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...
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?
Political legitimacy thrives on competence and executing the people’s will—not on money and endless election campaigns
Long before the West ever seriously discussed equal opportunities, sophisticated concepts of meritocratic selection already existed in China. The Tang Dynasty state, in particular, is considered an early example of a system based on...
Why Isn't the Whole World Screaming "STOP!"?
Right now, the neocons that Biden has surrounded himself with are threatening to accuse him of having ‘lost Taiwan.’
Especially if Biden backs down from his many threats to China, including most notably the threat that the U.S. Government will reverse America’s “One China”...
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...
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...
After almost a year of an escalating trade war, U.S. President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last week...
On today’s show, we bring you the second half of our interview with Tings Chak, Researcher and art director at Tricontinental: Institute of Social Research, and a member of the Dongsheng Collective. We focus on the Chinese government’s programs to eradicate extreme poverty in the country and further discuss her work on the study “Serve the People: The Eradication of Extreme Poverty in China” for Tricontinental.
Note before starting: Hats off to CGTN for its excellent video, “The Untold Story of Meng Wanzhou.” I referred to it extensively to expand my research.
The prosecution of telecommunications giant Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou on charges of violating U.S. sanctions policies with Iran has been very politicized from the...
In 1989, the American public was flooded with iconic images of brave Chinese students standing up to Chinese Communist tanks in Tiananmen Square—students who were then brutally slaughtered by the Chinese military. Or so we were led to believe.
But a startling new book reveals that the American public may...
