Allegations and accusations that China is trapping Africa into unsustainable debt agreements have dominated the conversation around Africa-China relations in Western media, but what does the data tell us? The reality is that China is canceling 23 loans to African countries amid this 'Debt Trap' debate. We look at the international implications of this claim, what debt trap diplomacy is, and who owns most of Africa's external debts. Featuring Sri Lanka, the African Development Bank, and the “secret” lenders they don’t tell us about, with Mikaela Nhondo Erskog researcher at TriContinental Institute for Social Research and one of the hosts of the new podcast The Crane, an African China podcast by the Dongsheng Collective. Plus: We discuss Mikhail Gorbachev’s legacy, what to make of Biden’s student loan debt moves, Lindsey Graham’s threats of “riots in the streets” if Trump is prosecuted, and more...
An on-the-ground account challenging Western propaganda
Upon landing in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (commonly known as Xinjiang), it is evident that the Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority, call this home.
As I exited the airport arrivals hall, I noticed a restaurant sign reading “EGG BOMB.” The...
Distorted coverage of alleged removal of Hu Jintao from Communist Party Congress is par for the course along with other recent coverage.
It is common for Western media to automatically imply or label everything that happens in China as “evil.” The most recent case concerns the events surrounding former Communist...
Following up on last week's show where we discussed the quickly-changing dynamics of U.S.-European relationships under Donald Trump, we look at the “peace deal” Trump has penned with Ukraine that reportedly includes significant mineral rights for the U.S...
The corporate media has been non-stop talking about the “dystopian” lockdown in Shanghai claiming people are starving in mass. The question “at what cost” pops up in articles across the news cycle questioning China’s lockdown policies. The logistical challenges for Shanghai’s local government to manage a lockdown in response to a mass omicron spread have been significant, but is that the full story?
Background observations by a European author living in Asia on the current escalation with China
After the megaphones of the West have already called for all-out economic war against Russia, the battle cry against China is now being heard, regardless of the consequences for the “common people.” The reaction of...
In the last decade xenophobic tropes intended to stoke fear and loathing of Chinese have accelerated ominously in the American mainstream media as many public officials of both parties label China as our “adversary” or even our “enemy.”
This last formulation is deep cause for growing alarm, especially because many...
In their reporting on China, the Western mainstream media conjure up a massive real estate crisis, enormous youth unemployment and a severe economic crisis. But the collective West is harming itself with illusions about China's economy, as you will see below.
“China is in the midst of a profound...
China’s future looks increasingly bleak, but it has great counter-cyclical expansion potential via domestic and international rebalancing
In a daring thought experiment, imagine just for a moment that you are the powerful president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). You are sitting next to a cozy fireplace in a...
Western media described recent protests in China as “mark[ing] a new awakening” and represent a significant challenge to Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China. After years of leading the world in addressing COVID-19, the Chinese government is indeed relaxing some of the lockdown regulations, but the situation is far more nuanced than the media is reporting.
