By Mengdi Yue Established in 2000, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) has been the primary diplomatic channel through which China and 53 African countries shape cooperation across trade, infrastructure, agriculture, health, culture, energy and climate. Amid the global energy transition, Africa cannot afford to wait without a strategy of its own. Deepening energy and […]
By Marialuz Moreno Badia and Vikram Dixit Kumaraswamy Economists have increasingly turned to news coverage to gauge economic sentiment in real time. However, this assumes there is one economic narrative to capture. For China, the world’s second largest economy, the world may not be watching through the same lens, as Chinese- and English-language media can […]
A new working paper from the Boston University Global Development Policy Center developed new cross-language sentiment indices capable of measuring and comparing how English- and Chinese-language media portray China’s economy over time. The research revealed a persistent perception gap between English and Chinese media sentiment toward China’s economy, with distinct links to market prices and […]
By William Olichney The Strait of Hormuz crisis, causing the largest ever disruption to global oil markets, has created an unprecedented challenge to Asia’s energy security. Most oil and gas exports passing through the Strait are bound for Asian markets. Countries like Singapore, Bangladesh and Thailand, for example, rely on oil and gas for over […]
By Congyi Dai Minerals are the main inputs needed for manufacturing clean energy technologies such as lithium-ion batteries, solar photovoltaic panels, electric vehicles and wind turbines. They are essential resources to the global clean energy transition. China has a dominating role in mineral processing. It refines 35% of the world’s nickel, 50-70% of lithium and […]
By Tianyi Wu The portfolio of financiers participating in China’s overseas development finance is changing. Between 2000 and 2019, development finance institutions (DFIs), primarily the Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank, dominated sovereign lending to Africa, committing over $143 billion across transport, energy and ICT (information and communications technology) sectors. Since 2018, […]
As late as 1984, half of China’s exports consisted of raw materials, including oil, coal, food and livestock. After 47 years of reform and opening, China has transformed itself from an agrarian economy into a manufacturing powerhouse. With the country’s expanding development finance and deepening economic engagement with the Global South, it has come to […]
By Mengdi Yue China and Africa’s economic relationship has continued to evolve over the last decade. Recent milestones include the ten partnership actions announced at the 2024 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the Green Mining and Minerals Initiative launched at the 2025 Johannesburg G20 summit and China’s most recent expansion of its […]
A series of concurrent shocks have posed significant challenges to the African continent, including the recent global pullback by the US whose effects fall disproportionately on Africa. Despite these headwinds, Africa has experienced steady economic growth since 2000. The continent’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates are projected to be 3.9 percent in 2025 […]
By Tianyi Wu The current debt and development crisis in the Global South has resurfaced a long-standing tension in sovereign development finance: do tools designed to assess fiscal risk account for the investment needs countries must meet to grow out of debt? Recent debates often ask whether developing countries are facing unsustainable debt burdens. An […]