The China global south project

Géraud led the discussion about China’s role in that process, both as a key supplier of new energy technologies like photovoltaic power supplies and electrified mobility and, of course, as a major actor in the critical resources extractive sector in Africa.

Also this week, senior U.S. officials briefed the media on President Joe Biden’s upcoming trip to Angola. Eric, Cobus, and Géraud discuss the awkward timing of the visit that comes less than two months before Donald Trump returns to the White House and how Angola is now in the middle of the U.S.-China duel in Africa.

Eric Olander: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the China in Africa Podcast, a proud member of the Sinica Podcast Network. I’m Eric Olander, and, as always, I’m joined by CGSP’s managing editor, Cobus van Staden, from beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. And normally from the lovely island of Mauritius, but today joining us from Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, or the Ivory Coast, Geraud Neema, our Africa editor on the line. Good morning to both of you. Thank you for joining us very early in the day for you guys.

Geraud Neema: Good morning, Eric.

Cobus van Staden: Good morning.

Eric: Well, before we get going, I just also want to wish all of our American listeners a happy Thanksgiving this week, and also Black Friday is underway now, so I think the shopping is getting going, and everybody’s getting ready for the Christmas holiday now. In our family, we officially allow Christmas music to start the day after Thanksgiving — Not before, the day after Thanksgiving. So everybody’s happy that the Christmas music can start. Geraud, we’re going to start with you today because normally, again, you’re in Mauritius, but today you’ve crossed all the way across Africa. And you’re participating in a very interesting conference called the SIREXE Conference. It’s the first event organized by Ivory Coast to bring together, you said actors in the mining, the oil, the energy industries.

So, talk about the synergies of how these different industries can come together as part of the energy transition that’s taking place in Africa. And because it’s in Ivory Coast, not surprising that the focus is on French-speaking countries in Africa, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the conference? You were on stage yesterday, earlier this week, and there’s a lot of ministers who are at the meeting. This is a big deal. It’s a very high-profile event. We’re very excited that CGSP is at the table at this event. Tell us a little bit about some of the discussions that you’ve been having in Abidjan this week.

Geraud: So yeah, it was really an interesting meeting that I was invited to because the SIREXE is really that first event that the Côte d’Ivoire is putting in place, conveying mining, as you say, mining energy in all sector, to talk and think about how they can create business synergies and to think about how they can foster synergy for economic development, not only in Côte d’Ivoire but in all Africa. So, they invited ministers coming from different countries. As it’s expected, being a French-speaking country, a lot of them were coming from western Africa, Western French-speaking African countries. We had also a minister coming from Ghana and some coming from Angola as well. So we had that panel, that ministerial conference where we were talking about how Africa should be transitioning to green economy and the role of critical minerals in that transition.

And in that conversation. Of course, we had to talk about the geopolitical competition that are taking place in Africa between great powers into accessing those critical minerals in Africa. And this is where I was intervening to really bring light and perspective on the challenges that comes with great power competition in Africa and role of China in this competition, the roles of the U.S. and the western countries in all that competition, and how Africa should fit in that competition that’s taking place on the continent and elsewhere in the world.

Cobus: And how is China featuring in the conversations that you’ve been part of?

Geraud: China, really, it was centered in that part of conversation because China being the main player in critical minerals in Africa, in that space, people wanted to understand how to approach China, what was the angle to take China on, how to handle China “aggressive” stance on mining industry in Africa. But people were also most interested in understanding how to take advantage of China’s presence on the continent. And you also have to mention that people were blaming their own government because we also had the public among the audience blaming how Africa failed to transition from the extractive industry to a much more processing and development industry.

So, people really wanted their wide range of issues, trying to understand how at the end we can take advantage of China and how we can handle China’s presence on the continent. Of course, the answers came into, to put in the context, that how China basically adapting to the environment that it find itself in. If you create a good governance environment, China will really adapt to the rules of laws. And if you don’t do that, they will take advantage of those contexts. So at the end, it was really about how African country put in place governance landscape to allow better decision and engagement with China in that sector.

Eric: Now, Geraud, in addition to your duties at the China Global South Project, you’re also a non-resident fellow at Carnegie in Washington, which is one of the big think tanks that the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Your colleagues at Carnegie a couple of weeks ago, and maybe it was last month, put out a fascinating chart that showed all of the output of different actors in Africa, in the mining sector, and all Chinese mining accounted for just 6.7% of African mining output. Less than half of what just Anglo-American, one company does. And that context is really important. And I guess I’m curious in the discussions that you had in Abidjan, how well versed were the ministers that you met and some of the other stakeholders in terms of the role that Chinese mining companies and the Chinese as a whole play in the extractive sector in Africa? Were they pretty sophisticated about it or were they bringing over a lot of the memes that come from outside and maybe are misinformed?

