Due to You Tube’s length restrictions on each clip, the video has been divided into six segment.  Watch segment one above and the following can be accessed below by clicking on the images below:

Segment 2

Segment 3

Segment 4

Segment 5

Segment 6

“Our [Chinese] friends are too numerous, and we know their resources cannot sustain them,” Sata told me  in his Lusaka office, taking phone calls from constituents and filling out a lottery card as he reeled off a catalog of reproaches. “Zambians do not need labor being dumped here. The Chinese are scattering all over the world, but there is no such thing as Chinese investment, as such. What we’re seeing is Chinese parastatals and government interests, and they are corrupting our leaders.”

Similar comments can be heard in a 2008 interview with the U.S. radio network NPR, or in the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph where he is characterized as “the anti-Chinese candidate for president” and as far back as 2006 in the Washington Post.

Ironically, the Chinese may recognize many of their own traits in Sata rather than regard him as the thorny figure he is portrayed to be in the Western media.

From all this coverage, it would be easy to conclude that Michael Sata is a one-dimensional caricature as the lone, prominent “panda basher” in Africa.  While governments from Algeria to Angola sign one multi-billion dollar deal after another, Sata, as the story goes, stands as a solitary voice of opposition.  The problem with this narrative, according Sino-Zambian relations scholar Solange Chatelard, is that it is not entirely accurate.

Chatelard is a researcher at the Max Plank Institute in Halle, Germany and a Phd. candidate at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Science Po) in Paris.  Through her academic work and her role as a field producer on the recent BBC4 television documentary “When China Met Africa,” Chatelard has spent considerable time in Zambia and, as such, has had the opportunity to study Sata for several years now.  Her impressions of the Zambian opposition leader are far more nuanced than how he is portrayed in the media.  While he is very much the provocateur that French and other journalists describe,  Chatelard explained, it is equally important to understand the political context Sata operates within.  ”I think Michael Sata is a very interesting and intriguing character that people, especially observers on the outside, don’t grasp very well,” she said.  As one of the continent’s last remaining colonial freedom fighters still active in politics, much of Sata’s legitimacy is derived from his decades-long role as the strong-man who led the fight against European imperialism.  ”He claims he knows what Zambians were fighting for back in the early sixties when they were struggling for independence,” according to Chatelard, and that defines so much of who he is today with respect to his comments about the Chinese.  However, Chatelard and other observers note that Sata is also a very savvy politician who recognizes that the Chinese are not the British and 2010 is not 1960.  Subsequently, they add, he interacts with the Chinese to ensure Zambia gets the best possible deal rather than to simply create a hostile climate for international investors.

Chatelard described Sata as a politician who strives to protect his country from foreign exploitation, ensure that international investments also build domestic capacity and force investors, such as the Chinese, to deal with Zambians on equal terms.  Sound familiar?  It should, as Sata’s agenda mirrors that of China’s own leadership priorities of the past 30 years.  Ironically, the Chinese may recognize many of their own traits in Sata rather than regard him as the thorny figure he is portrayed to be in the Western media.

First we talk about a shifting in tone regarding China coverage – is this really the same media that was so negative on China in the first half of the year?  Not that we agreed with all the hullabaloo in the first half, but with currency debate subsiding, google.cn re-registered and a trade agreement with Taiwan, US media appears at a loss on how to sensationalize normalcy.

CTP Podcast – A Casual Rant on Media

Second, we had to return to a conversation about China’s efforts on creating a media outlet that presents an independent and impartial view of the world’s events from a Chinese perspective.  Eric is doing some work with France 24, and sees some lessons to be learned from contrasts in state media ownership – something he’ll blog on later.

On the one hand, no one expects that to stymie growth in the next 10 to 15 years, but a looming challenge exists farther out as some estimates put the working population at just 40% by 2050 – that’s a lot of load to carry!

CTP Podcast – China By The Numbers – Population

In this China By The Numbers podcast, we talk about the different social and economic ramifications of China’s demographic curve.

Why?

