Beijing has begun to export the censorship it practices at home to Africa, where China is winning the trade battle against Europe and the US and also aspires to prevail in public opinion
Chinese President Xi Jinping accompanies South African Cyril Ramaphosa during the Forum
China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing, he 4 September 2018. (Reuters)
AUTHORS
MARCEL GASCON. JOHANNESBURG
(file original published text)
01/10/2018
For more than two years, Journalist Azad Essa wrote a weekly column on forgotten injustices for Independent Media newspapers, South Africa's second largest media group. This September his bosses informed him that their collaboration had ended. The reason given was lack of space. The most plausible, that Essa - who lives in New York and works for several international media- He dedicated what would be his last work to denouncing the Chinese Government's persecution against the Uyghur minority..
“Hours later [to send your article to editors], “My column was canceled.”, the journalist of Indian origin said on his Twitter account, whose text was not published by Independent Media. And 20% of the actions of this communication group, who is known for the passion with which he celebrates Chinese investments in South Africa and the rest of the continent, It is held by China International Television Corporation (CITVC) and the China-Africa Development Fund (CADFUND), two Chinese government entities.
“When I wrote the column I knew it could upset my bosses”, Essa has recognized, alluding to Chinese participation in the group, en un artículo para la prestigiosa revista 'Foreign Policy'. “[But] "I didn't expect the exorcism to be so immediate and so obvious.", the journalist emphasizes, that after being censored he was aware of having violated one of the “non-negotiable” taboos” of “China's propaganda in Africa”.
Essa's dismissal is just one eloquent example of the many variants with which the Asian giant has begun to export the censorship it practices at home to Africa., where China is winning the trade battle against Europe and the United States and also aspires to prevail in public opinion and propaganda.
Since it was consolidated a decade ago as the continent's first trading partner, Beijing has spent millions of dollars on an aggressive communications strategy aimed at improving its image, hide their shame and counteract the stereotypes about China of the Western media that are still hegemonic on the continent.
Chinese media at the service of African despots
The most evident dimension of this strategy has been the creation of continental services of the Chinese state media. International news television China Global Television Network (CGTN) opened in 2012 its African subsidiary, which has its offices in Nairobi and feeds its broadcasts with local correspondents from the countries of the continent. The head of the regime, 'China Daily', launched its African branch that same year, which is also based in the capital of Kenya, and the English and French services of its powerful news agency, Xinhua, They tirelessly publish well-made news tailored to Chinese foreign policy.
To reinforce the credibility of the information that the Chinese State produces in Africa about Africa, its media have hired local journalists, that they should, a priori, enjoy more independence than the correspondents deployed by the newsrooms controlled by the Communist Party in Beijing. “¿What level of professional autonomy do African journalists have in their coverage when they work for Chinese state media??”. The question is asked by Emeka Umejei, researcher on China's relations with the mainland at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg).
“In interviews conducted by this author, African journalists working in Nairobi for CGTN, la agencia de noticias Xinhua y 'China Daily' They assured that they have little autonomy”, This Nigerian expert writes in one of his investigations. "For example, Some journalists explained that human rights reports from organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch are minimized by their editors., Umejei details, which also warns about the language used to refer to those who protest on the continent or in other parts of the world against governments friendly to China. “If you write ‘pro-democracy protesters’ They change it to 'rebels'’ or ‘anti-government rioters’”, an experienced African Xinhua journalist told the investigator.
The services of Chinese media to their partners on the mainland also include “protection” of the autocrats they do business with. Several CGTN journalists consulted by Umejei complained about interference from their bosses in Beijing when reporting on leaders such as the deposed president of Zimbabwe., Robert Mugabe, or the president of Sudan, the fugitive from the Hague Tribunal Omar Al Bashir. “We would have liked to report on the other side of Al Bashir, the atrocities… "But I notice that when we cover these issues we tend to adopt the Government's position.", said one of the reporters who suffered censorship. “The type of information in the Chinese media about African dictators depends on the level of relations between China and the country in question”, concludes the Nigerian researcher, which emphasizes that the freedom of information that Beijing gives to the journalists it hires decreases when the content “may endanger Chinese interests in Africa”.
“Africa in positive” as an alibi
This treatment of African realities, submissive to the demands of the authoritarian governments of the continent, is often restricted by the narrative known as “Africa in positive.”. This way of understanding journalism about Africa - whose followers include the Chinese media- privileges friendly stories about Africa over the supposedly unfairly negative image to which it would have been condemned in the traditional Western press. According to Umejei, “the rhetoric of ‘constructive journalism’ or 'positive journalism'” can negatively impact the “precarious achievements in the areas of press freedom and democracy in many African countries”.
