joins Eric & Cobus from Beijing to discuss the latest trends in Chinese overseas FDI and why Chinese companies are focusing more attention...

Two years ago, China introduced a series of new so-called "green guidelines" that it hoped would promote more sustainable development abroad. But in Africa, according to a new research report, it appears those higher environmental, social, and governance (ESG) have been difficult to meet.

Researchers from Boston University's Global Development Policy Center, the Fudan University Green Finance and Development Center, the South African Institute of International Affairs, and LSE IDEAS teamed up to examine ESG standards at five Chinese-funded infrastructure projects in Egypt, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.

Two of the scholars on that team, Cecilia Han S...

Chilean President Gabriel Boric oversaw the signing of a $233 million lithium deal with Chinese mining giant Tsingshan Holding Group, the latest investment that solidifies China's dominance of the fiercely contested EV battery metal supply chain.

In just the past few months alone, Chinese firms have moved quickly to lock up similar mining and processing deals in Morocco, Nigeria, Bolivia, and Zimbabwe, among other countries.

Henry Sanderson, executive editor at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, joins Eric & Geraud to discuss these latest deals and what the implications are for G7 countries that are looking to build alternate non-Chinese...

China's economy emerged from the pandemic much weaker than before. Unemployment is up, exports are down and a burgeoning property crisis is having a devastating impact on local government finances.

These changes in the economy are happening very fast, so quickly that's it difficult for experts to keep pace with what's happening, much less among those who don't closely follow Chinese economic trends -- particularly in developing countries.

Michael Pettis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is one of the world's foremost scholars on the Chinese economy. He joins Eric this...

There's growing anxiety in the United States over China's expanding presence in the Latin America-Caribbean (LAC) region. Last week, a Congressional subcommittee held another breathless hearing that warned of the dangers of "Communism on our shores."

That concern in Washington is based, in part, on surging Chinese trade with LAC countries, more investment, and a growing ideological alignment with Beijing's worldview among many of the region's largest countries.

LAC countries are also key destinations for Chinese-backed infrastructure projects as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

But contrary to the simplistic narratives in...

The Chinese economy is in trouble. Exports, manufacturing output, and investment are all down. Unemployment, particularly among young people is up. Provincial debt is now at a record $8 trillion while a burgeoning property crisis has eliminated a once reliable source of revenue for local governments.

The financial difficulties that China is now experiencing have direct implications on dozens, if not hundreds of developing countries around the world that have come to rely on Chinese demand to bolster their own economies.

Lizzi Li, an economist and reporter at the Chinese language television network Wall Street TV...

There was a glimmer of hope last month that China and India would pull back from their increasingly contentious standoff when military commanders concluded talks along their disputed border on a somewhat optimistic note. The hope was that these talks would pave the way for leaders from both countries to meet while they were together at the BRICS summit in Johannesburg.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did meet briefly in South Africa but it did nothing to stall the downward spiral in relations between the two Asian powers.

Ananth Krishnan...

China's Belt and Road Initiative marked its 10th anniversary this month, prompting a lot of discussion about what's next for Beijing's controversial development agenda. While BRI spending in Africa and the Americas has plummeted in recent years that is not the case closer to home in Southeast Asia.

Cambodia, in particular, stands apart from other countries in terms of its growing dependence on Chinese economic engagement -- both from government-backed BRI projects and private investors who have transformed major cities like Sihanoukville (not always for the better).

Wang Yuan, an assistant professor at Duke Kunshan...

The failure of G20 countries last month to agree on a plan to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 highlights a key problem in the ongoing debate over how to respond to climate change: the institutions that are designed to help solve this problem are failing.

It's not clear what China's role was in that debate at the G20 but elsewhere Beijing's actions on combatting climate change are somewhat contradictory. While China is by far the world's leader in renewable energy and green transportation, it's also the world's largest polluter, thanks in part to its reliance on coal...

China's critics contend the Belt and Road Initiative is dead or dying due to a mix of gross mismanagement and hubris. The data, however, reveals a very different story. While lending has definitely decreased considerably from its peak in 2016, the BRI is very much alive -- it just looks very different today than it did even a few years ago.

Instead of expensive large-scale infrastructure projects in Africa, the Americas, and Asia, Chinese lenders are now focusing more on smaller initiatives related to technology, renewable energy, and connectivity. In fact, Chinese creditors lent more money to finance...

For much of the past 20 years, China sought to radically expand its presence beyond its traditional spheres of influence to new regions in Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East. China lent billions to countries in these regions and devoted considerable diplomatic capital to building political influence there as well.

But now, in this new era of Great Power competition with the United States and Europe, China is once again shifting its focus, this time closer to home in Asia. Its so-called "near abroad" is now by far the most consequential region for China both in terms...

In June, Zambia reached what's been described as a landmark debt restructuring deal that for the first time brought together the country's bilateral creditors including China, traditional Paris Club lenders and bondholders.

While the deal is no doubt unprecedented, it also reveals that China was very effective in successful in getting the parties to agree to many of its demands.

Matt Mingey, a senior analyst at the consultancy Rhodium Group, is among the world's foremost experts on Chinese lending and debt issues. He joins Eric & Cobus from Washington, D.C. to discuss whether China is...