Why Are Chinese Media in Africa? Evidence from Three Decades of Xinhua’s News Coverage of Africa

Abstract

In a 2009 article, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported that the Chinese government was planning to spend RMB 45 billion “on the overseas expansion of its main media organizations,” such as Xinhua and China Central Television (CCTV) (Chen and Wu, 2009). At a time of generalized downscaling of overseas operations by news organizations, media outlets around the world were quick to pick up the story to highlight how China’s economic internationalization—the “Going Out Campaign”—was expanding beyond finance or infrastructure and into the media and telecommunications sectors (Barboza, 2009). The surge in overseas media activities by the People’s Republic of China (China or PRC) could mislead one to think that this is a new phenomenon. In fact, however, China has a long history of media engagement in foreign countries, which goes back to the founding years of the republic and ranges from international broadcasting (e.g., China Radio International) to publishing (e.g., Beijing Review) (Chang, 1989). In the last decade, Africa is arguably the continent where Chinese media and telecommunications companies have been involved the most. Amid a growing body of literature on Sino—African media relations, this chapter looks into a question to which no definite answer has been given: Why are Chinese media in Africa, a continent that has been forgotten by North American (Golan, 2008, pp. 41–57) and European media for so long?