Chinese construction firms have captured a lot of the market in many developing countries and perhaps especially in African countries. By one estimate, they accounted for 31 percent of all construction projects in Africa with a value of $50m or more in 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the realpolitik of global health security. It has also illuminated some uncomfortable truths. In this blog, we explore China’s global health leadership, its international cooperation and lack thereof, and analyse what we see as the future of global health sec...

The eighth Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) drew to a close last week in Dakar. The big takeaway this year is a noticeable shift in China’s approach to Africa—from hard cash for infrastructure, to soft cooperation on trade and human capital.

In this blog, we go beyond the headlines and unpack the Global Gateway’s strategy, narrative, finance, and governance. Now that the plan has been published, it’s clear that, while packaged and presented as a real competitor to China in infrastructure, the Global Gateway appears to be a paper tiger. ...

In a new report, we rely on public reporting from multilateral development institutions and funds to provide a clearer picture of China’s participation across the multilateral development system. We find that China has staked out a uniquely important position, one that relies on leading roles as a s...

After a lengthy review of the Trump administration’s trade policy toward China, the Biden administration unveiled its approach on October 4th. It is the conclusion of the Biden administration that structural inequities in trade relations remain, and that China is not compliant with Phase I of the ag...

Today’s release of a new dataset of over 13,000 Chinese-financed projects in developing countries marks a major contribution to our understanding of China’s role as a lender to the developing world, as well as the ways in which these projects are increasingly structured to avoid accou...