InternationalRelations

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang's remarks that multilateral lenders and commercial creditors should carry the biggest blame for the debt distress of some African states comes as a thinly veiled retort to western critics who accuse China of 'debt trap' diplomacy

While the US and European Union will not attempt to match the size of Beijing's infrastructure investment in Africa, they are attempting to ramp up their diplomatic and economic relations in Africa, anxious to avoid losing more ground to China.

'Africa should be a big stage for international cooperation, not an arena for major countries' competition', said Qin, at a joint press conference with African Union Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat at the new headquarters of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Addis Ababa, financed by China.

As we see with the end of the Qatar crisis, however, this “boring” stuff matters. The crisis may have started with a dramatic event, but that event ultimately had little impact on the region. Meanwhile, politics returned to “normal” through slow, gradual shifts in the interactions between states

most of what occurs in international relations is boring, day to day, interactions

The Qatar crisis threatened to upend Middle East politics. Instead, it fizzled out.

Qatar has not simply spent money to import and train a soccer team: It has also redefined the very idea of citizenship. Like most states in the Persian Gulf, Qatar is a majority-foreigner country. There are only about 300,000 actual Qatari passport holders out of a population of nearly 3 million. Pathways to citizenship are notoriously exclusive, and only 50 new citizenships can be granted per year to those personally approved by the emir of Qatar himself. Yet 10 of the 26 players on Qatar’s national soccer team are naturalized citizens. To comply with FIFA regulations, the entire team consists of Qatari citizens. But these naturalized soccer players are not quite immigrant-origin  national heroes, in the vein of Zinedine Zidane or Zlatan Ibrahimovic. These immigrant players all carry “mission passports”—documents that confer citizenship for the purposes of sports competition

this type of citizenship comes with a built-in expiration date, making these immigrant players’ citizenships temporary as well as second class.

that Qatar has redefined the very nature of citizenship—without fanfare, controversy, and with the sole goal of appeasing FIFA nationality regulations—takes this story of temporary citizen soccer players beyond the realm of Gulf labor exploitation

President Biden next week will announce U.S. support for the African Union to become a permanent member of the Group of 20 nations, a step that would give African nations a long-sought prize and could make it easier for Biden to secure their cooperation on issues like Ukraine and climate change.

Biden will make the announcement during next week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, said Judd Devermont, the White House National Security Council’s senior director for African Affairs

Biden’s push comes as African countries and other countries in the global south have borne the brunt of the economic impact from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Those countries have been hit especially hard by a global food crisis as well as rising fertilizer and fuel prices, making it difficult for the United States to secure their support during United Nations votes that have condemned Russia for the invasion and for its annexation of Ukrainian territories.