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Analysis: Chinese Influence on African Media

Posted on: Wednesday, 7 December 2005, 09:00 CST

Editorial analysis by Tina Taylor of BBC Monitoring Media Services on 7 December

In recent years relations with African countries have constituted an important part of China's foreign policy. Chinese legislator Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) said on 9 September that developing relations with African countries was a basic strand of China's foreign policy.

China has provided both funds and manpower to improving the infrastructure in African countries and is also emerging as a big player in the push to secure oil reserves and production in the continent. When Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Algeria, he brought oil engineers with him. China has been negotiating with the Nigerian government for oil concessions in exchange for building a railway line connecting Nigeria and Gabon as well as a space communication station. In Angola, China secured an oil deal and invested 2bn dollars in improving infrastructure. Hu Jintao also visited Gabon in February 2004 and promised to invest in a harbour improvement project.

Media access for Africans

Communities across Africa are increasingly able to access and listen to Chinese media reports on international events. In August 2005 China's biggest state-owned wire service, Xinhua news agency, announced that it was going to increase its coverage of Africa. The vice-president of Xinhua, Ma Shengrong said that Xinhua gives great emphasis to its African reports. Press officials from more than 20 African countries participated in a seminar held by China's State Council Information Office. Xinhua has a regional headquarters in Nairobi and has established 23 bureaus across Africa. On 18 August a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appealed to Chinese and African media organizations to increase cooperation. China Radio International (CRI) also broadcasts its programmes to Africa. According to its website, www.cri.cn, CRI which was founded in December 1941, aims to promote understanding and friendship between the people of China and people throughout the world. CRI broadcasts in 43 languages including English, Arabic, French, Hausa and Kiswahili and has resident correspondents in Egypt, Nigeria, Niger and Zimbabwe. In 2000 there were 100 million CRI listeners in Africa.

Satellite technology

The Nigerian government has contracted a Chinese firm to build and launch a communication satellite for it. The People's Daily website reported in April 2005 that Beijing is expected to put a Chinese-made communication satellite into orbit for Nigeria in 2007, making the African nation the first foreign buyer of both a Chinese satellite and its launching service. The project, which would cost between 250 and 300m dollars, has a life span of more than 15 years and is expected to generate about 200m dollars per year.

A report on the Nigerian newspaper This Day website on 28 November 2005 said the federal government was spending about 350m dollars on building Nigeria's first ever communication satellite device, called Nigcomsat-1. Nigerian Minister of Science and Technology Prof Turner Isoun said that the satellite would not just be an indigenous satellite but would be highly competitive with other satellites covering Africa. He said 50 Nigerian engineers were being trained in China on the construction, operation and management of the communications satellite.

Xinhua news agency reported in 2000 that it had donated satellite equipment to Uganda TV to enable it to receive news and photographs from the Chinese news agency.

China accused

There have been reports of Chinese technology and expertise being used by African governments to censor the media and inhibit free speech after a number of radio signals were jammed.

The UK-based radio station SW Radio Africa's website has accused the Chinese of helping the Zimbabwean government to deliberately jam its signal, with equipment it says was purchased from China.

The independent radio station Voice of the People, which broadcasts on shortwave via a Radio Netherlands transmitter in Madagascar, has also reportedly been jammed by the Zimbabwean authorities, allegedly with the help of Chinese experts who have been training their Zimbabwean counterparts in the use of the jamming equipment.

On 10 November the Paris-based organization Reporters Without Borders voiced its outrage at a campaign to jam dissident radio stations, saying "the use of Chinese technology in a totally hypocritical and non-transparent fashion reveals the government's iron resolve to abolish freedom of opinion in Zimbabwe."

Financial help and donations

Sino-Congolese media cooperation dates back to the 1960s and continues to the present. China provided the Republic of Congo with 50-kW transmitters to broadcast shortwave signals in 1964. In 1997 and 2003 they installed the second and third generation of shortwave transmitters.

China began offering technical assistance to the Zambian broadcasting sector in 1973, when it supplied and installed shortwave and mediumwave transmitters. China replaced these transmitters with FM ones in 1995. In 2000 the Chinese government again supplied and installed 14 FM transmitters at seven provincial centres. In 2005 China donated 8m US dollars worth of equipment to the Zambian media. China supplied computers, digital cameras and printing machines for newspapers.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's Radio-Television Nationale Congolaise, RTNC, and Xinhua news agency signed a contract on the supply and exchange of information in 2000, and the Chinese provided RTNC with a small satellite receiver.

The Chinese government has helped the Comoran government construct a radio and television building. In 2003 the state radio's shortwave transmitting station was modernized with Chinese aid.

The Johannesburg Business Day website reported on 24 October 2005 that according to Zimbabwe's state-controlled Sunday Mail, a Chinese firm was expected to provide transmitters worth 63m US dollars to the Zimbabwean state broadcaster, with the debt to be offset through proceeds from a joint Chinese-Zimbabwean mining venture.

A report on Radio Netherlands website on 24 July 2005 said China would help finance a 15m-dollar project in Lesotho to boost radio and television in the kingdom, donating 4.5m dollars worth of equipment and technical assistance in installing transmitters, towers, antennas and generators. The project would enable Lesotho to rent bandwidth on existing satellite networks for both television and FM radio broadcasts, as well as improve power infrastructure.

The National Radio of Equatorial Guinea reported in September 2005 that the Chinese construction company Gwang Ding was building a new two-storey building, fitted out with audiovisual equipment. A group of Chinese engineers are responsible for maintaining the infrastructure of Radio Bata, after the two governments signed a cooperation agreement on the maintenance of the new radio transmission equipment. Two 50-kW shortwave transmitters are being installed at the radio station, along with two antennas, one domestic and the other external.

The Guinea Radio and Television (RTG) station in the suburbs of Conakry was built with help from China.

China Central Television (CCTV) has donated TV equipment worth about 154,200 US dollars to the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC).

Malawi has received 250,000 US dollars from China, to help finance a second channel radio project in the country.

And China has signed a cooperation agreement with Mali, which will continue leasing shortwave broadcasting equipment until 2007.

Internet

In 2002 a representative of the Chinese news agency Xinhua visited Djibouti and signed an agreement on exchange of information, especially through the internet.

South Africa-based Zim Online website reported on 10 June 2005 that Zimbabwe was planning to outlaw the dissemination through the internet of information and material it deemed offensive. Zim Online reported in 2004 that the Zimbabwean government had sought help and equipment from China to allow it to monitor people's emails and monitor exchange of information between both private and public citizens.

The non-governmental organization OpenNet Inititiative (ONI) said that China operates the most extensive, technologically sophisticated and broad-reaching system of internet filtering in the world.

Partnership

The Chinese government continues to expand its interests in Africa to cover aspects of media reporting and increase Chinese media coverage on the continent.

With Beijing increasing its offers of technical knowledge and assistance to African countries, more African governments are likely to build partnerships with China, as well as seeking its help in controlling media output.

Source: BBC Monitoring Media

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