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How Africa Has Become a Second Front in the US–China Struggle

How Africa Has Become a Second Front in the US–China Struggle
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, right, and South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa await other participants to arrive before the start of the opening ceremony of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People on September 3, 2018 in Beijing, China. Madoka Ikegami - Pool/Getty Images
He Qinglian
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On September 3, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared at the opening ceremony of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation Beijing Summit in 2018 that China is willing to provide to African countries $60 billion through various channels including government assistance, financial institutions, and corporate investment. Some of the countries in this list are among Africa’s least developed, or the most heavily in debt, and now Beijing has exempted them from making loan payments that were originally due at the end of this year.
Xi’s statements sparked negative responses in Chinese online circles, with many people accusing the leader of “wantonly showering coins.”
He Qinglian
He Qinglian
Author
He Qinglian is a prominent Chinese author and economist. Currently based in the United States, she authored “China’s Pitfalls,” which concerns corruption in China’s economic reform of the 1990s, and “The Fog of Censorship: Media Control in China,” which addresses the manipulation and restriction of the press. She regularly writes on contemporary Chinese social and economic issues.