 | January 2008 Vol 1 - Number 3 | |
| Headlines
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Quiet on the eastern front A diplomatic silence from across the Indian Ocean is helping the Kibaki government play down the election crisis As Western governments consider placing sanctions on Kenyan leader Mwai Kibaki and his ministers for refusing to negotiate over the disputed elections, Asian states have maintained a near deafening silence on the crisis. It seems that Kibaki’s courting of China – he visited President Hu Jintao in 2005 and the following year hosted the Chinese President in Nairobi – has helped to break the West’s grip over Kenya’s foreign and economic policy options. Chinese officials have not uttered a word of criticism of Kenya’s 27 December elections, which were judged fatally fl awed by 20,000 local Kenyan, European Union and Commonwealth observers. The observers say they cannot be certain who really won the presidential election, a view echoed by the erratic Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, Samuel Kivuitu. | CHOOSING
CHINA After 41 years in
the dwindling company of
Taiwan’s international allies, Malawi has
finally broken diplomatic
ties with Taipei in favour
of Beijing. Malawi’s Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Joyce Banda,
made the announcement on 14 January after weeks of prevarications
and denials. Taiwan’s
Foreign Minister, James Huang, was
told that President Bingu wa
Mutharika would be unable to
see him on 2 January and so he
had to reroute his flight to
Lilongwe two hours after it had left
Taipei. The late Hastings Banda benefited from Taiwan’s support when Malawi was ostracised for its collaboration with apartheid South Africa. More recently, Taiwan has established fertiliser, paint, pharmaceutical and PVC-pipe factories there. Four locomotives were delivered in 2006 for the Central East Africa railway between Nacala port, in Mozambique, and Blantyre and Lilongwe, in Malawi. There was a close, mutually beneficial relationship between Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party and its namesake in Malawi, led by President Mutharika. China’s commercial coup cancels out all that. There is talk of millions of aid dollars; finance for a Shire-Zambezi canal to the Indian Ocean; and a Chinese market for Malawian tobacco, by-passing the American buyer dominated Lilongwe and Limbe auction-rooms. What China wants from the partnership, beyond another blow against Taipei, is the subject of much speculation in Lilongwe. WHO'S
WHO: | |
| INDIA-SOUTH
AFRICA Diamonds are not forever India’s diamond industry looks to African independent producers as supplies from diamond giant De Beers dry up Indian diamond traders are being forced to import rough diamonds directly from overseas suppliers after South Africa-based De Beers, the world’s largest supplier, recently slashed the number of local dealers – called ‘sightholders’ – that have supplied India's well-established diamond processing industry. | CONGO
KINSHASA-CHINA Checking the assets Big questions are arising about the timing and value of China’s grand foray into Africa’s richest copper and cobalt mines It could be another three years before China launches its US$3 billion investment into Katanga’s vast reserves of copper and cobalt, according to Congolese mining officials who met their counterparts in Beijing last month. Under China’s plans to invest in mines and infrastructure, Congo would have become one of its most important trading partners in Africa. | |
| AFRICA-CHINA China's African expeditions 2002-2008 
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AFRICA-CHINA Africa's Chinese guests  |
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| SOUTH
AFRICA-CHINA The new men in place Beijing’s foreign minister wants to know the implications of Jacob Zuma’s ANC presidency Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi visited South Africa on 7 January 2008 to deepen a relationship which has been elevated to a ‘strategic dialogue’. The visit was to celebrate ten years since the post-apartheid government cut relations with Taiwan. The National Party’s apartheid governments had strongly supported Taipei and shunned Beijing. | ANGOLA-CHINA Coming cleanish on the money New details are emerging about Angola’s public finances and the management of the mega-credit lines from Angola Angola’s Finance Ministry has strengthened its policy to promote greater transparency in public finances, with the disclosure of new details about Chinese credit lines that support an array of projects in the country. The Ministry has not only released data of funds that it has sourced through China’s Eximbank but also shed a little more light on funds sourced by the Gabinete de Reconstrução Nacional (GRN), a more opaque body set up by President José Eduardo dos Santos in 2004 from the China International Fund (CIF). | |