This week Eric & Cobus sit down with Wu Peng, the director-general of the department of African affairs in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for his perspective on a wide range of issues that are impacting relations between the two regions.

The conversation also features questions from a trio of experts in China-Africa relations including:

• Gyude Moore, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development (@gyude_moore)
• Zainab Usman, director of the Africa program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (@MissZeeUsman)
• Aggrey Mutambo, senior diplomatic affairs writer for the Daily Nation and The East African newspaper (@agmutambo)

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Since its inception in 2013, Chinese government officials have insisted that the Belt and Road is solely an economic initiative and does not have any military motivations. But the BRI's civil-military distinction is no longer as clear cut as it used to be. President Xi Jinping himself called for a strong BRI security system to protect China's overseas interests, people and property.

One little-known aspect of the BRI is that much of the overseas construction, particularly ports, must conform to standards that conform to the People's Liberation Army's requirements. So, while today there's little evidence that China is leveraging the BRI for security or military purposes, there are concerns that it is positioning to be able to do so in the future should the need arise.

Daniel Russel, vice president for international security and diplomacy at the New York-based Asia Society Policy Institute, examined the security dimensions of the BRI in a recent paper. Daniel joins Eric & Cobus to discuss what he calls the Belt and Road's "civil-military fusion" in maritime, terrestrial and space environments.

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The re-election of former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to significantly alter U.S. foreign policy, including its approach to Africa. As seen during Trump’s first term, U.S. engagement with the continent is likely to decrease, with a stronger emphasis on countering China's expanding influence in the region.

The future of the U.S.-Africa free trade agreement, known as AGOA, is now uncertain, as the incoming administration has signaled plans to introduce protectionist policies.

This week, Eric and Cobus are joined by Stewart Patterson, a senior fellow at the Hinrich Foundation, to explore how Trump's return to power could impact Africa and discuss Stewart's recent article on Chinese investments across the continent.

SHOW NOTES:

• The China-Global South Project: Trump, China, and the Rest of Us by Cobus van Staden: https://tinyurl.com/23wh5pxq
• Hinrich Foundation: How much of China’s investment into Africa is real? by Stewart Patterson: https://tinyurl.com/26adq3pp

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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 and debt sustainability issues among borrowing countries.

Lui Kanyi, a Beijing-based project finance lawyer and head of China at a large international law firm, has been closely following the transformation of the BRI for many of his Chinese clients. Kanyi joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the "small and beautiful" trend and what people should know about the future direction of the BRI.

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Two Chinese logging companies are now the largest timber harvesters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with concessions sized at more than 3 million hectares. The firms, Wan Peng and Booming Green, are engaged in industrial-scale logging to export raw timber mostly back to China.

But researchers at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) also discovered that both companies are engaged in a wide range of illegal activities, everything from illegal timber smuggling to bribery.

Luke Allen, a campaign and advocacy officer at EIA, joins Géraud and Cobus to discuss the new report that details the various forestry crimes committed by the two Chinese companies and how the Chinese and DRC governments should respond.

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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 Eurasia foreign policy analyst, recently explored this trend in an article published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Yunis joins Eric & Cobus to explain the geopolitics powering the green energy transition in Central Asia.

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Just over a million new vehicles were sold in Africa last year, a relatively small number given the continent's enormous population, estimated at 1.5 billion. Chinese auto brands are looking at that discrepancy and think it provides a unique opportunity for rapid expansion, particularly in the budding electric vehicle market.

BAIC Motors, BYD, Xpeng, and Neta are among a growing number of Chinese auto majors that have scaled up sales and manufacturing in Africa.

But selling EVs in Africa is not going to be easy. In many countries, access to reliable electricity is a problem. Then there's the issue of charging stations and the high import taxes many governments impose on foreign-made cars.

Even amid those challenges, Alex Mwanzo, general manager of Equator Mobile — a unit of the investment holding company Maris Africa — is optimistic about the prospects for Chinese EVs. Alex joins Eric & Njenga from Nairobi to explain why Chinese auto brands are well-positioned in the African market.

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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 geopolitical consequences throughout Asia. Sushant Singh, a lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University and contributing editor of The Caravan magazine in New Delhi, joined Eric & Cobus to discuss the ramifications of de-escalation along the Sino-Indian border.

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