tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9189930829940284211.post6941829781569202146..comments2023-09-18T09:55:35.795-04:00Comments on China in Africa: The Real Story: Africa's Free Press Problem: Is China Causing It?Deborah Brautigamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10813215294689392170noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9189930829940284211.post-50943305876201486922012-05-04T05:21:27.576-04:002012-05-04T05:21:27.576-04:00Thank you for the very much needed rebuttal to Kei...Thank you for the very much needed rebuttal to Keita's piece. I personally admire the work CPJ and similar organizations do to raise the profile of cases where journalists and free media are under threat. But strong experience in advocacy does not always lead to blanaced analyses, which I believe are very much needed in this phase when China is stepping up its media efforts on the African continent. I tried to provide a snapshot of China's experience in Ethiopia and Ghana in a piece for the Huffington Post (see link below) indicating how different actors can engage, and not just compete in the African mediasphere. <br /><br />http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iginio-gagliardone/china-africa-media-relations_b_1443868.htmlIginiohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/iginio-gagliardonenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9189930829940284211.post-51778104677309263952012-05-01T00:11:19.369-04:002012-05-01T00:11:19.369-04:00@Anonymous, thanks for your comments. Reporters wi...@Anonymous, thanks for your comments. Reporters without Borders has called China one of "three countries that seem to have lost contact with reality as they have been sucked into an insane spiral of terror." (the other two are Syria and Iran.) Things are getting worse for the media in China, but "an insane spiral of terror?" Now, really!Deborah Brautigamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03141925702416939602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9189930829940284211.post-30054819988294932032012-04-27T08:06:47.390-04:002012-04-27T08:06:47.390-04:00Part III
The Chinese media may nowadays be stiff a...Part III<br />The Chinese media may nowadays be stiff and wooden and a little bit annoying, but you may be sure that they once will become good. When? Maybe on the day that Xinhua no longer needs to make a special edition with "sensitive" Western news for the Chinese leadership?<br />danAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9189930829940284211.post-41353758457966945612012-04-27T08:06:05.015-04:002012-04-27T08:06:05.015-04:00Part II
To counter this trend, from 2009 on, a w...Part II<br />To counter this trend, from 2009 on, a whole series of measures were taken involving the promotion of "soft power" wich is the most important in this context. And internal and external media management are an important chapter in there. According to the South China Morning Post a 6.6 billion USD budget was ready for this but in the meanwhile it could be up to 10 billion already ….<br />The US sphere of influence is never far away with Kagame but when it comes to the governance of the country he refers explicitly to the Singaporese/Chinese examples. First the economic development and democracy comes later. Press freedom is a luxury we cannot afford and just as small children must be educated the population must be educated by a state-controlled press. In both countries, "negative" news is out of the question. In South Africa, there's already a new word for this: developmental journalism, positive reporting …<br />Where the state takes the lead on the private sector … and dissidents are silenced ...<br />In South Africa, the ANC is on the point make any form of investigative journalism a criminal activity by the law. No surprises when you see their business deals!<br />The Tarzan story is also nicely found but is mainly due to China itself; it neglected African studies for a long time because Africa was unimportant for them. And this story makes no sense for the Middle East where China also launched an Arabic language channel years after Alarabyia and Al Jazeera were created.<br />Incidentally, there is a little problem with this Chinese soft power also. I saw how Cubans made fun of all those Chinese serials on their different TV channels. They looked at them like it was science fiction and as a matter of fact, identify yourselve with Dr. Spock is not so obvious. Definitely not when the real Chinese managers in Africa are using working methods as in China as "default mode". Just because this is the only way they know to maximize their ROI. You must already have a state with good governance in the interest of the whole population, with an extensive state infrastructure and the necessary control means to enforce compliance with your own legislation … Defenitely the exception in Africa.