Geraud: I think it was much more in lots of misperception of China’s presence in Africa, how it looks like, how big it is. Because you could feel that in the question that was coming from the people, people saying, China is big in Africa, China is big in that sector. And I didn’t bring up those data to show people that if we put it in perspective, it’s not as big as we tend to think. But you could really feel that the understanding of how China is big in the mining sector in Africa is really, really misrepresented. I’m going to be publishing a paper I think few weeks from now where I even want to break down those numbers to show that if we move from the mining sector, we now go into the critical mineral space itself.

We’re going to realize that even China’s present in that space is sometime exaggerated because, except for the DRC and a bit of Zambia, when you look on all in the map where China is in terms of critical minerals, it’s not also a dominant player in all those different countries. In the Namibia, in South Africa, for instance, China is not the biggest player there, where South Africa holds huge amount of critical minerals, but China is not big in South Africa for instance. So all those elements, I think, they’re required to be put in perspective to have a better understanding on how China is moving that space in Africa.

Cobus: And Geraud, are you finding amongst speaking with African stakeholders that when one points out this relatively small share of Chinese mining, but at the same time one is also talking about in the context of attention to Chinese focus on critical minerals, changing the conversation about mining in Africa, are there people making the connection being like, but the dominance of western power in the mining industry is actually what is causing the problems that we’re talking about? Or are those connections not really being made?

Geraud: No, the connection was made when we had to talk about why Africa, after 64 years or 60 years of independence, we’ve never really switched from extractive to much more processing and refining. We had to talk about the heritage of Western colonialism in terms of like the extractive industries in African countries, how we really inherited that system and we didn’t really change it. And we really had to put into the perspective on the larger spectrum of the whole place of how Africa and where Africa is fitting in that space of extractive industry in the world. So, it was really important to cover those topic, to really cover that angle as well so people can understand better how we fit in all of that.

Eric: Well, we’re really looking forward to getting a full debrief from you after the conference is over when you come back next week, just to lay out what were the topics, what were people interested in, what their knowledge level on China was, or is, and I think that’s going to be really interesting. So, we’ll publish that on the site and put it into the newsletter next week when you’re back. Really looking forward to that. So thank you for that. Let’s move on now to another topic where mining is going to be all the focus of interest next week. U.S. President Joe Biden is going to be heading out to Angola next Thursday on December 5th. This was a trip that was originally supposed to happen before the election.

I think it would’ve had a lot more impact had they gone before the election. But if you recall back, was it in October he was supposed to go? There were some massive hurricanes that slammed into Florida and he couldn’t have been out of the country at the time. That would’ve been politically impossible for him to do, so he rescheduled to December 5th. I think, in their minds, they thought that Kamala Harris was going to be getting ready to assume office in January. That’s not the case. We’ve been talking a lot lately about what the new incoming Trump administration’s going to do. A lot of attention’s going to be focused on Angola and specifically the Lobito Corridor.

So, in advance of the trip, Frances Brown, who’s the Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, that’s the White House’s top African affairs advisor, and Helaina Matza, who’s the acting Special Coordinator for the Partnership on Global Infrastructure Investment, or otherwise known as PGI over at the State Department, they held a briefing to kind of get journalists up to speed on what the president is going to be doing. So let me just play a little bit of sound from that so we can set the groundwork for our conversation. Let’s hear from Frances Brown, who explains why President Biden is choosing to go to Angola on what will be his only visit to an African country during his presidency.

Frances Brown: We see Angola as a strategic partner and a regional leader. Our relationship with Angola has completely transformed over the past 30 years, and that transformation has really picked up pace over the last three years. In 2023, U.S.-Angola trade totaled approximately 1.77 billion, which makes Angola our fourth-largest trade partner in Sub-Saharan Africa. We’re also working with Angola to address a range of pressing challenges, including bolstering peace and security in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, growing economic opportunities in the region, and expanding technological and scientific cooperation. This visit builds on President Biden’s bilateral meeting with President Lourenço, almost exactly a year ago this month, as well as the second U.S.-Africa leader Summit, which occurred in December 2022, and President Lourenço’s own visit here to us in 2021.

