The latest Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) took place in Dakar, Senegal in November 2021. Among the huge range of pledges and agreements, one of the most extensive was capacity building through scholarships, targeted training and people-to-people exchanges. In this Occasional Paper, Kenneth King analyses China’s pledges not just in the sphere of formal education, but across the many different sectors of China’s collaboration with Africa for the next three years.
The China-Africa relationship has continued to evolve over the last years. In light of the 8th Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) that will take place later in 2021, this report brings together an international team of experts to shed light on emerging and consolidated areas of engagement between China and Africa that will likely shape the relationship in the years to come.
From ‘vaccine diplomacy’ to ‘debt-trap diplomacy’, this Strategic Update by Vuk Vuksanovic examines the Sino-Serbian partnership we are witnessing and what the future has in store for Serbian policymakers.
This Strategic Update explores how official Chinese foreign policy entities have used Twitter as a public diplomacy platform during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nature of their Twitter activity, and what this means for Chinese Twitter Diplomacy in the future.
Gidon Gautel seeks to outline and call attention to two high-risk flash points arising from the development of the US & China’s national space programmes and industries.
The Biden Presidency offers opportunities for a renewed effort at formulating a coordinated allied approach to technological and economic competition with China. This report provides a guiding framework for transatlantic coordination, and offers insights into key elements of future cooperation. While challenges abound, the opportunities for action prove just as great in number.
In this Strategic Update, George Magnus investigates what is meant when China’s leadership speaks of globalisation, and what the implications of the answer are for the rest of the world.
China’s pursuit of military innovation has met a more active diplomacy along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Filling the void left by traditional suppliers, Chinese Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) have proliferated along the BRI and are starting to affect Middle Eastern and African security landscapes. This Strategic Update explains the drivers and implications of these developments in the context of China’s modernising defence industrial base and more active role in security cooperation in the Global South.
In Southeast Asia, views of the Belt and Road Initiative range from admiration, to fear and suspicion. LSE IDEAS’s latest joint report with CARI points a path for leaders, revealing the impact, pitfalls, and opportunities for the region.
This Strategic Update is the essential guide to the Chinese Communist Party Congress, one of the world's most secretive and exclusive political meetings. Ahead of the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, the update also explores what will indicate if Xi Jinping plans to centralise his power in the party or maintain collective leadership.
The world is excited, yet confused about the potential of China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. What exactly is it? This Strategic Update explains the origins of the idea, who in Beijing really runs OBOR, and the existential challenges to the project.
This report explores the extent to which Deng's momentous economic reforms in 1978 have shaped modern China, what the country's expanded international role under Xi means, and who really makes Chinese foreign policy.
This report assesses the economic bases of China’s foreign policy and the challenges the country faces as it makes the transition from rising power to superpower.