From My Own Pen – Tim Zajontz

26. September 202322. December 2023

Official inauguration of the Professor Ian Taylor Collection in Addis Ababa

On 26 September 2023, I attended the official opening of the “Professor Ian Taylor Collection” at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) at Addis Ababa University.

After more than two years of team effort to fundraise and organise the transfer of the private library of the late Professor Ian Taylor, we were extremely grateful to see the beautiful new home of the book collection.

Here you can read the speech I delivered at the official opening ceremony at the IPSS:

Dear Director Dr. Fana Gebresenbet,
dear Mr. Ockenden,
dear Mr. Bekele,
dear IPSS team,
dear Jo,
dear friends and colleagues of Ian who join us from all over the world,

Today, we inaugurate the Professor Ian Taylor Collection here at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University.

Ian Taylor passed away in February 2021 after a short struggle with cancer. He was Professor in International Relations and African Political Economy at the University of St Andrews in the UK. He also held extraordinary and visiting professorships at Renmin University and Zhejiang Normal University in China and at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Ian was also a visiting professor at Addis Ababa University. For several years, he taught PhD students here at the IPSS, an institution which he spoke highly of and which he very much enjoyed visiting regularly.

27. March 202227. March 2022

Remembering Ian Taylor

Last year in February, Professor Ian Taylor of the University of St Andrews passed away after a short struggle with cancer. Ian was a world-renowned scholar in the fields of African Studies, International Relations and Global Political Economy. Besides his remarkable academic achievements, Ian was an extremely passionate educator as well as a kind, humorous and supportive colleague and friend to many of us. This is a modest attempt at paying tribute to an inspiring intellectual and true friend of Africa.

Together with his twin brother Eric, Ian grew up on the Isle of Man, before the family relocated to West London where he spent his teens and would become a die-hard Brentford FC supporter – in his words a ‘100% local club’. Whilst there were few points of contact to Africa on the small Crown dependency in the Irish Sea, Ian, early on, developed an interest in Africa, as he heard stories from his grandmother whose parents had lived in South Africa, and where a large network of relatives still live.

After reading History and Politics at what was then the Leicester Polytechnic, Ian used a gap year in 1991-92 for his first travel to southern Africa – obviously at quite a formative time for the region. This trip clearly left a firm impression on him, as he would return to the region throughout his life. However, first he joined Jo, the love of his life whom he met in South Africa, when she took up Ph.D studies at the University of Hong Kong in 1994. Ian enrolled himself for a Master’s there. His 368-pages M.Phil thesis on China’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Africa laid the cornerstone for one of his research specialisations and arguably also for a new sub-discipline, China-Africa studies. One of his first academic articles, an output from his M.Phil research, was published in the Journal of Modern African Studies and has since been cited 357 times (Taylor 1998). Exactly 18 years later, Ian became co-editor-in-chief of this prestigious journal, together with Ebenezer Obadare.

10. January 202227. March 2022

Gerechtigkeit global gedacht

Rede beim Neujahrsempfang der SPD Uhingen am 9. Januar 2022

(Es gilt das gesprochene Wort)

Sehr verehrte Damen und Herren,

zunächst einmal ganz herzlichen Dank an euch, Susanne und Michael, für die freundliche Einladung nach Uhingen zu eurem traditionsreichen Neujahrsempfang. Nicht nur ist es in den aktuellen Zeiten grundsätzlich schön, unter Einhaltung der notwendigen Maßnahmen persönlich zusammen zu kommen und sich auszutauschen. Schließlich sind wir alle soziale Wesen. Nein, es freut mich auch im Besonderen, mal wieder in Uhingen und in eurem tollen Uditorium zu sein.

Die heutige Neujahrsansprache ist überschrieben mit “Gerechtigkeit global gedacht“. Nun muss ich gleich zu Beginn sagen, dass sich dieses Thema tatsächlich nur mäßig dazu eignet, zu Beginn des Jahres gute Laune zu versprühen. Wir werden bereits von der allabendlichen Tagesschau daran erinnert, wie ungerecht es doch in vielerlei Hinsicht in Deutschland, an Europas Außengrenzen oder aber auf anderen Kontinenten zugeht. Trotzdem möchte ich in der nächsten knappen halben Stunde mit euch und Ihnen, ein wenig laut darüber nachdenken, warum es gerade vor dem Hintergrund aktueller Herausforderungen so wichtig ist, Fragen globaler Gerechtigkeit ins Zentrum gesellschaftlicher und politischer Debatten zu rücken. Ich werde dabei in der gebotenen Kürze einige globale Gerechtigkeitslücken ansprechen. Zugleich verspreche ich aber, mit einer optimistischen und hoffnungsvollen Note zu enden.

