This week's G20 summit wrapped up much the same way previous G20 gatherings have in recent years, with a weak final communiqué and lots of discord among the group's members. But this year's summit in Rio de Janeiro was nonetheless notable as it marked the African Union's debut as an official member of the body.

Chinese President Xi Jinping was also a stand-out at the summit, where he took a number of veiled shots at the United States in his keynote address as he sought to bolster China's self-appointed role as spokesperson for the Global South.

This week, Eric, Géraud, and Cobus discuss Xi's speech and whether African representatives should have been more outspoken now that they have a seat at the G20 table.

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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 a traditional military installation.

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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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It's widely believed that Chinese lending to African countries is predominantly done by a few state policy banks, such as the China Exim Bank and the China Development Bank. While that was true in the past, today the situation is far more complicated.

New research found that a diverse array of Chinese creditors are now active in Africa, including commercial banks, state banks, and corporate actors, among many others. And contrary to the popular perception that Chinese lenders are monolithic, the reality is that each of these creditors has very different agendas.

Tianyi Wu, a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford, and Yunnan Chen, a research fellow at ODI Global, join Eric & Cobus to discuss the diversity within the Chinese creditor market and why there are important pros and cons for African governments to consider when they borrow from these commercial banks.

SHOW NOTES:

• ODI Global: China’s creditor diversification in Africa: impacts and challenges of infrastructure debt-financing by Chinese commercial creditors by Tianyi Wu & Yunnan Chen: https://tinyurl.com/yc4v2nec
• Development and Change: The Political Economy of Variations in Energy Debt Financing by Two Chinese Policy Banks in Africa by Tianyi Wu: https://tinyurl.com/3wvnex6e
• Boston University Global Development Policy Center: Back in Action: The Ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Sees Renewed Relations and Development Prospects by Tianyi Wu: https://tinyurl.com/yeyufn5j

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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 Paterson, 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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