The China-Global South Podcast

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 fr...

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 Quin...

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...

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...

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 critici...

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 Marco...

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 bou...

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 Ch...

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 cla...

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 whe...

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 a...

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 Chin...

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 bee...

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 do...

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 b...

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 official...

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...

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 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...

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, ev...

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 abil...

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 evid...

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 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 w...

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 adv...