PODCAST · news
The China in Africa Podcast
by The China-Global South Project
Twice-weekly discussion about China's engagement across Africa and the Global South hosted by journalist Eric Olander and Asia-Africa scholar Cobus van Staden in Johannesburg.
Episodes
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Hidden Uranium in DRC Cobalt Exports to China: Is It a Problem?
The DRC's cobalt industry is also moving uranium through global supply chains, creating a problem that extends beyond critical-minerals security. Researchers estimate that 2,000–5,000 tons of uranium may have left the country as a byproduct of cobalt production, raising questions about...
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China, Taiwan and the Somaliland Question
China's engagement across Africa is increasingly shaped by both high-level geopolitics and competition in everyday markets. Somalia's renewed ties with Beijing are being driven in part by the Somaliland question, particularly its growing relationship with Taiwan. At the same time, Chinese…
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Kenyan President Orders Crackdown on Foreigners in Small Businesses, Including Chinese
Kenya's crackdown on foreigners operating small businesses has put Chinese traders at the center of a wider debate over competition, immigration, and economic opportunity. President William Ruto's targeting of foreign merchants has raised concerns about xenophobia while exposing deeper…
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Is China Decolonizing African Media or Expanding Its Influence?
China's influence in Africa's media landscape increasingly operates through content-sharing agreements, journalist training, paid placements, and support for local broadcasters. These "below-the-line" strategies give Chinese narratives a pathway into African newsrooms that extends well beyond the...
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Africa Buys From China. What Can It Sell Back?
China-Africa trade is surging and could top $400 billion this year, but the headline figure obscures a relationship that remains heavily concentrated among a small number of countries and increasingly tilted toward Chinese exports. Much of what Africa sells to China is still made up of…
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Why Namibia's China Strategy Is Worth Watching
Quite often, foreign leaders travel to China without a clear strategy for turning high-level diplomacy into tangible economic gains. This was on display earlier this year when U.S. President Donald Trump's much-hyped summit yielded few actionable outcomes. Namibian President Netumbo…
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China Is More Popular Than the U.S. in Africa. Here's Why
China's popularity across Africa remains strong, with new Afrobarometer polling showing Beijing again outperforming the U.S. and Europe in public perception. But those favorable views are far from straightforward, shaped by perceptions of China's development success, frustration with Western...
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What Africa's Youth Really Want From China, the U.S. and Europe
Young Africans increasingly see China as an important partner, but their support comes with clear expectations about what that relationship should deliver, according to findings from the recently published 2026 African Youth Survey. China's infrastructure, investment, and visible economic…
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How China Wants to Rewrite Global Governance
China is moving quickly to expand its influence over global governance as the United States steps back from its traditional leadership role. Earlier this month, President Xi Jinping unveiled the World Artificial Intelligence Organization, a new Shanghai-based institution with 29 founding members,...
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Why Critical Minerals Alone Won't Make Countries Rich
There's growing optimism across Africa, Latin America, and Asia that abundant reserves of critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel can fuel a new era of economic development. Determined to avoid the "resource curse" that enriched foreign companies while leaving local populations behind,...
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What's Next for China-Africa Trade?
There's good news and bad news for African countries in the latest China trade figures released this week. On the positive side, African exports to China surged in May and June, driven by strong demand for oil, metals, and agricultural products. China's new tariff-free policy for African goods is...
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Africa's China Trade Challenge Isn't Market Access. It's Market Readiness.
When China removed import tariffs on goods from all 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic relations earlier this year, many hailed the move as a breakthrough that could boost African exports and help narrow the growing trade imbalance between the two sides. While tariff-free access...
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South Africa's Protests, China-Africa Trade and Global South Politics
Anti-immigrant protests in South Africa have raised difficult questions about race, class, and who gets targeted during waves of xenophobic anger. While Black African migrants have faced growing hostility, Chinese migrants and other foreign communities have largely avoided the same scrutiny. This...
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Kenya's China Debt Restructuring Explained
Kenya's landmark debt restructuring deal with China, announced last year, converted $3 billion in outstanding China Exim Bank loans from U.S. dollars to Chinese yuan. The currency switch could save the East African country more than $200 million in debt servicing costs. Not surprisingly, other...
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China Unveils Vision for a New World Order
The Chinese government this week unveiled a new vision for the emerging post-American-led international order. In a new white paper, Beijing argued that the existing global system does not need to be replaced or rebuilt. Instead, it called for the United Nations to remain at the center of global...
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Africa Is Closing The Door On Taiwan
Taiwan's delegates to the Our Ocean Conference scheduled to take place in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa next week will not be permitted to participate, according to a well-placed source. If this is the case, it would mark the third major setback for Taiwan in Africa over the past several weeks....
