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CARI Annual Conference - April 19-20, 2018
CARI is pleased to announce its fourth annual conference: "Matters of State: Politics, Governance, and Agency in China-Africa Engagement," which will be held at Johns Hopkins SAIS in Washington DC from Thursday, April 19 to Friday, April 20, 2018.
Photo Credit: U.S. Department of State
The Tillerson Trip: Data on China, Africa, and the U.S.
As Secretary Tillerson visits the African continent, China's engagement in Africa is at the center of the U.S. State Department's focus. SAIS-CARI is closely following this trip. Our 2017 Policy Brief on China, Africa, and U.S. relations as well as our 2017 Economic Bulletin can serve as a primer for anyone looking for a broader understanding of these issues.
- Policy Brief 18: The United States and China in Africa: What does the data say?
- Economic Bulletin: Challenges of and opportunities from the commodity price slump
In addition, we have updated our data and created regional profiles to help quantify Chinese engagement with the African continent.
Working Paper 15: China's involvement in South Africa's wind and solar PV industries
This paper by Lucy Baker and Wei Shen explores the different modes of involvement of Chinese companies in South Africa’s solar photovoltaic and wind energy sectors, and how the differentiated technological and industrial trajectories of Chinese companies are interacting with South Africa’s unique national context. It reveals complex interactions between evolving market dynamics, and international and domestic factors in both China and South Africa. Such dynamics include the highly globalized nature of production chains in wind and solar PV, accompanied by increasingly consolidated markets, and ongoing trade disputes between Chinese, and EU and US solar PV manufacturing companies. Download Working Paper (PDF) »
Policy Brief 21: Chinese medical teams in the DRC: A
comparative case study
This paper by Xiaoxiao Jiang Kwete analyzes China's program of sending a Chinese Medical Team (CMT) to an African country, in this case the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The CMT in the DRC, from HeBei Province, started its 15th deployment in May 2012, for a two-year mission in the Chinese-Congolese Friendship Hospital in Kinshasa. This brief focuses on the challenges the CMT faced in the DRC, compares it to Médecins Sans Frontières's operations in the DRC, and proposes recommendations for improvements in the future. Download Policy Brief (PDF) »
Economic Bulletin 1: Challenges of and opportunities from the commodity price slump
The first edition of the China-Africa Economic Bulletin provides a comprehensive overview of the key channels of China-Africa economic engagement over the last decade, with a focus on shifting economic trends in the past five years. The collapse of global commodity prices beginning in 2014, tied with the domestic slowdown in China, has significant implications for the tenor and nature of China’s economic relationship with African countries going forward. This bulletin provides more information on trends in bilateral trade, Chinese outward direct investment to Africa, Chinese labor and contract values, and Chinese loans to African governments. Download Economic Bulletin (PDF) »

Secretary Tillerson Heads to Africa: and China is (a?) (the?) Focus
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Secretary Tillerson is heading to Africa on March 6th, to Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Chad, and Nigeria. Although this visit is being framed by some as the Trump administration's response to the fallout from his much criticized recent comment on African countries, it is also clearly being positioned as a response to China's increased engagement on the continent.
