Chinese Premier Li Qiang is in Pakistan this week to get ties with its South Asian neighbor back on track after a series of terrorist attacks this year. The latest incident occurred earlier this month near the airport in the southern port city of Karachi when separatist militants with the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) killed two Chinese nationals in a suicide bombing.

Pakistan has vowed to crack down on the militants but, so far, to little avail. In turn, Beijing has become increasingly frustrated with Islamabad's inability to better protect Chinese interests in the country.

Eram Ashraf, a China-Pakistan relations scholar, explained in a column published in The Diplomat how the violence is taking a toll on this vital Chinese diplomatic relationship. She joins Eric & Cobus to explain what's at stake for both sides if the Pakistani government can't contain the BLA.

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Chinese lending to African countries rebounded in a big way in 2023 after seven consecutive years of decline. Last year, Chinese lenders approved loans totaling $4.61 billion to African borrowers, a dramatic increase over the $922 million lent in 2022, according to Boston University's Global Development Policy Center (GDPC).

In the past, China lent billions to countries like Kenya and Nigeria to build massive infrastructure projects like ports and railways. That is no longer the case today as Chinese lending focuses on smaller, more sustainable initiatives, mainly in the energy, telecom, and logistics sectors.

Kevin Gallagher, director of the GDPC, and Diego Morro, a data analyst at GDPC, join Eric & Cobus to discuss the latest trends in Chinese development finance in Africa and a few of the surprises their research uncovered about which countries are getting the most financing.

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The rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon prompted a strong reaction from the Chinese government this week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib on Monday at the UN in New York and condemned Israel's actions as “indiscriminate attacks against civilians."

It's notable, though, that neither Wang nor other Chinese officials made any mention of Hezbollah's missile strikes on targets in Israel, including those that hit civilian areas.

The deteriorating security environment in the Middle East is a critical time for China, which is transitioning from a strategy of "hedging" to one that is increasingly focused on "wedging."

Jonathan Fulton and Michael Schuman, senior nonresident scholars at The Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., join Eric & Cobus to discuss their new report on China's Mideast strategy and Beijing's new regional priorities.

SHOW NOTES:

• The Atlantic Council: China’s Middle East policy shift from “hedging” to “wedging” by Jonathan Fulton and Michael Schulman: https://tinyurl.com/286pyh3o
• Subscribe to The China-MENA Newsletter by Jonathan Fulton: https://chinamenanewsletter.substack.com/
• Subscribe to The China-MENA Podcast on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/256tdywu

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For much of the past thirty years, since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been largely unrivaled in its power in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Today, that is no longer the case as the U.S. faces new challenges both from regional powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as international competitors, including China and Russia.

This transition to multipolarity is transforming the region and served as the thesis of a special edition of the academic journal Middle East Policy that came out earlier this year.

Three of the journal's editors on this project, Andrea Ghiselli from Fudan University in Shanghai, University of Naples China scholar Enrico Fardella, and Durham University international relations professor Anoushiravan Ehteshami, join Eric to discuss how the different countries in the region are adapting to the Sino-U.S. rivalry.

SHOW NOTES: Download the Spring 2024 edition of Middle East Policy (you'll need institutional access or have to pay a small fee): https://bit.ly/3XvvLUm

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2024 has been a pivotal year for Brazil-China relations. Last month marked 50 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations, and in celebration of this milestone, President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Brazil by the end of the year.

This visit comes as economic ties between the two countries are booming. Bilateral trade is on track to surpass last year’s $157 billion, and recent data shows Chinese investment in Brazil jumped by 33% in 2023.

Beyond economics, Presidents Xi Jinping and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva share similar ideological views on key global issues, posing a growing challenge to U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.

This week, South China Morning Post correspondent Igor Patrick and Thiago Bessimo, co-founder of the Portuguese-language site Observa China, join Eric to unpack the deepening Brazil-China relationship and its global implications.

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U.S. officials have spoken at length about the urgent need to end their country's dependency on China for the critical resources needed to power next-generation mobility and technology.

Part of the solution, they say, is to compete directly with the Chinese for lithium, cobalt, and other critical mineral mining rights around the world. The problem is few U.S. mining companies today do that kind of work in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia where these resources are found.

But the U.S. is geologically endowed, prompting loud calls to mine these resources at home — which raises another problem.

In his new book "The War Below," Reuters correspondent Ernest Scheyder explains how powerful stakeholders have made it very difficult for U.S. mining companies to operate domestically. Ernest joins Eric & Géraud to explain why the politics of mining make it nearly impossible for the U.S. to compete with China for critical resources.

PURCHASE THE WAR BELOW ON AMAZON: https://tinyurl.com/24ng24tm

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In September 2023, just weeks before Hamas' devastating terrorist attack on October 7th, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his foreign policy advisors were preparing for a summit meeting in China with President Xi Jinping. There were even whispers Beijing would help facilitate a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia much as it did between Riyadh and Tehran.

Now, almost a year later, everything has changed. Sino-Israeli political ties have soured as China aligned with the Arab world and the rest of the Global South in opposition to Israel's war on Gaza. However, while China's standing in Israel has fallen since October 7th, it surged across the rest of the Middle East as more countries in the region regard Beijing as an emerging alternative to the United States.

Gedaliah Afterman, head of the Asia Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations at Reichman University, and Research Analyst Allie Weinberger, tracked China's Mideast power trajectory in a new article published by the Australian Security Policy Institute. Gedaliah and Allie join Eric to discuss what's behind China's growing influence in the Mideast.

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Many small and middle-power countries are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the contentious Great Power rivalry between China and the United States. Even though both Beijing and Washington repeatedly state that they don't want to force other countries to choose one side or the other, it isn't always that simple.

Vietnam, however, stands apart from other developing countries in its ability to effectively manage relations with the major powers, including Russia. The main architect of that strategy, known as "bamboo diplomacy," was Nguyen Phu Trong — the long-serving Communist Party General Secretary who passed away last month.

Phan Xuan Dung, a research officer in the Vietnamese program at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), joins Eric to discuss Trong's legacy and the lessons bamboo diplomacy offers other developing countries.

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