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Former State Department Insider on Washington's Muddled Africa Policy
Dan Kobayashi spent 16 years working as a U.S. diplomat focused on African issues, both at posts in Lesotho, Zambia, and Malawi, among others, and at the State Department's intelligence bureau in Washington, D.C. He had a close-up view of how U.S.-Africa policy has evolved over the years,...
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WEEK IN REVIEW: China's Africa Influence Test - Trade, Ebola & Perception
In this week's China in Africa podcast episode, which also serves as a Round Table episode, C. Geraud Neema and Cobus van Staden break down why Europe is increasingly concerned about Chinese investment in Morocco's electric vehicle industry supply chain, and whether Brussels is ignoring Morocco's...
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How the US Is Trying to Challenge China's Critical Mineral Dominance
The U.S. is rapidly reshaping its trade and industrial policies to build new critical mineral supply chains as part of a broader effort to reduce the country's dependence on China for these strategic resources. So far, however, most of Washington's deals have focused primarily on securing access…
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Kenya Court Orders Secret China Railway Contracts Released
Kenya's Court of Appeals issued a landmark ruling rejecting the government's decade-long effort to keep secret the $4.5 billion in China Exim Bank loan contracts used to finance the Standard Gauge Railway. The decision marks a major victory for civil society activists who have long argued that…
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What Africa Looks Like From Beijing Today
From the streets of Beijing to the halls of Peking University, Geraud shares what's changed in China after a decade away — and how Chinese scholars are rethinking Africa beyond the traditional "China-Africa" lens. Geraud joins Eric & Cobus from the Chinese capital to discuss the new mood in...
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Middle Powers in a Post-American Order
The U.S. created the post-World War II international order that it no longer wants to lead today. But what replaces it is still unknown. So, in the meantime, small and medium-sized countries, so-called "middle powers," are scrambling to form new partnerships to insulate themselves from the...
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Inside the Race for Africa's Strategic Corridors
With the U.S., Europe, Japan, and China all moving quickly to secure new supplies of African critical minerals, more attention is now shifting to the strategic supply chains that will get those resources from mine to port to market. The U.S. and Europe have invested billions to refurbish the…
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Why 3 African States Said No to Taiwan
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te was forced to cancel a scheduled visit to Eswatini this week after Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Madagascar revoked Lai's flight permits. Authorities in Taipei immediately accused Beijing of using economic coercion against these three countries, a narrative that was...
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China, Surveillance, and Africa's Digital Transformation
China is the indispensable actor in Africa's tech ecosystem. From Huawei's telecom infrastructure to Transsion's dominant smartphone brands and Hikvision's surveillance systems, Chinese technologies are now deeply embedded across the continent, often holding leading market share in their sectors....
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Awkward China-Africa Conversations in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. lags far behind China in the race for critical minerals, electric mobility, power generation, and new energy technologies, among others, but, in the view of many in Washington, D.C., there's still time to catch up. Eric spent a week in the U.S. Capitol talking with key stakeholders in...
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Why Residents Near a Massive Chinese-run Mine in the DR Congo Are Getting Sick
A three-year investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Congolese NGO Premi Congo uncovered severe health consequences for communities living near the Tenke Fungurume Mine (TFM) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world's largest copper-cobalt mine. Residents report...
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China's Economic Relationship With Africa Is Entering a New Phase
Chinese Vice President Han Zheng was in Kenya this week, where he oversaw the first shipment of agricultural products that will enter the Chinese market duty-free. There's a lot of excitement across the continent about China's removal of all import tariffs for goods from 53 African countries. But...
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View From Washington: What the US Needs to Do to Re-Engage Africa
While the Trump administration has taken a hard line toward Africa through aid cuts, travel bans, and pressure on governments like South Africa, it has also generated more investor excitement in Washington than we've seen in years. Donald Trump's new transactional foreign policy for the continent...
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Comparing U.S. and Chinese Aid Strategies in Africa
For decades, the United States was the dominant provider of aid and humanitarian assistance to African countries. That changed last year with the closure of USAID. Washington now says it wants to prioritize trade over aid and is pursuing a more transactional approach to development assistance,...
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Who Controls the Battery Age? Congo, China, and the New Resource Order
The U.S., Japan, and other G7 countries are scrambling to secure critical minerals to end their reliance on Chinese-controlled supply chains. Every week, there's news of another mining deal for cobalt, lithium, and other resources essential to powering 21st century technology. But the race to...
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Why Private Bondholders Matter More Than China in Africa's Debt Debate
For more than a decade, the dominant Western narrative about Chinese lending to African countries has focused on the purported "debt trap." But the data tells a very different story. David McNair, executive director of Global Policy at ONE.org, joins Eric & Cobus to discuss a new report on…
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How a Little-Known Chinese Company Conquered Africa's Cell Phone Market
Shenzhen-based Transsion Holdings is now a massive Chinese technology company that few people outside of Africa and certain parts of Asia have heard of. Even in China, the brand, now the world's 5th-largest mobile phone producer, remains largely unknown. Transsion gained notoriety after it…
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Why Africa is Now a Key Front in the U.S.-China Rivalry
Donald Trump has never thought very highly of Africa, famously referring to the continent as a place of "sh**hole countries." While there's no indication that sentiment has changed, he's recognized that African resources are essential if he wants the U.S. to decouple from Chinese dominanted...