We have three primary goals of the trip — One is to lift up U.S. leadership on trade investment and infrastructure in Africa. Number two is to highlight Angola’s regional leadership and global partnership on a full spectrum of pressing issues, including trade, security, and health. And lastly, to highlight that remarkable evolution of the U.S.-Angola relationship.

Eric: You heard Brown mention there that trade between Angola and the United States last year was 1.77 billion. Just to put this in context, trade between China and Angola last year, same period, 23 billion, so eight times as large. So that’s a challenge for the Americans, not only in Angola but in other parts of the continent. Now, Brown one also went on to kind of talk about a number of announcements that are going to be made. The focus, of course, is going to be on the Lobito Corridor, and Geraud, I’m curious to get your take on this, but let’s listen to what some of the other announcements that are expected during the Biden visit next week to Luanda.

Frances: As you may know, with many trips, come major deliverables and announcements. Here, I can’t get ahead of the president either, but I think we can expect that the president will focus on amplifying several areas of partnership with Angola. One set of announcements will be on Lobito. As you can imagine, the president, since we’ve already mobilized billions of dollars towards Lobito to date, you can imagine that the president will engage with various components of this infrastructure effort and lift those up. Another set of announcements that you’ll hear more about will have to do with the major Millennium Challenge Corporation, MCC compact that was recently signed for Zambia that compliments the broader agricultural and rail investments in Lobito. And that that was recently signed in Lusaka, but you’ll hear more about that in the president’s trip.

I think you can also expect some other deliverables related to global health security and partnership there. You can expect some other deliverables related to food security and agribusiness. You can look for an important announcement on security sector cooperation and you can look for another announcement on, or other announcements on preserving Angola’s rich cultural heritage. More broadly, I think President Biden will focus on bolstering U.S. economic partnerships that keep our companies competitive and defend workers, strengthening transparency and civic engagements, intensifying action on climate security, and enhancing peace and security. So, more to come on all those fronts.

Eric: Cobus, when you hear that, that’s a pretty ambitious agenda that they’re going to be laying out. In many ways, it’s a much more robust agenda than what we would see coming from, say, a Chinese president visiting Africa, which, by the way, stay tuned to the end of the show and I have some news on that as well. But when you hear everything that Frances Brown laid out, what comes to mind?

Cobus: In the first place, that a lot of it sounds interesting and promising, but then I think there’s asterisk all over because who knows how much of this is going to survive after January. And I think a lot of it sounds great, but it’s also living fully, I think, in the world of speculative fiction because it’s all very future-oriented and the future is unknowable because Biden and Harris are not in control anymore. So, in that sense we’ll see.

Eric: He really is going as a lame duck. I mean, he’s definitely going as a lame duck. Geraud, I know you’re tempted to get into the Lobito Corridor part of all this, we’re going to dive into that right away, but when you heard the broad range of topics, themes and agendas that Brown laid out, what was your reaction?

Geraud: I think they really want to show that they want to go beyond the critical mineral space. They want to show that Lobito is not only about countering China in that space, it’s also about showing that we can be an economic and trade partner for Angola and for the region. And we don’t want that to be focused. And you remember, we’ve been criticizing the shaping and the framing of that Rabbi Corridor project in a sense where they’ve been focusing too much on critical minerals that, at some point, a different component of the project were just like left. It’s silent. And I think by putting those forward, they were really trying to show that, you know what, we are not just about minerals, we are also about different aspect of economic and agricultural trading that we want to put with Angola.

But at the end, it really touches upon the credibility of the messaging they’re bringing right now given the state of the affair that’s going to happen after January 20th.

Eric: Geraud, it’s as if you’re reading my script here on my computer. You just set everything up perfectly for Helaina Matza, again, who is the point person at the State Department on the PGI Initiative, which the Lobito Corridor, in many ways, is the showcase for this big infrastructure push that the United States and Europe are making in the developing world. Now, depending on who you listen to at what point, some people like Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, she was very blunt in saying that these initiatives are about confronting China, but yet you talk to other stakeholders and they say, “No, it has nothing to do with China, it has nothing to do with the Belt and Road, it has to do with us in pursuing our agenda. So, there’s a little bit of mixed messaging here, but let’s take a listen to what Helaina Matza had to say about the Lobito Corridor and the fact that it isn’t just about critical minerals.