26. February 202120. March 2022

In memoriam: Professor Ian Taylor

A collective tribute to a true friend of Africa and a wonderful teacher

**Professor Ian Taylor**
9 January 1969 – 22 February 2021

On 22 February 2021, we lost Professor Ian Taylor. Ian has been a world-renowned scholar who made outstanding contributions in the fields of International Relations, African politics and China-Africa studies. Besides his remarkable academic achievements and output, Ian was an extremely passionate educator who has inspired generations of students at all levels of their studies and literally all across the world. He was genuinely interested in the opinions and lives of his students and truly cared for them. This ‘collective obituary’ is a modest attempt to pay tribute to the important role Ian has played as a ‘teacher’, mentor or supervisor for many of us. We thank the editors of the St Andrews Africa Summit (SAASUM) Review to honour Ian’s life and legacy by publishing this collective tribute in their 2021 edition.

23. February 202118. April 2021

Interview on China-Zambia relations

I just gave an interview on the Zambia visit of Chinese top diplomat Yang Jiechi. Some of my answers you can read here.

What is the significance of Yang’s visit as Lusaka faces debt troubles and prepares to go into elections?

TZ: There can be no doubt that Zambia’s fiscal situation is on top of the agenda during Yang Jiechi’s Lusaka visit, as negotiations between the Zambian treasury and the IMF about a possible rescue package are in full swing. Both the IMF and private creditors have repeatedly insisted that the Zambian government discloses all its liabilities. This includes terms and conditions of loans and export credits from China as well as state guarantees provided by Lusaka to Chinese lenders. The negotiations between Zambia and the IMF are therefore not only of economic concern to Chinese creditors but also politically very sensitive. As member of the Politburo and Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Yang Jiechi reports directly to President Xi. It is very likely that Yang and his delegation are instructed to discuss Zambia’s debt and Yang is certainly authorised to take far-reaching decisions where needed.

8. January 202118. April 2021

Interview on Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s Africa tour

© Kleinschmidt /MSC, CC BY 3.0 DE https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/deed.en

Here I share with you some of my answers from an interview on the state of China-Africa relations, as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has embarked on his January Africa tour.

A number of analysts had predicted that BRI was experiencing a slowdown in funding. With Botswana and DRC joining, what does it say about Chinese president Xi Jinping’s mega initiative?

TZ: The official admission of Botswana and the Democratic Republic of Congo into the Belt and Road Initiative is a diplomatic success for Beijing and serves Chinese efforts to counteract growing public perceptions that the Initiative might lose momentum. With the membership of the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa growing to now 46 countries, the Chinese government can plausibly maintain its narrative that it is successfully steering a new era of globalisation.

16. December 202018. April 2021

Interview on the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa

Today, I share with you some of my answers from an interview on recent developments in the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Africa.

There have been reports of a slowdown in BRI lending in Africa and in other countries. What’s your view of this?

TZ: It is important to acknowledge the structural drivers behind the BRI. The Chinese economy has faced an increasingly severe overaccumulation crisis in the aftermath of the 2007-08 global financial crisis. Massive stimulus packages in the aftermath of the crisis only exacerbated overcapacities, especially in the infrastructure and construction sectors. From an economic point of view, the BRI has been the attempt to ‘move out’ these surpluses by financing infrastructure projects that are designed to link Eurasia and Africa.

25. March 202012. January 2021

It’s done – finally

In March 2020, I submitted my PhD. It’s has been a long walk to freedom…

Thanks to my colleagues, friends and family! Here you can read the acknowledgements, the most important page in the entire dissertation. 😉

Foremost, I want to thank my supervisor Ian Taylor for his advice and support during my PhD journey. Not only have I enjoyed our exchanges of views, your impressive academic output, firm political beliefs and personal humility have inspired me, as the combination of these qualities seems rare in this industry. Thanks for having the confidence in me that I myself was lacking all too often. I also want to thank Vassilios Paipais for his thoughts in the initial stages of the research. Needless to say, the countless shortcomings of this study are my own doing.

17. August 201912. January 2021

Reflections from London

Earlier toady, I witnessed the most beautiful act of loving kindness. I was sitting in a Victoria line train when a woman entered the coach and asked people to help her with some money. Clearly, the woman was not in a good state. She looked pale and exhausted.

The usual situation unfolded – one that is probably best described as collective neglect fused with individual embarassment about the same. No one turned one’s attention towards the woman. Some stared at the floor, others onto their phones. The ones with their 160 pounds Airpods pretended not having noticed the woman’s plea for help.

13. February 201925. December 2020

“Fixing” Africa’s infrastructure: But at what price?

TIM ZAJONTZ, Pambazuka News

8,500,000,000,000 Ugandan Shilling. This is roughly the volume of a loan, which the Ugandan government currently negotiates with China’s state-owned Exim Bank. The sheer number of digits is impressive, even when converted in less inflationary currencies. The concessional loan of over US$2.3 billion is earmarked for the construction of 273 kilometres of rails between Kampala and Malaba at Uganda’s border with Kenya. The project constitutes the next stage of East Africa’s new standard gauge railway that is designed to link Mombasa at the Indian Ocean with Uganda’s capital and, if plans materialise, will extend to Juba, South Sudan and Kigali, Rwanda in the future. The first stretch of the line between Mombasa and Nairobi has been inaugurated in mid-2017 and celebrated as another milestone of Sino-African development cooperation.