<br />But in the meantime, the Chinese press in both China and Africa do their best to explain any failure of democracy in Africa as inevitably because democracy is unsuitable for developing countries such as China and Africa, to deny any population the right to revolt and to use the concomitant disorder and chaos and economic decline in a scaremongering way. All that forms a treat to the status quo, stability, harmony in which agreements can be win/win deals but at the same time it creates the climate in which it suggests the superiorty of the authoritarian Chinese model.<br />What Chinese sources such as CCTV or Xinhua who work "to beef up the confidence of the market and unity of the nation" can bring to Africa remains to be seen. But then it must in any case do better than just show the Chinese delegates intervention during the UN Security Council debate on intervention in Syria or just put the emphasis on the Chinese contracts and the big losses on this contracts during the Libyan uprising.<br />Can this succeed? Oh yes, just in the same way as the US did in Europe; you sell your stuff at dumping prices (or sometimes for free as China does now). Very important in times that the Western and African mediabudgets are shrinking.<br /> And Yes, we all know of at least one succesfull example; admiral Zheng He, portrayed as a kind of Santa Claus who discovered Africa, but in reality the organizer of military expeditions compared to wich those of Columbus looked like the work of military amateurs. And strange for China, they just forgot half a millenium of Africa/China contacts. A period in witch Africans were ued as slaves, mainly in the Canton region..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9189930829940284211.post-71843346981849530762012-04-27T08:03:29.468-04:002012-04-27T08:03:29.468-04:00Tomato!
Mohamed Keita is advocacy coordinator for...Tomato!<br /><br />Mohamed Keita is advocacy coordinator for CPJ's Africa Program. The "committee for the protection of Journalists" that I use a lot (the last year especially for Libya and Syria) and I never noticed that they reported something inaccurate.<br />The same is true for the article of Keita (that I had read and now did re-read ). This seems to me as particularly mild and balanced if you take into account the reality in Africa. Moreover, these assertions are further documented on their website.<br />Reporters Without Borders mentions it a lot sharper: "The influence of China in African affairs has been very toxic for democracy,"<br />That Keita explicitly compares Rwanda and China is evident for several reasons, but let it suffice to say that both countries, that have an analog economic growth in recent years, are victim of a remarkable and analog fallback in every pressfreedomranking over the last years. And this while the classic black beast, Cuba, no longer is in the bottom 10 countries ranking.<br />Nobody will deny the censorship in China but few are aware of its size (censorship and self-censorship). Why f.e. the word "Jasmine" is censured is quite obvious. Via the CPJ website you also get to know why it is the same for the word "tomato". Is the CCP paranoid? No, China is possibly the only country in the world that has a bigger budget for internal security than for defence and you may therefore assume that the CCP can correctly assess why these words really are a threat to them.<br />You don't need to be an Africa pundit to know that many African elites also see a free press as a threat .<br />Then it is logic that at this intersection the CCP and these African elites would find each other, "Brown envelopes" … are in both regions already a well known phenomenon … and if social harmony is a must to protect the privileges of the elite there is a readymade outlet for the Chinese Great Firewall jamming technology … (the US is still leading, but as always; watch the trend!).<br />If I want to know how the US. standards and values are disseminated in my country I only have to switch on the TV and see what children can see now and what I myself got served for half a century. Amazing that I never or never in such US serials saw a mom or dad who were industrial workers, who were afraid to lose their jobs, who were union representatives…<br />And yet we can easily identify us with all these unrealistic heroes …<br />How important this is for the US I could see at the end of last century: Nato ally Turkey wished to impose a quota for all those US productions and the US threatened to stop its military aid immediately. And as we are now in that region, I could speak about the US involvement with the censorship under the Shah in Iran. STOP! This was not caused by the US! Indeed, just as Keita in his article does not asserts (but that the title of the above post suggests) that China caused the African press censorship!<br />Let's limit us to Africa.<br />Since 2007, 2008 "Houston, we have an image problem" messages were reaching Zhongnanhai….<br />China discovered to its great frustration that, in the countries where its economic presence is greatest, public opinion turned the strongest against China. This was extremely frustrating for them because they believed, echoing the US economic presence and influence,their economic presence would enhance their cultural appearance and acceptance. A bit like they were expecting this also in Tibet.<br />see part IIAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com