The Diplomat published on 8 September 2026 a commentary titled "The Strategic Calculus of Xi Jinping's Egypt Visit" by Ayesha Sikandar, National Defense University.
Xi Jinping's 1-2 September state visit to Egypt symbolized a broader shift among Middle Eastern states toward diversifying their foreign policy partnerships.
For Egypt, the visit signals not a pivot away from the United States, but rather a realignment to achieve more strategic autonomy amidst volatility in the Middle East.
China-Africa Security Radar posted on 4 September 2026 an article titled "Eagles of Civilization 2026: Beyond the J-16 vs Rafale Dogfight."
The People's Liberation Army Air Force participated in the Eagles of Civilization joint air exercise with the Egyptian Air Force. For Beijing, the exercise is about building mutual trust, strengthening Sino-Egyptian friendship, expanding practical cooperation, and promoting regional peace. For Egypt, it is about exchanging expertise and developing operational skills.
Beijing is also recasting this exercise as evidence of China's emergence as a provider of integrated military capability, strategic autonomy, and security far beyond its borders.
Eurasia Review published on 26 August 2026 an article titled "Interview with Professor David Shinn" by Kester Kenn Klomegah.
This is a brief interview focused on the impact of Chinese and Russian-led multipolarity in Africa. While many African countries have taken advantage of the multipolar world to improve their situation, there is nothing static about the current engagement of external players in Africa. The alignments today may look very different in a year or two.
The international press agency Pressenza published on 15 November 2025 my interview titled "Obama, Biden and Trump: Changing U.S. Policy towards Africa" moderated by Kester Kenn Klomegah.
The interview focused on the impact in Africa of a multipolar world and the approach towards Africa of President Obama, Biden, and Trump.
Modern Diplomacy posted the same interview on 16 November 2025.
The Review of African Political Economy posted on 24 July 2024 a commentary titled "Africa and China: Counter-Hegemonic Narratives --An Introduction" by Ying Chen and Corinna Mullin.
This piece is a summary of a symposium that took place in December 2023 at The New School titled "The African Continent and China: Counter-Hegemonic Narratives." It assesses "the reductionist, orientalist and often racist depictions that dominate mainstream media and scholarly spaces on China-Africa relations." It attributes African underdevelopment to "policies imposed by western dominated multilateral institutions like the IMF and World Bank under the neoliberal 'Washington Consensus'."
Comment: Much of the jargon used in the symposium took me back to my African study days in the 1960s and 1970s when Cold War terminology was the predominate rhetoric. The summary suggests that the presentations were quick to praise China's positive activities in Africa and gloss over or even ignore the negative ones. While it is useful to assess accurately China's limited role in Africa's debt crisis, was there any discussion of China's mercantilist trade policy toward the continent where it sells almost entirely finished goods and buys almost exclusively natural resources? And in recent years, China has consistently had a large trade surplus!
After reading this summary, it is all smiles in Beijing, and Moscow.
Megatrends Afrika published in February 2024 a study titled "Climate Collaboration in Multipolar Times: The European Union and China as Energy Transition Partners to African Countries" by Cobus van Staden.
The study concludes that China is increasingly promoting its own environmental, social, and governance norms while trying to reshape the global regulatory environment to be friendlier towards Chinese companies. China's strongest tool in Africa remains less about any direct challenge to European influence, and more about its legacy as an alternative set of options that fractures Euro-American hegemony in African development. A more fundamental challenge for the EU is how willing it is to adapt its African engagement to growing global multipolarity.
The Council on Foreign Relations published on 28 December 2023 a backgrounder titled "Russia's Growing Footprint in Africa" by Mariel Ferragamo.
The author concluded that Russia is increasingly tapping into anti-Western sentiment to bolster its influence in Africa and gain support for a multipolar world. The fallout from the war in Ukraine has, however, revealed diplomatic fault lines.
