China Is Buying African Media’s Silence

I wrote about Chinese oppression in a South African paper. Hours later, they cancelled my column.
BY AZAD ESSA 

The managing editor of China Central Television Africa, Pang Xinhua, shows a local journalist in Nairobi how the organization has expanded in different parts of Africa on June 12, 2012. 

It is official. 

After more than a decade of planning, setting up, and bankrolling African media, the Chinese are finally ready to cash in on their investment.
Last week, I decided to dedicate my weekly column in a South African newspaper to discussing the persecution of more than 1 million Uighur Muslims in China’s East Turkestan colony.
The column looked at the discrimination suffered by the Turkic-Muslim community and the inability of the more than 40 African leaders in Beijing for a historic China-Africa forum to seek clarity from their host. 

No more than a few hours after the piece was published by newspapers belonging to Independent Media, South Africa’s second-largest media company, I was told that the column would not be uploaded online.
A day later, my weekly column on neglected people and places around the globe, which I have been writing since September 2016, was immediately canceled. 

I was told the “new design of the papers” meant that there was no longer space for my weekly venting.
Given the ownership structure of Independent Media, with Chinese state-linked firms holding a 20 percent stake, I understood when I wrote the column that it might rattle the higher-ups. 

I didn’t expect the exorcism to be so immediate and so obvious. 

I had, it would appear, veered into a nonnegotiable arena that struck at the very heart of China’s propaganda efforts in Africa.
In 1999, China embarked on an economic and social outreach program to the continent, known as its “Going Out” policy, in which it injected millions of dollars of investment into the African media. 

To counter the rampant negative perceptions of China in Western media, the project looked to take back control of the country’s image in a continent where its interests were only set to grow.
This meant investing heavily in China’s own state media presence, including expanding bureaus; supporting privately owned Chinese media that set up offices on the continent; purchasing stakes in private African media; and conjuring up partnerships or organizing sponsored trips to China for cash-strapped African newsrooms.
As the checkbook diplomacy of China’s agenda has been propelled by the state-owned Xinhua press agency, China Global Television Network, the African edition of China Daily, and the monthly magazine ChinAfrica, based in Johannesburg, it is yet unclear whether African audiences have been accepting Chinese versions of their own reality.
It is private media companies that have most effectively become vehicles for forwarding the interests of the Chinese state, in cahoots with local elites.
So, in Kenya, press junkets at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation or special Beijing-sponsored seminars for Kenyan journalists have turned the Nation Media Group into a spectacle of press release rewrites promising an injection of Chinese collaboration into the continent.
In South Africa, Independent Media—partly owned by the China International Television Corporation and China-Africa Development Fund—is replete with sycophantic praise for Chinese investment, lacks critical engagement with the much-ballyhooed BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) project, and fails to ask basic questions on Chinese motives in Africa. Instead of holding power to account, it has become its most ardent cheerleader.
Meanwhile, the Chinese-owned StarTimes Group is now operational in 30 countries across the continent and describes itself as the “fastest growing and the most influential digital TV operator in Africa.” 

Though privately owned, StarTimes has benefited from a close relationship with the Chinese state, as Emmanuel Dubois notes, especially as a tool for exporting Chinese culture and services.
It’s true that the China-Africa story is one that has long been marred by false dichotomies. 

But what’s needed is clear-eyed coverage, not different distortions. 

In the Western press, the Chinese are either portrayed as aggressors or neocolonizers, while the Africans are described as weak or corrupt. 

In China-friendly media, the pattern is reversed; the Chinese are benevolent benefactors or partners, while the Africans are eager recipients.
And where the Western press has done its utmost to reveal African corruption and fiscal recklessness, Chinese media does its best to conceal them.
As it stands, there’s little coverage outside of either the Western portrayal of Africa as being overrun by resource-hungry and ruthless Chinese companies or the Chinese-sponsored media efforts that extol the Chinese development model or offer a projection of Africa in outlandishly positive terms.
A lack of nuance in reporting on China has allowed selfish business leaders to use the often unfair media portrayals of China and BRICS nations, or the global south, as an excuse to promote a more authoritarian, unaccountable business ethic on the continent under the guise of economic development.
This is precisely how former South African President Jacob Zuma justified his corruption, which culminated in the widespread use of the phrase “white monopoly capital” to dismiss all criticism of his business activities.
Some African governments have recognized the value of a media that toes the state line in lieu of a national agenda. 

The positive spin about the continent keeps African leaders happy (in a self-satiating bubble), and China establishes itself as a “true friend” of the continent.
Companies that take on Chinese ownership are likely to experience the Chinese model of censorship; red lines are thick and non-negotiable.
Given the economic dependence on the Chinese and crisis in newsrooms, this is rarely confronted. And this is precisely the type of media environment that China wants their African allies to replicate.
In 2015, Faith Muthambi, then South Africa’s former communication minister, went to Beijing to understand how the country’s state-owned broadcast media works. 

