Kenya opens 300-mile railway, with China’s help – China’s latest political and current affairs news
A summary of the top news in Chinese politics and current affairs for June 1, 2017. Part of the daily The China Project news roundup "China confirms commitment to Paris deal as Trump withdraws."
The state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation just completed a two-and-a-half-year, $3.8 billion railway project in Kenya, Newsweek reports. The 298-mile Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) is the country’s largest infrastructure project since it gained independence from Britain in 1964, and the largest Chinese-funded infrastructure project in Africa so far outside of the $4.2 billion, 470-mile railway that connects Ethiopia and Djibouti.
The Kenyan line is “planned to extend westward from Kenya and into Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, and northward into South Sudan and Ethiopia.” The Ethiopia-Djibouti line, meanwhile, sparked widespread expectations of a “trans-African railway project” connecting eastern Africa to the Atlantic Ocean when it made its inaugural journey in January 2017. For more on Chinese-funded railways in Africa, see this piece on CNN.
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EU leaders turn to China after Trump visit clouds U.S. relations / Bloomberg
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is visiting Europe for a two-day summit on June 1 and 2. European leaders are “look[ing] to fare better” when he visits than when Trump came through last week and declared U.S.-German trade relations as “very bad.” -
China’s corruption war escalates with sweep of sentences for senior officials / WSJ (paywall)
As we’ve noted in recent newsletters, Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign seems to be back with a vengeance after a slowdown in news of officials being investigated and prosecuted. -
Former statistics chief sentenced to life imprisonment for graft / China Daily
Wang Baoan 王保安, former head of China’s National Statistics Bureau, was charged with corruption in August 2016. In May this year, he pleaded guilty to accepting the equivalent of $22 million in bribes between 1994 and 2016. He has been sentenced to life in prison. - How China’s growing naval fleet is shaping global politics / Bloomberg
- China sees an opening in rift between Trump and Germany / NYT (paywall)
