My last two pieces in The Joburg Post addressed China’s presence in South Africa’s political and academic space. The pieces were two instalments of a three-part argument that China intends to assure its presence in South Africa through active involvement in three crucial and influential spheres: the political, the academic and the media domains. These are crucial to shaping narratives in relations among nations. The current piece talks about China’s involvement in South Africa’s media space. One reading of authoritative works such as Henry Kissinger’s On China, reveals just how to the outside world, China was a mythical, difficult-to-fathom country. China contributed to this; partly because of its history of being overrun by foreigners, the country has been stoutly guarding its sovereignty. Some extents to which it has gone to ensure this have cut off the rest of the world. This continued up to 1978, when China begun to painstakingly open its economy, while leaving its political makeup largely intact. The result of economic dynamism has been a spectacular success that has propelled China to the centre stage of global affairs, from which it is almost impossible for China to remain an unknown player. 

China is keen to get its story across in global affairs. As a rising power, some might say established power, China still wants to reassure its long-standing partners of the developing world, Africa in the context of this piece, that its rising prominence does not portend another instrumentalist scramble to dominate Africa and win its fealty wherein African interests are subsumed under the overriding and self-serving interests of superpowers, as was the case during the Cold War. But there must be a formula to China’s endeavour, one which will be couched on the identity that China will promote. The media is one of the most potent vehicles for selling such an identity. China Global Television Network (CGTN), China’s state media vehicle, has a division in Nairobi, Kenya, called CGTN Africa. Though Kenyans, for practical reasons, constitute the majority of CGTN Africa employees, a few are employed from the rest of the continent, and there are more associates and regular contributors to the network who are found across Africa, South Africa included. Apart from working closely with South African journalists, Chinese media also wants a presence in South African media. 

South African media has an illustrious history. It helped to rally international support against apartheid, and since the advent of the democratic order has helped to promote democracy and expose wrongdoing. As South Africa’s biggest trade partner for almost a decade and a half, China claims a considerable portion of South Africa’s media attention both in private and public media. Coverage of China remains diverse due to the varied nature of media in South Africa, though there has been a wide-reaching effort by Chinese players to be involved in South African media. Chinese officials from the Embassy and Consulate have written pieces for South African media platforms. These pieces have underscored the mutual importance that China and South Africa seem to hold toward each other, no doubt demonstrated by the fact that in his ten years as President of China, Xi Jinping has made four state visits to South Africa. 

Chinese state media comprises “a relatively small footprint in South Africa, comprising a couple of channels on satellite television, a small number of mainland Chinese journalists working mainly in Johannesburg.” The lone office of the People’s Daily Online in Johannesburg was established in 2010 and publishes its contents in other papers. This paucity is supplemented by the Chinese acquisition of 20 percent shares in Independent Media, a major private-owned media company in South Africa. The acquisition was done by Interacom Investment Holdings, whose shareholders are China International Television Corporation (CITVC) who are in turn controlled by state-owned by China Central Television (CCTV). Thus, similar to what the case is in the political arena, wherein China is building relations with the incumbent party and the opposition, in the media domain the same is the case as Chinese media interests straddle South Africa’s public and private media. 

Barry van Wyk has argued that another avenue for Chinese involvement in South Africa media is the use of “South African Chinese media operations, whose content is privately produced locally by Chinese residents.” African Times stands out as an active homegrown Chinese media platform in South Africa. A cursory look at the stories of African Times, and the contributors thereof, tells you that the platform accommodates journalists or writers who have angered certain quarters of South Africa, mostly the Western-aligned quarters. The controversial Mahasha Rampedi, previously known as Piet Rampedi, is an example. An active contributor to African Times, Rampedi uses the platform to lambast the West while drawing attention to the positive features of China’s growing global prominence. In one piece, titled The West’s Efforts To Counter The BRI Prove The Success Of The Initiative, he  posits that “if the current infrastructure and economic development in Africa and other regions are anything to go by, Xi has been vindicated. His key ideas have proven to be successful and are transforming and improving people’s lives in developing countries. Look at a country like Tanzania, for instance. When the East African country signed the BRI agreement in 2018, the Tanzania-China trade stood at $3.8 billion. Four years later, in 2022, it had more than doubled to $8.3 billion.” More such stories are to be found on African Times and, when backed up with real numbers of how Chinese démarches such as the Belt and Road Initiative are transforming i.e. improving African lives, they are difficult to dismiss. 

The target market for some of China’s media involvement in South Africa seems to be the elite, people whose influence can shape policy. This is borne out by the fact that publication is done in English. This links the current piece to the two preceding ones in that the English media is more likely to be read by the political elite and academics, two of the prongs that are crucial to influencing perceptions of China in South Africa. However, due to South Africa’s political makeup, one in which incumbents owe their position to voters, media involvements must take this reality into cognizance. 

To ensure widespread coverage, accessible to ordinary South Africans, Chinese media platforms in South Africa have Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) accounts, platforms that have a wide following in South Africa, but are not available in China. This is crucial for the following reasons or numbers; out of South Africa’s 62 million people, 43.48 million were internet users at the start of 2023, when internet penetration stood at 72.3 percent. 25.80 million were social media users in January 2023, about 41.6 percent of the total population. Additionally, a “total of 112.7 million cellular mobile connections were active in South Africa in early 2023, with this figure equivalent to 187.4 percent” of the 60.14 million South Africans before the release of data that put the population at 62.03 million later in the year. To conclude, China will naturally favour media coverage that vaunts its virtues; this, however, should be accompanied by genuine benefits emanating from South Africa-China relations.