Media freedom in China is among the worst in the world. 

So it beggars belief that the minister traveled to learn anything other than how to control the news.
On the U.S. government side, though, the focus on the situation in East Turkestan comes after a spate of criticism of what is being described as China’s “debt-trap diplomacy.” 

As valid as these concerns may be, there’s a strong element of Western self-interest here. 

Many of the recent attacks have come off the back of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.

For the Chinese, meanwhile, silence about a million people imprisoned without trial is golden. 

As non-Western powers such as Malaysia begin to raise the Uighur issue for the first time, potentially endangering Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road project, the battle for African public opinion is becoming particularly heated. 

The culling of my column came just as Xi pledged $60 billion to the continent, in the form of projects, assistance, investment, and loans, in an event described as the “largest and most high-profile diplomatic event” ever held in Beijing.
The timing to raise the plight of the Uighurs, it turns out, was wrong. 

And, evidently, just right.

Chinese Mythomania

China’s ignorance about its own maps created a false history of its ancient role in South Africa

By Khanya Mtshali

"The creation of the Milky Way" by Guo Xu (1456–c.1529). 

In 2002, the South African parliament hosted an exhibition as part of the “Parliamentary Millennium Project” held in Cape Town. 

Launched by Frene Ginwala, former speaker of parliament, the project was designed “to contrast European perspectives with indigenous ones,” and “promote the recognition of shared South African identities.”
At the centerpiece of the event was a map gifted to South Africa by the People’s Republic of China. The “Da Ming Hunyi Tu” is an amalgamated illustration of the Great Ming empire. 

The bottom of the map shows an early depiction of an east African coast (now present-day Tanzania).The Korean version of the “Da Ming Hunyi Tu” from 1402.

The “Da Ming Hunyi Tu” at the exhibition was a 1402 Korean copy of the original, estimated to date back to 1389. 

Much fanfare was made about the possibilities of Chinese presence on the continent prior to the arrival of Europeans. 

Liu Guijin, China’s former ambassador for African Affairs, stated in a Q&A on the embassy’s website that the map proved that “friendly exchanges between China and Africa” went “back to ancient times.” 

He used admiral Zheng He’s expeditions along the east African coast (now Somalia and Kenya) as an example of a “time-honored” and “friendly” relationship between China and Africa.
But according to cartographer, Alexander Akin, the idea of age-old Sino-African relations is based on a conflation of historical facts related to the “Da Ming.” 

In his paper, “The Da Ming Hunyi Tu: Repurposing a Ming Map for Sino-African Diplomacy,” he argues that the depiction of an east African coast most likely derives from Middle Eastern observations of the continent. 

He lays out two possible origins of the map. 

The one cites the work of Japanese cartographic historian, Takahashi Tadashi. 

In 1963, Tadashi published “Eastward diffusion of Islamic world maps in the medieval era.” 

In it, he speculated that the “Da Ming” was based on the description of a globe given to Mongol ruler, Kublai Khan, by Persian astronomer, Jamal ad-Din in 1267. 

The other source is the sailing guides taken from Muslim mariners by the Yuan government in 1287.Abraham Ortelius’s map of Africa, minutes away from being colonized by three ships on the brink of crashing into one another. Marginal improvement from the last map. 

“Traders from the Middle East were certainly moving between northeastern Africa and China well over 1,200 years ago,” says Akin in an email. 

In terms of trade and diplomacy, he said “a small number of African slaves” were “imported from Zanzibar to the court” during the Tang dynasty (618 – 907 CE).
For people who haven’t studied advanced Chinese history, Akin said it’d be easy “to assume that a Chinese map that depicts Africa in the Ming dynasty must have something to do with [Zheng He’s] missions.” 

He also attributed historical ignorance and Sinocentric assumptions for the misrepresentation of the “Da Ming” as evidence of early Sino-African exchanges.
While China’s ignorance is the result of cultural bias and human error, the repurposing of the “Da Ming” helped calm anxieties about growing Chinese presence in South Africa. 

After years of condescension and prejudice soon after the end of Apartheid, South Africa has since come to embrace Chinese investment in the country, as citizens remain uncertain of what to make of China in the midst of an unsteady economy, the Gupta leaks, and a British PR company stoking racial tensions.This 1829 map of the East African coast caused all this confusion. 

The “Da Ming Hunyi Tu” enabled China to play to the anti-imperialist and pan-African sentiments in the country. 