Another way Beijing promotes its worldview in Africa is through press trips subsidized and organized by the communist government in Beijing.. Through these expeditions, Newspapers short on funds to cover international affairs can send their reporters to China or countries chosen by the organizers., who reserve the right to select the realities that they show and thus direct the orientation that the articles that are published will have.. The trips paid for by China also serve for African journalists to follow training courses in the Asian country, where the regime often imprisons informants for publishing content that is unkind to those in power.
“¿What can you teach them?, absolute obedience to the State?”, veteran South African international policy analyst Peter Fabricius asks sarcastically., who has personally suffered reprimands from China for publishing material contrary to Beijing's ideological line. It was more than twenty years ago, when influence - and ambitions- of China in Africa were still insignificant compared to what it has today. Fabricius had been invited along with several South African journalists to a press trip to China, but he was disinvited when the Chinese embassy read his article about Taiwan's successes., the small independent island, not yet recognized by Beijing as a country, where anti-communist Chinese resisted Mao's forces.
"La embajada me dijo que no era conveniente que yo visitara China en ese momento”, Fabricius recalls for El Confidencial. When I asked them why they told me that I had offended the Chinese people, to which I replied: ‘¿To the 1.300 millions of chinese?’”. The newspaper in which Fabricius then wrote, that belongs to the same group, Independent Media, which fired Essa this month for his column on Chinese persecution of Uyghurs, reported on the cover about the withdrawal of the invitation to the author.
But not only journalists who long to travel abroad come to Beijing to learn from the strict communication policies of the communist regime.. The then Minister of Communications of South Africa, Faith Muthambi, visited in 2015 China to learn about the Asian country's model in the management of public media. ¿What do you hope to learn “from a one-party state that occupies the position 176 in between 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index”?, the opposition then asked.
The hot potato of Tibet
In addition to Taiwan, The great sensitive issue of Chinese foreign policy is Tibet, the region of which the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader in exile. The economic and political romance that China and South Africa have been experiencing for years was threatened last February by the visit to the southern country of the president of the government in exile from Tibet.. Lobsang Sangay then traveled to South Africa invited by the traditionalist Zulu party., inkhat, without the South African government being aware of the position he held.
The Chinese embassy in Pretoria reacted with fury at the presence of the Tibetan leader. In a statement of unusual harshness in diplomatic circles, The Beijing representation threatened Pretoria with harsh retaliation if something similar happened again in the future.. “It sends the wrong signal to the world.”, and undermines political trust between China and South Africa”, a fragment of the note says about the undesirable visit, that rivet: “There is no doubt that it will discourage Chinese investors' confidence in South Africa.”, and will undermine South Africa's efforts to reduce poverty, in addition to causing serious damage to the interests of South Africa and South Africans.".
As Fabricius explained to El Confidencial, which cites sources from South African diplomacy, The statement caused great unrest - repressed- in the Foreign Ministry of the African country, that he had done everything possible to nullify Sangay's agenda in his territory and went so far as to censor an interview he had given to public television to try to appease the Chinese government. The Tibetan leader entered South Africa with a US passport. Expelling him from the country would have brought Pretoria a scandalous diplomatic clash with Washington. Chinese pressure has already led to 2014 South Africa to deny the Dalai Lama a visa, which considers China an occupying power in Tibet and demands more autonomy and development for the Tibetan people.
Chinese censorship in African countries where it has power is not limited to the media, and also reaches the academic world. According to what he recently told in the South African weekly Mail & Guardian Ross Anthony, director of the Center for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University (next to Cape Town), The Chinese authorities rejected his application for an entry visa to the country and demanded that he remove references to Taiwan from his classes., to Tibet, to the Xinjiang region and the Uighur people who live there and to Mao's Cultural Revolution, in which millions of people were murdered. “When the achievements of the 'New China' have more prominence in my classes, “My visa request will be reconsidered.”, the professor wrote about the response obtained.
The sale of technology aimed at controlling people and the opinions they express is another way that China exports its censorship to Africa.. The democracy promotion organization Freedom House has warned of the massive use of technology to extend the gag of authoritarian governments in the area to the internet.. in 2013, China signed a contract valued at 800 million dollars with Ethiopia in telecommunications. This agreement served, among others, things, to improve censorship of online content and block communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter o Facebook, something the Addis Ababa government has done on several occasions since then. Other authoritarian governments in the region, like those of Uganda and Tanzania, They have also asked China for collaboration to persecute dissent on the internet and social networks., according to Feedom House complaint.