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China's Expanding Military Engagement Across Africa
China is rapidly expanding its military engagement with African countries through a combination of joint exercises, growing arms sales, officer training programs, and deeper security cooperation under its Global Security Initiative. This widening footprint is generating unease in the United…
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U.S. Pushes New Critical Minerals Bloc to Counter China
The United States wants to build a new global critical minerals supply chain through a new alliance that aims to stabilize prices and reduce dependence on China. Africa sits at the center of this shift, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where geopolitics is increasingly shaping...
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Africa and the New World Order: U.S. Pulls Back and China Moves Forward
The collapse of the post-war international system now underway will have a disproportionate impact on African countries that rely heavily on multilateral bodies like the UN. Beyond a pull-back of aid and humanitarian assistance, African countries must also contend with an increasingly hostile...
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China's Place in the New Post-American International Order
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week will likely be remembered as one of the most significant orations of the early 21st century. Carney channeled the fear and frustration of many global leaders when he defiantly declared that the U.S.-led...
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What Did Wang Yi Accomplish on His Low-Key Africa Tour?
While global attention was fixed on the fallout from U.S. intervention in Venezuela and rising tensions between Washington and Tehran, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi quietly toured three African countries in a notably low-profile visit. Eric, Cobus, and Géraud unpack why this understated trip...
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Why Wang Yi Chose Somalia, Ethiopia, Tanzania & Lesotho for His 2026 Africa Tour
China's Wang Yi kicked off a four-nation, week-long Africa tour this week, marking a signature tradition for Beijing: making the continent the foreign minister's first overseas trip of the new year. Wang visited Ethiopia and will also travel to Somalia, Tanzania, and Lesotho in southern Africa....
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2025 China-Africa Year in Review
In this special year-end edition of The China in Africa 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: Simandou goes online (Guinea) and the iron ore geopolitics shift Zambia's Kafue River spill…
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China's Outsized Role in West Africa's Illegal Resource Trade
Every year, illegal mining, fishing, and logging drain billions of dollars from West Africa's economies as the problem persists largely unchecked, with Chinese actors playing an outsized role. Fueled by chronic corruption among local regulators across the region and seemingly insatiable demand…
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China's Role in Africa's Industrialization: Obstacle, Partner, or Both?
Africa's industrialization push is colliding with the defining economic question of this era: how can any country or region climb the manufacturing value chain so long as China dominates industrial production of pretty much, well, everything? But even if overcoming the China question is possible,...
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Why the U.S.-DRC Mining Deal is Bad News For China
The U.S. and the DR Congo signed a landmark deal on critical minerals during President Félix Tshisekedi's visit to the White House this week. The pact provides the U.S. with extraordinary access to the Congolese mining sector and is widely expected to inhibit Chinese mining companies in the DRC...
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China at COP30 and the New Politics of Climate Change
With the U.S. absent from two major international summits this month, the G20 in South Africa and the COP30 in Brazil, we got an early look at what the post-American order is starting to look like. In both instances, China moved to fill the void left by the U.S., taking on a much more prominent...
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How China Uses Parliamentary Buildings to Build Influence in Africa
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...
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Chinese Nationals' Role in Africa's Illicit Weapons, Mining, and Money Flows
There's mounting evidence from the United Nations and others that Chinese organized crime syndicates are moving more of their operations from countries in Southeast Asia to Africa. These groups are contributing to a surge in illicit crypto mining, scam centers, illegal wildlife trafficking, and...
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Is China's "Engineering State" the New Development Model for the Global South?
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...
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Why China's Ability to Make a $6 Toaster is a Big Problem for the Global South
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...
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How China Changed Its Image in the African News Media
Ten years ago, African news coverage of China's engagement on the continent was often quite negative and repackaged many of the critical Western narratives. Today, the situation is very different. China has spent considerable resources cultivating closer ties with African news outlets. Through a...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Twice-weekly discussion about China's engagement across Africa and the Global South hosted by journalist Eric Olander and Asia-Africa scholar Cobus van Staden in Johannesburg.
HOSTED BY
The China-Global South Project
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The China in Africa Podcast have?
The China in Africa Podcast currently has 300 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The China in Africa Podcast about?
Twice-weekly discussion about China's engagement across Africa and the Global South hosted by journalist Eric Olander and Asia-Africa scholar Cobus van Staden in Johannesburg.
How often does The China in Africa Podcast release new episodes?
The China in Africa Podcast publishes regularly with 300 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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You can listen to The China in Africa Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The China in Africa Podcast?
The China in Africa Podcast is created and hosted by The China-Global South Project.
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