Helaina Matza: The Lobito Corridor really started as a commitment among the countries in the region, Angola, DRC and Zambia, and when the United States, our European partners and many of the African financing community came together to determine how we can support that work, it was really along the vision of using the corridor to connect Angola-DRC-Zambia Ocean across multiple sectors. So that didn’t just include the anchor rail investments, which I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit more about today on call, but huge once-in-a-generation investments in clean energy and agriculture, really bringing all of the tools that we have as a U.S. government and with our partners to the table.

And Angola has been one of the strongest partners and really has served the beachhead for those initial investments for the United States onto the corridor. The reason why the rail investments are so important to this initiative is because they really serve as the anchor that allows so much of the other work that we’re seeing both happening driven by the private sector and through this partnership, these rail investments cut transportation costs, they reduce inland shipping times and they open access to arable agricultural land and bolster the supply chain for critical energy minerals driving climate-resilient economic growth in the region.

Eric: There you go, Geraud. Not just about critical minerals. Are you buying it?

Geraud: You know, the question would be, if there were no critical minerals in that region, would’ve started by Angola, or they would’ve started by Kenya, for instance, or they would’ve started by other corridors in the region. Because this is also the argument. You cannot say, it’s not just about that as if you are like, it was not the main reason. Let’s remove the critical minerals in that space. Let’s remove the minerals in Zambia and the DRC, would’ve still started in Angola or they would’ve started in other corridors in Africa, which still need lots of financing support to also unlock economic and commercial and all sorts of development that can happen in Africa as well. If the answer is no, so yeah, it’s about critical minerals first, and you had to add up other elements to really make it not only about critical minerals at the end.

Eric: So, presumably, the idea is that from the Port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast of Africa, these minerals steam on boats all the way to points in Europe and the United States. The problem in Europe and the United States, as we know, is that they don’t have the refining capacity to process these minerals. So, a lot of the minerals will still make their way to China, even though that may not have been the tent of Lobito. Now, one of the things that’s going to be different probably we expect, as Cobus alluded to, next year at this time-

Geraud: Eric, allow me to add something on that before you move on because when people hear us talk like this, they believe that we are only doing that because somehow we want to dice about the Lobito Corridor. I’d like to point out that last week we were talking about that like Albemarle, the American company, the world first lithium company in the world, Americans were saying that it’s not cost-effective for them to produce and to refine lithium in North America. So, people need to understand it’s just not us talking like this, it’s even people within the lithium, the industry. Industry executive themself are saying it’s not doable for us.

Given the current circumstance, it’s not undoable economically for us to build them in the U.S. So, people kind of understand that it’s not just us criticizing the Lobito just for the pleasure of doing that.

Eric: And I don’t think people have the full understanding of just the scale and the magnitude of China’s refining capacity in places like Zhejiang Province and elsewhere. Which, again, as you pointed out, there just isn’t the capacity and the scale in the United States and Europe. That may change in the future, but for today, it’s just not there. So in order to feed Ford and GM and Tesla and Toyota and Nissan with the quantity of batteries and refined minerals that they need in metals to go into those batteries, no one else except China has that today. So, that’s one of the big problems. But as I was mentioning, next year at this time… No one’s expecting Donald Trump to go to Africa. He didn’t go the first time and he’s not going to go this time.

But when his deputies go to Africa, and they do a briefing like this, unlike this briefing, China only came up once, and it did not come up out of the mouths of either Francis or Helaina. It came from a question from a Premium Times reporter in Nigeria next year, I think when the new Trump administration comes in, the focus is going to be a lot on China. It was not the major theme at this press briefing, but there was one reference to it. Let’s take a listen to the exchange between the moderator who you’re going to hear from, who asks the question, and then you’ll hear from Frances Brown and Helaina Matza.

Speaker 7: I think maybe if I could just sneak in one question before we finish, and to save some time, I’m just going to read this from Pearl Matibe of Premium Times in Nigeria, how does the U.S. plan to use infrastructure and investments such as Lobito Corridor to counterbalance the rising influence of other powers like China, Russia, Turkiye and others amid concerns about economic dependency shaping political alliances? And to what extent does Angola support U.S. efforts to maintain a rules-based global order?

