A different perspective is welcome news

The entry of China Daily into the African media market winds up a momentous year for China-Africa relations from a communications viewpoint on a high note. It is the year when CCTV Africa commenced broadcasting from Nairobi, and Xinhua News Agency’s digital TV platform, CNC, entered the South African media space. It is the year China Radio International heralded adopted and adapted Chinese programs for eastern Africa’s Swahili-speaking people. It is also the year that saw Star Times group inking deals across the continent to offer quality-programming-starved audiences access to hitherto out of reach pay TV viewership. 2Still, China Daily Africa’s inaugural edition is a trailblazer in more respects than one. That no other globally significant print title has ventured to publish and extensively distribute copy on, and from, a resurgent continent once dubbed “hopeless” is a development of monumental proportions.

An indication of the expectations with which this paper has been awaited is evident in the numerous articles in and out of Africa that took it upon themselves the role of announcing its imminent arrival six months ahead of time. A review of the framing of these articles shows them regurgitating the same old diatribes against China’s engagements with Africa. Never mind that most of the articles published in anticipation of this paper’s arrival were crafted in such a manner as to suggest Africans are incapable of independent evaluation of China Daily, and indeed other Chinese media content.

Those who value the quintessentially liberal concept of a marketplace of ideas would welcome China Daily’s expansion of alternatives available to the African audience. As the adage goes, looking in one direction for too long can cause a stiff neck. Save for indigenous sources, African readerships have for far too long been limited as to choice by the paucity in news and perspective that would provide an optional window on the world. It would be hoped that as African countries register some of the fastest-growing economies in the world today, media organizations will also consider going global to equally project an African image. In this, the Chinese media’s overseas forays, China Daily included, would be a model to emulate.

In China Daily’s in-tray should be a surfeit of things to do. As authors and researchers, notably Deborah Brautigam of The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa fame have pointed out, the predilection for Western intelligentsia — of which media remains a powerful tool — to either lie through the teeth or reify unfounded myths is quite grounded.

A push back on media items singularly calculated at advancing a “China threat” discourse is quite warranted. This should by no means imply that China-Africa relations are faultless through and through as not to warrant remedial action where they fall short. During the July Forum on China-Africa Cooperation conference in Beijing, for instance, issues such as China-Africa balance of trade, migration and quality of products were identified as worthy of recalibration and ideally this remains a wok in progress.

China has indeed served as an exemplar for Africa in many fields. Indeed, even as charges of neo-colonialism and imperialism have been levelled at China, successive opinion surveys by tracking agencies such as BBC, Pew, Afrobarometre and Globescan to mention but a few, have consistently returned a verdict of more positive than negative perceptions. In fact, in most comparative polling findings, Europe and North America have fared rather poorly vis a vis China. In the words of soft power guru, Joseph Nye, the balance of the ”power of attractions“ is decisively in favor of China.

One of the key promulgations of July’s China-Africa conference was a pledge for greater cooperation between China and Africa in the communications field. Specifically, it was announced that a China-Africa Exchange Centre would be initiated to ensure a presence of African media practitioners in China. For many African media professionals, resources are a challenge that hampers their capacity to report from China. In the circumstances, most African media rely on copy from foreign agencies which in turn have their own agenda often running counter of African interests. Whichever path China Daily eventually takes, it will ultimately illuminate dynamics in China-Africa relations from a perspective that perhaps no other newspaper can effectively present. This is a gap those unfamiliar with China’s developmental trajectory in Africa have not been able to appreciate in full. Indeed, with China being Africa’s most significant economic partner for four years running, it follows that these proximate ties must begin to be reflected in the media arena are well.

The writer is a senior Kenyan journalist and a PhD candidate at Communication University of China.