China’s Strategy to Shape Africa’s Media Space
China’s ruling party is leveraging its funding of African media outlets, content sharing, and training of African journalists to advance Chinese narratives, policies, and norms on the continent.
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China’s ruling party is leveraging its funding of African media outlets, content sharing, and training of African journalists to advance Chinese narratives, policies, and norms on the continent.
African, Latin American, and Caribbean countries can enhance the benefits of their engagements with China by expanding coordination and lessons sharing to ensure that citizens’ interests are prioritized.
The Nyerere Leadership School, supported by China’s Central Party School, provides ideological training to cadres from African liberation parties that have governed uninterrupted since independence.
China envisages professional military education in Africa as an opportunity to promote China’s governance model while deepening ties to Africa’s ruling political parties.
China’s United Front work co-opts well-placed individuals and organizations to cultivate support for and defend China’s goals and interests while isolating China’s opponents in Africa.
China’s expanded police engagements in Africa could have potentially far-reaching consequences for African security governance.
China media expert Bob Wekesa reflects on the Chinese Communist Party’s model of total state control of information and its export to Africa.
China’s efforts to reshape existing global institutions and norms rely on the support of African governments, though this can often be at odds with African citizen interests.
Embarking on his third term in power, Xi Jinping is firmly in control of China’s foreign policy, which is expected to accentuate the enlistment of African support for reshaping global institutions and validating China’s governance norms.
China’s support for ruling parties undermines its ability to be an impartial arbiter of conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa and highlights China’s use of mediation to pursue its geostrategic interests.
China-Africa relations thrive on interpersonal ties of mutual dependence, obligations, and reciprocity that African elites tend to skew to their benefit at the expense of the public interest.
African countries can negotiate a more equitable role in FOCAC, but this requires a more strategically focused approach, better coordination, and greater accountability to their citizens.