Over the past 10 days, 54 Chinese nationals have been taken prisoner in Sudan and Egypt, putting greater pressure on China to protect its 800,000 citizens working overseas in resource-rich but high-risk investment environments. On Jan. 28, rebels allied with South Sudan seized 29 Chinese construction workers building roads in the Sudanese border state of South Kordofan. Three days later, Bedouin tribesmen kidnapped 25 Chinese cement factory workers in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The prisoners taken in Egypt were released the next day, and those in Sudan were freed Tuesday — after more than a week in captivity — following the [...]
Political conflict is escalating in the normally peaceful West African nation of Senegal, with protests turning deadly earlier this week as paramilitary police opened fire on demonstrators, leaving two dead. The protests came in response to the constitutional council’s ruling that 85-year-old President Abdoulaye Wade could seek a third term in elections scheduled for Feb. 26. Wade had argued that the two-term limit imposed in 2001 does not apply to his first term in office, which began a year earlier, and the council, whose five members were picked by Wade himself, agreed. From Dakar, the capital, the ensuing protests quickly [...]
In December, with a dispute over oil-transit fees between Sudan and South Sudan exacerbating already tense post-independence relations, the world looked to China to save the day. Beijing sent Special Envoy Liu Guijin to negotiations in Addis Ababa in the hopes of brokering a deal on oil revenues and facilitating a final post-independence settlement between the two sides. A month later, the crisis between and within the two Sudans continues. But the episode raises the question of whether China’s evolving Sudan policy reflects a broader evolution in its approach to African and international diplomacy. China’s current relations with the two [...]