Frances: I can start on that. So, I would say this approach is not about forcing countries to choose, but rather giving them a choice and the ability to make their own sovereign decisions, which is something President Biden has been really consistent on throughout. We believe that the value proposition we offer from the U.S. side on trade investment, but also partnership, people-to-people ties demonstrate the value of partnership with the U.S. for both Angola and the Angola people. And more broadly, we think this pertains to other African counterparts as well. We think our actions speak for themselves. We act in common purpose to advance shared interests and values and to address issues that are, I think, real problems for African counterparts like untrusted digital infrastructure, forced labor, illegal and unregulated fishing. So that’s I think how we, from the Biden administration, see it. Helaina, is there anything you would add from, from the PGI perspective?

Helaina: Well, I’m sure you’re not surprised, the PGI perspective is reflective of that broader view, which is that these are strong partnerships that we wanted to boost a bigger economic tie with. And anytime we talk to the Angolans or other partners on the continent, it’s clear that they also know more choices, more options mean that they can demand more and better quality investment. That’s kind of the rules of competition. And so it’s been really important for us to figure out how we translate a longstanding economic policy to create choices for our partners around the world and on continent, and to create a race at the top on those investments by making it a little easier for those choices to come to market and be available. And so that’s really the theory of the case.

And our objective is to make that process move as quickly but as diligently as possible. So, our partners do have that choice to pick what’s ultimately best for them. And ultimately, that serves us all because more resiliency and foreign direct investment is always a good thing.

Eric: Cobus, we don’t want you to choose, but you know, the other folks, they bring forced labor, crappy technology, and lots of illegal fishing. So, you make the choice. We didn’t hear debt, though. That was interesting. Cobus, that is the case that the United States government is making not only to Angola but to Africa and the world at large. We hear this in other parts of the world as well. We don’t want to make you choose between China and the United States, but we are the better choice.

Cobus: Yes, that has been the Biden administration’s message throughout its reign. I expect the Trump administration to be a little bit more, we do want you to choose, but I do also think that, on the Trump side, one of the complications, I think, in the next term, it’s going to be how the geopolitical focus on China sits with the particular focuses of particular priorities of U.S. companies. I think, as Geraud was pointing out, cost, simply cost wise, buying refinements from China remains the most cost-effective solution for U.S. companies frequently. And things Lobito Corridor, there’s a lot of upfront investment that is needed in order to make it make sense. So, there’s a lot riding on whether something like the Inflation Reduction Act is going to continue the way it is or whether it’s going to get changed in some kind of way. So there, I think it’s going to be very interesting. It’s going to, I think, be quite revealing about what actual U.S. priorities are in the region, how geopolitics and more short term corporate cost benefits analysis are going to meet.

Eric: Geraud, I’m going to give you the last word, please be very quick because we’re running out of time on what you expect from President Biden’s visit next week.

Geraud: I’m really expecting it, just like Frances and Helaina mentioned, to talk about all those issues, to talk about Lobito on the table. And for me, it’s going to be much more how Angola is going to receive those messages, how soon the commitment will be. Are they going to be… really sure that’s going to happen? Or we’re going to be polite knowing that you are coming, you’re going to follow up on what you say, but we do know that by January, we’re going to have to reset the button and to see how we’re going to move forward. And for me, it’s much more not what Biden is going to say, but on more how Angola is going to believe the commitment of what Biden is going to tell them.

Eric: Well, this is not going to be the last major power visit to Africa in the coming weeks and months. Of course, the beginning of the year always starts with the Chinese foreign minister going to Africa for the first overseas visit of the year. We do not know the agenda, we do not know the countries of where Wang Yi will go, but that is something to expect sometime in the first two weeks usually. Qin Gang went, I remember a couple of years ago, back before he’s… who knows where Qin Gang is today, the former foreign minister, if he’s even alive. But back then, he went very late like in the third or fourth week of January. Normally, Wang Yi tends to go early so he can get it out of the way because there’s a lot of other pressing demands on his travel schedule. So we’ll see that.

I want to share with everybody that a very well-placed source who knows these kinds of things very well, also indicated to me that Xi Jinping will be going to Africa in January as well. Not confirmed, we’ve not heard anything from the Chinese government. Just from a well-placed source who often is right on these things. Very quickly before we go, if Xi does go to Africa, in many ways it would make sense because he’s trying to bolster the global south coalition. He’s having a lot of difficulties right now with the G7 countries, and he’s going to lean much more heavily into the G77. We saw this in Brazil and Peru as well. Cobus, where would you recommend Xi to go on this upcoming trip if, in fact, again, it’s a big if, in fact, he does go in January? What countries do you think would be strategic for him to visit?

