China and the World: Africa as China’s Policy Test Bed, With Eric Olander and Aleksandra Gadzala

China has responded to the call for investments in Africa like no other country. Since the end of the 1990s, China’s increasing financial and economic engagement in Africa has led to critical debates whether China can offer a good alternative to Western aid and charity. Its relationships with African countries has also become ever more political.

Your host: Nico Luchsinger, Executive Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Moderator: Aleksandra Gadzala, Head of Research at The Singularity Group
Speaker: Eric Olander, Co-founder of the China Africa Project (CAP)
Production: Denise Staubli, Program Officer, Asia Society Switzerland

Eric Olander is the co-founder of the China Africa Project (CAP), an independent, non-partisan media initiative dedicated to exploring every facet of China’s engagement in Africa. Eric is also the co-host of the weekly China in Africa podcast that is now among the top-10% most downloaded shows worldwide. Eric is a fluent Mandarin-speaker and a longtime China-watcher with more than 25 years of journalism experience at many of the world’s leading media companies including CNN, the BBC, and FRANCE24 among others. He received his undergraduate degree in East African History from the University of California at Berkeley and holds a master’s degree in Chinese Public Affairs from the University of Hong Kong.

Aleksandra W Gadzala is Head of Research at The Singularity Group, Senior Nonresident Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, and a lecturer in international relations at the University of St. Gallen and the University of Zurich. She is author of the acclaimed book, Africa and China: How Africans and Their Governments are Shaping Relations with China, and Founder of Magpie Advisory, a political risk and global foresight research and advisory firm. She holds a PhD and M.Phil in Politics from the University of Oxford, and a BA from Northwestern University.

Sources:

Asia Society Switzerland webcast What is China Doing in Africa? with Eric Olander and Aleksandra Gadzala, May 7, 2020

Asia Society Switzerland Gen A essay African problems can only be solved by Africans...and Chinese? by Michael Rychener-Schreiner, November 22, 2020

 Book Africa and China: How Africans and Their Governments are Shaping Relations with China, edited by Aleksandra Gadzala

The China in Africa Podcast, the China Africa Project (CAP)