President Isaias Afwerki met Hu Changchun, China's special envoy for Horn of Africa affairs, in Asmara on the evening of 5 November. Official media say the talks covered bilateral ties and regional developments, and that Hu reiterated China's position on respecting Eritrea's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
President Isaias Afwerki met Hu Changchun, China's special envoy for Horn of Africa affairs, at the Denden Guest House in Asmara in the early evening of 5 November, the Eritrean Ministry of Information's Shabait service reported. The ministry said the extensive talks centred on bilateral ties and current regional developments. Hu, it added, reiterated the People's Republic of China's position on the imperative of respecting Eritrea's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The same readout was redistributed on 6 November by APO / Africa Newsroom. Neither statement published a joint communiqué with further detail on economic projects, security cooperation or named third countries. CERHA found no immediate comment from Ethiopia, the African Union or other Horn governments on the Asmara meeting.
China's shuttle diplomacy
Hu's stop in Eritrea forms part of a wider Chinese diplomatic round in the Horn. On 4 November, China's special envoy for African affairs, Liu Xianfa, met Ethiopian foreign minister Gedion Timothewos in Addis Ababa for talks on regional peace and security, Ethiopian state media reported — a separate engagement not mentioned in Shabait's Eritrea readout. Beijing has repeatedly framed its Horn role around sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference. A Liu visit to Djibouti, flagged in regional diaries for early to mid-November, had not yet been reported as having taken place.
The Isaias–Hu meeting is distinct from African Union efforts, reported earlier this week, to revive the Algiers Agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea through shuttle diplomacy led by former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. Shabait's account does not mention the AU track or Kenyatta. Eritrea and Ethiopia remain locked in a tense standoff over Red Sea access and the implementation of past peace deals, while Sudan's war continues to reshape regional alignments and refugee flows across the Horn.
Official Eritrean coverage presented the encounter as a reaffirmation of political support rather than a negotiating breakthrough. No timetable for a return visit or follow-up ministerial talks was announced.
Image: The Fiat Tagliero building in Asmara, Eritrea. Clay Gilliland, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.