China Is Not Lesotho’s Partner. It Is Its Biggest Economic Threat.

For years, African policymakers have been told that China represents opportunity. Infrastructure, trade, South South cooperation, an alternative to Western conditionality. That narrative is now collapsing under the weight of hard numbers. For countries like Lesotho, China is not merely an imperfect partner. It is a structural problem. The problem is not ideology. It is economics. China’s global trade strategy is built around export dominance, domestic market protection, and selective import dependence limited largely to raw materials. That model is…Continue reading with a subscriptionSubscribe for full access to every story.Subscribe - M85/monthAlready a subscriber? Sign in Advertisement ...