China’s media leaders may want to consider the French approach with France24 if they want to grow audience share with their own media properties:

1. Editorial autonomy + Higher Content Legitimacy = Audience Loyalty

It is hard to tell if online users and TV viewers of France24 clearly understand that they are consuming a media property owned and operated by the French government.  Just as viewers of Al Jazeera may not be fully aware of the Qatari government’s backing of that network.  What’s important here is that both France24 and Al Jazeera afford their editorial staff considerable editorial autonomy in determining the news.  I can speak from personal experience (full disclosure: I am currently a freelance journalist at France24′s english language online service) to attest that there is never any concern among the editorial staff about government censorship or oversight of any kind.  Conversely, the pressure from management is to produce the highest quality news comparable to the standards of any of the international newsrooms I have worked in, including CNN, CNBC Asia and the Associated Press among others.  Consider this example from July 14, 2010, France’s national holiday.  In an effort to rebuild relations with its former African colonies, the French government invited those states celebrating 50 years of independence to have a delegation of military representatives march in the grand Bastille Day parade up the Champs Elysees. In China, such national day festivities would be greeted with patriotic enthusiasm by official media organs, but not so in France.

The Chinese are making it much harder than it needs to be for international viewers to access their content online.

Both the TV and online editors at France24 led with stories of accusations from a federation of  international human rights groups that war criminals may be among those marching in the parade. The headline (left) led the coverage for most of the day and never was there a concern that France24 was embarrassing France’s leaders or the state itself.  Instead, the story generated above-average traffic online.

The lesson here for China’s own media entities is that by giving experienced media producers greater autonomy to report a story, even if it may be critical of China, will ultimately improve the content’s legitimacy among its target audiences and thus lead to increased user loyalty.  I fully understand how difficult it would be for some within the Propaganda Ministry, and even in the State Council, to loosen the reigns of media control.  However, it should be considered essential if the ultimate objective is to persuade sophisticated international media consumers to divert themselves from rival websites and TV channels to CNC World, BON Live or CCTV International.

2.  Make it Easy to Watch and Access the Content

When CNC World debuted in July 2010, I rushed to find the live stream online the very first day it went on the air.  It went without saying that CNC would have a live-stream, or even on-demand video available, considering the importance the government had placed on reaching out to international viewers like myself.  Yet after four attempts using three computers on two platforms, I have still not been able to access the CNC World live stream.   CNC World is making it much more difficult than it needs to be for viewers to access their content online.  Here are a few suggestions on how the network can improve its usability to make it significantly easier for viewers, such as myself, to watch CNC World over the internet:

A. Domain Name: select an easy to remember URL.  http://www.xhstv.com is NOT a good domain name for an international audience.   Now, as a Chinese speaker, I understand that XHS stands for 新华社, the average American viewer will not.

B. Make it Mac Compatible:  No, in fact, make it platform agnostic.  Currently, CNC World can only be viewed on PCs which eliminates tens of millions of prospective viewers who use Apple’s products.  This is critical in both the United States and Europe.

C. No Plug-ins!:  This is a massive mistake on the part of Xinhua.  First of all, web users in the U.S. and Europe are accustomed to watching online video using any of the established methods ranging from Flash to HTML5.  The era of downloading additional software applications to run video ended about five years.  Secondly, Western internet users will NEVER download a plug-in prompted by text written in Chinese!   This is a screen grab of the prompt to download the program “UUSEE” to watch CNC World.  To the vast majority of non-Chinese speaking Westerners, this looks extremely ominous.

D. Do not use Chinese characters: Even if a user in the U.S. or Europe wanted to download the UUSEE plug-in, there is a very good chance that s/he would not be able to because many of the anti-virus programs block Chinese language applications.  This is even more so on corporate networks that often have much stricter security measures than most home users.  To avoid this restrictions, the English-language streaming site should be entirely in English with no Chinese language prompts for plug in requirements or any Chinese-character metadata that will trigger the security programs to block the site.

3. Quality Counts

Just as China is not a native-English speaking country, France faces a similar challenge in how it staffs its English language media channels.  Unlike most of China’s multilingual media outlets, France24′s english and Arabic services are staffed by native speakers.  In China, by contrast, CCTV9, China Radio International and other channels are often staffed with Chinese employees whose english skills are quite strong relative to other mainland Chinese however nowhere near international broadcast standards.  Subsequently, there are significantly higher levels of on air and online mistakes that are often directly associated with language abilities.  In an extremely competitive news markets, these kinds of mistakes are unacceptable as it undermines the credibility of the product and encourages consumers to seek elsewhere for similar information.  There is ample evidence of poor language and copy editing skills of China’s international media editors.  On three separate occasions over the course of a single week, the home page of CNTV (left) featured prominent spelling errors and template layout mistakes that, once again, indicate China’s media products are just not competing at the same level as French and other international media outlets.

