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CARI is hiring!
CARI is seeking a full-time Senior Research Assistant to start in our D.C. office in July 2018. Key qualifications include a B.A. degree, fluency in reading and researching in Chinese, and MS Excel proficiency. This is a two-year position with the possibility of extension.
Please apply via the Johns Hopkins jobs website, and include your resume, cover letter, the names of two references, as well as a writing or research sample.
Application deadline is Friday, June 8, 2018.
The offer is contingent upon funding.
Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. SAIS-CARI cannot provide work visas.
Photo Credit: David G. Landry
Working Paper 16 and Policy Brief 22: The risks and rewards of Resource-for-Infrastructure deals: Lessons from the Congo's Sicomines Agreement
These papers by David G. Landry explore the Sicomines agreement and highlight the role risk has played from its inception a decade ago until now. This case reveals how, while simple on the surface, Resource-for-Infrastructure (RFI) deals carry significant risks for their signatories because of the long time horizon through which they operate. This has led the Sicomines agreement to experience many hurdles, both on the infrastructure delivery and resource extraction fronts. These papers employ financial modeling techniques to highlight the pitfalls of attempting to identify a “winner” in such ventures until they reach their conclusion. As these papers demonstrate through the Sicomines case, the expected benefits of RFI deals can change swiftly and unpredictably. Download Working Paper (PDF) and Policy Brief (PDF) »
CARI Annual Conference - April 19-20, 2018
From Thursday, April 19 to Friday, April 20, 2018, CARI held its fourth annual conference: "Matters of State: Politics, Governance, and Agency in China-Africa Engagement" at Johns Hopkins SAIS in Washington, DC.
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) »
Image rights: Bloomberg
Is China winning the (hearts and) minds of African students?
Monday, May 7, 2018
"China is winning over the future of Africa" goes another headline.
Is this the real story?
According to data compiled by Michigan State University, China has now become a more popular destination for African students than the US or the UK. The image to the right from Bloomberg coverage seems to confirm this.
An article in The Conversation by MSU scholars Virginia Breeze and Nathan Moore explains the "dramatic increase ... in part by the Chinese government’s targeted focus on African human resource and education development." This targeted focus is a reality and their data confirm that Africans are taking advantage of this focus.
However, is it true that China is now way ahead of "the West"?