Cobus: Hmm, that’s an interesting question. First comes to mind for me is probably South Africa and Morocco and/or Egypt, and probably Nigeria.

Eric: Well, he just went to Morocco. He literally just went to Morocco last week, so we’ll probably take that one off the list. But a North Africa visit, you’re saying, just a MENA visit.

Cobus: I’m changing my choice to Egypt, I think, a North African visit. And also not only because of MENA related to issues, but also because there’s such big ongoing investments and so on from Chinese companies and cooperation agreements, and so on, coming out of Egypt quite regularly. It looks like there’s action happening in Egypt at the moment. Nigeria is also similar and I think South Africa. He’ll probably won’t go to South Africa because he’ll probably go to South Africa for the G20. So, I assume that it wouldn’t be on the top. So in that case, maybe Tanzania, like what do you think?

Eric: Yeah, I mean, well, that’s where it all began for Xi, remember that Tanzania was his first visit in Africa back in, I think, 2013 when he was president. So, Geraud, where do you think Chinese president Xi Jinping should go?

Geraud: I think he should go to country like either Tanzania or Kenya to start with because South Africa has been the usual suspect for so quite some time. We know that if it goes there, just like maintaining and sustaining what we used to do, and you know China-South Africa relation. For me, he should be going on Kenya in terms of China-Africa relation to strengthen China’s presence there and relations there or Tanzania, one of them. And West Africa, I would say at the same time in Côte d’Ivoire, I’d say Côte d’Ivoire because China’s been having some interesting project in Côte d’Ivoire.

And Côte d’Ivoire has been smart into managing different interests. You have American interest here in different project, you have Japanese interest here, you have Chinese interest here. For me, a big country like Côte d’Ivoire would be also an interesting pick for China to show because in Africa, you have that perception that there is a useful part of Africa that’s useful to China, which is southern Africa and Central Africa. And West Africa is not really in that part. If it’s West Africa, it’s Nigeria. I think that West Africa, Francophone West Africa should also have a high-level visit of Xi Jinping that’s going to send a message that the region also matters for China in the world, especially with all these issues around the illegal fishing and all sorts of issue that we know that’s happening in the region as well.

Eric: Okay, very quickly, here’s my take — I think he should go to an Indian ocean or may go to an Indian ocean state, Seychelles might be on the map. That is strategically vital for the Chinese. Bolstering their ties with Indian ocean region countries has been a priority for the Chinese for several years. Again, this cockamamie idea that the Americans are putting forward that the Chinese want to build a base on the Atlantic coast of Africa is, again, not backed up by any evidence whatsoever. We do know from the research, from the PLA think tanks and from the Chinese themselves that the Indian Ocean region is vital to their security and supply lines and supply chains.

I also think he’ll go to a small country, so maybe Gabon, for example, or Botswana, or one of these very, very small countries to emphasize China’s priority that it gives to small state diplomacy, and then to a strategically vital country connected, Ethiopia, Kenya, probably not South Africa, as Cobus pointed out, because the G20 is going to be there. Okay, guys, we’ll see. I mean, just a little bit of speculation. Remember everybody, at the end of the year, we have a custom at the China Global South Project, where we do our big year in review show, and then we do a separate show in the first week of January with our year-in-preview. Cobus, I remember when we did that in 2020 and no anticipation that a pandemic was coming, and that was really our worst year-in-preview show that we’ve ever done.

Cobus: Don’t trust our predictions.

Eric: We cannot promise that any of our predictions will be worthwhile, but it’s always a fun show for us to do. And of course, when we do the year-in-review, what we do is each of us picks three stories about what were the top three stories of the year, we don’t tell each other, and then we kind of hash it out. So we’ll leave it there. Gentlemen, thank you very much again for getting up early. Geraud, have a wonderful rest of the conference in Abidjan. We’re looking forward again to a report next week. And once again, everybody with full bellies in the United States, we wish you a happy Thanksgiving and a happy shopping weekend ahead with lots of football. So, we’ll leave the conversation there. Or Geraud in Abidjan and Cobus in Cape Town, I’m Eric Olander. We’ll be back again next week with another episode of the China in Africa Podcast. Until then, thank you so much for listening.

Outro: The discussion continues online. Tag us on Twitter @ChinaGSProject and visit us at chinaglobalsouth.com. If you speak French, check out our full coverage projetafriquechine.com and AfrikChine on Twitter. That’s Afrik with a K, and you’ll also find links to our sites and social media channels in Arabic.