]]> http://www.chinatalkingpoints.com/3-lessons-france-can-offer-china-about-government-run-media/feed/ 1 http://www.chinatalkingpoints.com/audio-china-in-africa-podcast-the-future-of-the-tanzam-railway-2/ http://www.chinatalkingpoints.com/audio-china-in-africa-podcast-the-future-of-the-tanzam-railway-2/#comments Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:45:55 +0000 admin http://www.chinatalkingpoints.com/?p=962

In this edition of the China in Africa podcast, host Eric Olander talks with the editor of chinaafricanews.com and London School of Economics masters candidate, Henry Hall, about the future of the famed Tanzam railway. The rail line, also known as the Tazara railway, serves as an important milestone in Sino-African relations as it marks Beijing’s first major infrastructure project on the continent. In 1975 when the first trains rolled from landlocked Zambia to the Tanzanian coastal city of Dar es Salaam there was great promise for its potential to bring economic development. The past 35 years, though, have not been kind to the railway as it has fallen in to disrepair due to a lack of parts and regular maintenance. Now, there is renewed hope that China will once again turns its attention, and significant financial resources, to revive this once monumental symbol of Chinese-African partnership.

China is investing tens of millions of dollars to revive the ailing railway

By any measure, the Tanzam rail project was a massive undertaking. Moreso because while construction was underway in Africa, China itself was undergoing considerable domestic turmoil amid the hangover of the Cultural Revolution and the last phase of Mao Zedong’s leadership. Spurred on by Zhou Enlai, China invested half-a-billion dollars in the project, making it the largest foreign aid endeavor in Chinese history. Following its completion in 1975, the Tanzam railway served as a point of national pride for China as a demonstration of its engineering capabilities and commitment to economic development in Africa. Interestingly, according to Henry Hall, the project also served as a valuable template for future Chinese investment projects in Africa.

Five Key Facts About the Tanzam Railway

1. It took five years to build the railway and was finally completed in 1975.

2. The $500 million price tag made this project the most expensive Chinese foreign aid project in history.

3. The rail line extends 1,860 kilometers from Zambia’s Kapiri Mposhi to the Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam.

4. In 2010, the Chinese government issued a $39 million interest free to the Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority.

5. The governing rail authority was recently on the verge of collapse with debts as high as $700 million.

The Howard French Article

The Tanzam railway recently gained noteriety in the West following a lengthy article in The Atlantic magazine by New York Times correspondent Howard French. French is a long time China-watcher who has also lived extensively in Africa and rode the Tanzam line while exploring China’s surging investment on the continent. Along the way, he offered a somber assesment of the railway’s physical and financial health:

“Today the Tazara is a talisman of faded hopes and failed economic schemes, an old and unreliable railway with too few working locomotives. Only briefly a thriving commercial artery, it has been diminished by its own decay and by the roads and air routes that have sprung up around it. Maintenance costs have saddled Tanzania and Zambia with debts reportedly as high as $700 million in total, and the line now has only about 300 of the 2,000 wagons it needs to function normally, according to Zambian news reports.” – Howard French, The Atlantic Magazine, May 2010

About Henry Hall

An alumni of Edinburgh and Hong Kong Universities, Henry is currently completing an MSc in Political Economy of Late Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He became interested in the China Africa relationship during his undergraduate studies and wrote a dissertation on Chinese involvement in Nigeria. Since finishing he has written articles for Africa Asia Confidential and has had internships at Africa Practice in London and The Stimson Center in Washington DC. China Africa News was born out his frustrations in finding reliable news on the China Africa relationship. By accessing African, Chinese and Western news outlets China Africa News hopes to provide a balanced outlook.

A new generation of bloggers and scholars is emerging who approach Sino-African relations with significantly more sophistication than older observers who are burdened by their early education of Western imperial activity on the continent.