By leaning on its support of struggle organizations such as the Pan Africanist Congress and African National Congress (while being oblivious of the African slaves brought to China during the Tang dynasty), the country was able to reassure South Africans that unlike Europe, its relations with Africa would be defined by mutual benefit and comradeship.

Save a donkey, kill a Chinese

China's demand for medicine fuels African donkey slaughter
AFP
There is an increasing illegal demand for South African donkey products as numbers in China have nearly halved from the 1990s. 

MOGOSANI, South Africa -- Under a cloudless sky in South Africa's northwestern farming region, donkeys still amble along muddy paths, pausing to nibble on grass, oblivious to the threat from a demand for Chinese medicine.
The gelatin found in the animals' skin has made them a target, leading to a growing wave of donkey slaughtering in several African countries, as gangs seek to fuel a lucrative, and in South Africa illegal, trade.
Animal rights groups say the docile beasts of burden are cruelly bludgeoned to death before being skinned in backyards and clandestine slaughterhouses.
Around Mogosani village, in South Africa's North West province, residents say syndicates catch the animals in grazing fields and pens.
Soon after, skinned carcasses with hooves chopped off are found nearby.
"The thieves are after the skins," donkey keeper George Sising told AFP. 

"We never used to have this problem, donkeys here used to roam free, but now people are afraid of what might happen."
Like many of the village's poor and unemployed, Sising, 65, relies on the animals to make a living, using a donkey-drawn cart to collect recycling material, firewood and sand for sale.

The donkey-hide gelatin has no commercial value in Africa but is highly sought after in China as an ingredient for traditional medicine to treat health problems such as anaemia and menopause-linked ailments.
Hooves also contain gelatin, while the meat, consumed in parts of China, is believed to be more nutritious than beef and is enjoyed in burgers or stewed.

"OUR ANIMALS"
"Many people here don't eat donkey meat, they are just our animals," said Sising.
The gelatin, known in China as ejiao, is dissolved into hot beverages, or mixed with nuts and seeds as a snack. 

The industry is said to be worth millions of dollars and China is increasingly looking to Africa to satisfy demand after its own donkey population dropped sharply.
Donkey numbers in China have nearly halved from 11 million in the 1990s to six million in 2013, according to the country’s national animal husbandry yearbook.
"Jobs are scarce here, and donkeys are our source of income, if you own donkeys you can work for yourself," said Ikgopeleng Tsietsoane, 25, another Mogosani donkey owner.
In October, six of his nine animals were stolen and the perpetrators never found.
"The theft is taking away our livelihood. If nothing is done, this village will soon have no donkeys left," he said, adding his family had begun keeping the animals in 1991.
He said the long-eared creatures were normally bought or sold for 400 rand ($30, 29 euros), but the price had surged to up to 2,000 rand.
Tsietsoane was adamant that he would never let go of his remaining three animals.
Two months ago, police in Johannesburg uncovered a storage container with more than 5,000 donkey hides, in what was described as the biggest bust so far.
The collection is believed to have come from across the country and police have made several large finds in the city this year, suggesting a growing trend.
"In one instance, donkey skins were found inside the yard of a tavern owned by a Chinese man," said North West province police spokesman Sabata Mokgwabone.
After the police busts prompted a public outcry, the Chinese embassy in January issued a statement insisting no formal trade existed with South Africa. 

"There is no Chinese company importing donkey skins from South Africa through legal channel(s)," it stated.
But plans revealed in September to formalise the trade between North West province -- believed to have the country's biggest donkey population -- and China's Henan region may change that.
Donkey prices shot up after the announcement.

"A CRUEL DEATH"
"The aim was to create commercial opportunities for people in rural areas who own these animals," said Patrick Leteane, director general at the North West provincial government's agriculture department.
"We wanted to unlock a whole value chain that would involve breeding, feedlots, slaughtering and export," he said.

China produces 5,000 tons of ejiao each year, requiring some four million hides, according to the China Daily.
Speaking to AFP, Kabelo Nkoane, of the Highveld Horsecare Unit, said the animal welfare group's staff began noticing donkey killings two years ago and now discover piles of donkey hides and meat in backyard slaughterhouses at least four times a week.
"The animals are killed in a very cruel manner, bludgeoned in the head with a hammer or stabbed," said Nkoane.
"They are then skinned and their skins taken to China, where they harvest the gelatin used in medicines.
"If nothing is done, we might find ourselves with a similar situation to the rhino poaching crisis in the country."
South Africa's landlocked neighbour, Botswana, currently legally exports donkey meat to China, as does Kenya, and Namibia is in the process of setting up an abattoir to service the Chinese market.
But formalising the trade has not stopped illegal, cruel killings.
After facing an unsustainable donkey slaughter, Burkina Faso last year announced a ban on the export of donkey meat and skins to Asia.