A ‘School Bus and a Ferrari’

The Problem With Calling Those U.S. and Chinese Planes Names

Communication between China and the United States can often resemble ships passing in the night—or planes passing through international airspace. But when it comes to this particularly fraught bilateral relationship, perhaps metaphors are best avoided. On August 22, after a wing commander in the air force of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) performed a barrel roll over the top of a U.S. surveillance plane in international airspace near the southern Chinese island of Hainan, a U.S.

Kai Xue

Kai Xue is a corporate lawyer based in Beijing who advises clients on investments in Africa and also works closely with China’s major policy banks, such as the Exim Bank and the China Development Bank. Kai Xue is also a regular commentator on Sino-African affairs in a number of Chinese and African newspapers and blogs.

Bob Wekesa

Bob Wekesa is a Ph.D. candidate in International Communications at Communication University of China and a Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand University in South Africa. He sits on the steering committee of the Chinese in Africa/Africans in China Research Network. He is a founding research coordinator at the African Communication Research Centre at Communication University of China. Wekesa graduated with a Bachelors of Education degree in English Linguistics and Literature from the University of Nairobi, Kenya and an M.A. in International Communications from Communication University of China (with distinction). He was a Commonwealth Press Union fellow in the UK in 2002. His journalism experience spans reporting, editing, and leadership across multiple media platforms. In addition to numerous articles, Wekesa is the author of two books and his third, on China and Africa, is forthcoming.

Ross Anthony

Ross Anthony is the Acting Head of the Centre for Chinese Studies. His research focuses on Chinese politics, both domestically and in its relationship with Africa.

Within the African domain, Ross examines the relationship between Chinese economic investments in Africa and geo-political security concerns. The work examinees transnational infrastructure and resource linkages in eastern and southern Africa and, by extension, the adjacent maritime territories of the Indian Ocean and Antarctic region. He is also interested in the role the economy plays in determining political relations between China and Africa, recently fleshed out in a project focusing on the diplomacy of economic pragmatism in the triangular relationship between South Africa, China, and Taiwan. Within China, Anthony continues to hold an interest in the area of his Ph.D. research, the Muslim region of Xinjiang, western China, in fields of ethnicity, nationalism, urbanization, and China’s market shift. He is an advocate of building African-centered China expertise through teaching. He teaches on China-Africa related issues as well as on issues of Chinese politics, economy, culture, and history.

Anthony holds a doctorate from the University of Cambridge funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and was previously a Mellon Foundation Research Fellow at the Centre for Chinese Studies.