Since the launch of the China Talking Points “China in Africa” podcast two months ago, I have found there is an entirely different perspective from a new generation of twenty and thirty something bloggers and academics who are unburdened by this conventional thinking.  They seem to approach the topic with a refreshing lack of intellectual baggage that permits a far more nuanced view of the issue that doesn’t frame the subject in that “good vs. bad” framework that is so typical of their older peers.  In universities across Europe and in South Africa (none in the United States that I have found so far), a new crop of students and bloggers is emerging who approach the subject with an unprecedented of level of sophistication.  To these younger observers, China’s activities in Africa are evaluated much more comprehensively, taking into account the histories of both Africans and Chinese.  Furthermore, there is a sense the Chinese should be judged in isolation rather than in the context of Western imperial policies of the past.  And unlike their older peers, this under-40 group generally approaches the subject with significantly less prejudice about China, instead focusing on the tangible impact of Beijing’s policies on the continent.

Judge for yourself:

1. Charlie Pistorius: South Africa academic and blogger who writes the “To Seque” blog (www.toseque.com) and the “Taming the Dragon” column for Johannesburg’s Moneyweb web site.

2. Lila Buckley: Oxford University graduate student who is focusing on Chinese engagement in African agriculture.  She recently posted a guest blog on Deborah Brautigam’s “China in Africa: The Real Story” about her research in Senegal.

3. Johanna Jesson: Researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and Phd. candidate at the Roskilde University who specializes in transparency issues related to Chinese aid and investment on the continent.  In particular, she has written extensively on Chinese investment patterns in both the DRC and Gabon.

4. Henry Hall: Masters candidate at the London School of Economics who is doing research on Chinese-Zambian relations.  Henry also publishes the weekly email newsletter and website China Africa News.

5. Dr. David Robinson: African historian who lectures at Perth, Australia’s Edith Cowan University.  Dr. Robinson recently published “Hearts, Minds and Wallet: Lessons from China’s Growing Relationship with Africa.“

So while age by itself should not be considered the determining factor in judging the competence of any journalist, blogger or scholar, it does seem that younger observers are engaging the Sino-African issue with a very different perspective.  This is a particular issue that is extremely complex with intersecting histories, cultures and peoples who defy the simple stereotypes that are depressingly common in much of the mainstream press’ an academia’s coverage.

In this edition of the “China in Africa” podcast, host Eric Olander speaks with Africa scholar Dr. David Robinson, Phd. of Western Australia’s Edith Cowan University about his recent article “Hearts, Minds and Wallets:  Lessons from China’s Growing Relationship with Africa.” This is a very compelling piece of work that highlights several critical double standards that Western observers often employ when evaluating Chinese activities in Africa.   Right off the top, Dr. Robinson debunks the myth that China’s presence in Africa is a relatively new phenomenon, echoing Dr. Deborah Brautigam and other scholars by pointing out that Chinese activities have been recorded in Africa dating back as early as the 14th century.  With respect to contemporary issues, Dr. Robinson explains how he does not seek to defend Chinese economic and political activity on the continent per say, which he adds deserves intense scrutiny, but rather highlight the gross inconsistencies of many of China’s Western critics in the aid, academic and diplomatic communities.    These critics, he contends, seemingly think the Chinese are employing extra-legal methods to “conquer” Africa when, in fact, Beijing appears to be using the very same economic and political levers used by European and American powers for over a century.

“While Africans have been saturated with images of Western society, many have long been denied the benefits of it: culture; material consumption; and personal freedoms. To compete culturally, the West must provide the benefits it has always promised.” - Dr. David Robinson, Phd., Edith Cowan University

Dr. Robinson highlights three lessons that the West should carefully consider from China’s experience in Africa:

1. African governments should no longer be looked upon with the traditional colonial condescension, “Western states and corporations must provide attractive deals that can compete with Chinese offers. They must facilitate actual economic development rather than mere subsistence, as tends to be the case (Lyman, 2005), and support local institutions of governance rather than undermine them.”

2. It is a mistake to frame China’s engagement in Africa in purely economic or even political terms as there is a huge social component to their presence as well. “From free Chinese language lessons in Liberia (Paye-Layleh, 2009), to Chinese medicine and table tennis in the Central African Republic (Simpson, 2009), and a slowly growing number of interracial marriages in Africa and China (Richburg, 2009), cultural interactions between these regions have great potential for development.”

3. The West must move beyond the narrow caricatures that define Africa as merely a place filled with war, famine and poverty. China is embracing Africa as a vast new political, social and economic opportunity whereas for many in London, Brussels and Washington, mention the word “Africa” and the eyes role with a big sigh that illustrates the prevalent sense of “donor fatigue.”  Dr. Robinson lays out a bold challenge for the West if they are to eventually compete with the Chinese for influence in Africa, “this will require greater investment within Western societies for the study of African history, society and language; and a widespread shift of perception that begins to acknowledge Africa’s population as qualitatively equal to that of Europe and North America.”

At the of the discussion, I challenged Dr. Robinson about whether or not he thinks the West is capable of changing their perceptions of Africans from being pathetic colonial subjects who survive on the largesse of Western assistance to being regarded as equals as people, in business and government.  Although he did not include this his piece, ultimately he seemed to share my skepticism that Americans and Europeans are up to the task.

______________

About Dr. David Robinson, Phd.

Dr. David Robinson is an early-career academic with a research specialty in modern African history. He completed his Phd in 2006 on the history of the Mozambican civil war and after working in a number of research and lecturing roles over the past few years, he is now a tenure-track lecturer at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia where he teaches courses on global history, human rights and genocide.

Suggested links and reading:

• Chinese Expansion and Western Influence in 21st Century Africa
• Personal Blog: “Looking for Trouble: Analysis and Opinion on the Global and Local”
• Africa Focus: Dr. Robinson’s weekly segment RTRfm’s Morning Magazine Show

In an interview with the Kenyan newspaper “The Standard,” Xie revealed that Beijing will now permit 4,000 African products to be imported to China duty-free. China has signed so-called “free access agreements” with over 20 African countries, according to Xie, boosting Q1′ 2010 trade volume 24% to just under $28 billion.  While the vast majority of the products on the duty-free list are industrial items, at least 25% of that list is made up of agricultural goods.  That is a significant number and one that should send shivers of fear down the spines of every Western foreign policy leader who is concerned about their countries’ rapidly diminishing standing in Africa vis a vis the Chinese.  For all the public posturing of “trade NOT aid” that western leaders preach to their African counterparts, industrial countries continue to undermine African economic development with billions of dollars in agricultural subsidies that artificially suppress global commodity prices.   The Center for Trade and Development best summarized the destructive effects of these European, Japanese and U.S. farm subsidies:

“High subsidies in developed countries protect the market in these countries from producers in other countries who may produce more efficiently. This protection, which favours a small number of very large farmers and farm corporations, encourages overproduction. The excess production is then “dumped” on the world market. The cheap subsidised products drive down world prices and badly affect the chances of developing countries earning from export of agricultural commodities and products.”

In his recent article, “Hearts, Minds and Wallets: Lessons from China’s Growing Relationship with Africa,” Dr. David Robinson of Australia’s Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia suggests that granting African commodity producers access to the industrial world’s agricultural markets would no doubt be among the most effective tools the West could employ to stem the rising influence of the Chinese on the continent:

“The West must prepare to engage with the Africa of the future…. [Princeton N. Lyman] writes that Western states, “have one more major economic card to play: opening their markets to African agricultural products. The benefit to Africa could dwarf all that China and India together could do for Africa’s development” (2005). If the West adopts this approach to Africa now, rather than in the future, it can both help to shape and take advantage of Africa’s transition, rather than respond to it from a position of reaction and historical culpability. The West really has no choice.”

However, in an interview with China Talking Points for the “China in Africa” podcast, Dr. Robinson acknowledged that his recommendations will likely fall on deaf ears in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo as the domestic political pressures there for continued massive agricultural subsidies will not dissipate soon:

Dr. David Robinson, Edith Cowan University, Perth Australia by ChinaTalkingPoints

It is within this context, as highlighted by Dr. Robinson, that Beijing’s move to make it easier for African agricultural exporters to enter China’s expanding market should be seen as a powerful diplomatic tool that can effectively enhance bilateral relations with African states.  In the broader context of China’s massive natural resource extraction deals, infrastructure development programs and now the concerted effort to lower tariffs on thousands of African industrial and agricultural products, the West’s economic and political relevance in the region is undeniably diminishing at a rapid pace.