"Since the 2000s, China has deepened public relations in its engagement with Africa primarily through economic investment and assistance. The present work looks at China’s African public relations and the mechanism that shapes public perception of China, focusing on Mali. Mali is not a major desti
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nation for Chinese investment, yet public perceptions of China appear to be uniquely positive. How may we explain this trajectory? The work undertakes a longitudinal examination, comparing China’s economic developments in Mali (2010–20) with Malians’ perception of China’s influence on the Malian economy that shapes the general perception and attitude towards China (2010–20) and the media’s role in this process. Some questions guide this study: how do Chinese economic activities in Mali shape Malians’ perception of China? How does the media contribute (if any) to shaping Malian perception of China’s developmental programmes? Employing a mixed research method and a range of datasets, I find that economic investment does not necessarily shape positive public perception of China in Mali. Instead, how the public receives information about economic investments shapes and enhances a positive perception of China in Mali. Consequently, China would substantially enhance its image-building effort when its foreign economic development assistance is linked with public relations, making economic programmes more visible through media representations. I based the theoretical discussion on the media agenda-setting framework." (Abstract)
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"China in Africa’ has become an irresistible topic in any discussion of China, with the former’s growing engagement with the latter. The unprecedented popularity of Wolf Warrior II in China, which is set in Africa, is a testament to how official propaganda of national selfconfidence can be affir
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med by the public in the form of pop culture. The film’s controversial and stereotypical portrayal of Africa and its deliberate imitation of the Hollywood genre are the reasons for its attention among different groups. To date, however, feedback from international audiences, both in terms of common feelings and conflicting opinions, has remained under-researched. In order to provide an exploratory study on how Wolf Warrior II is interpreted by Chinese and African audiences in different cultural and social contexts, a comparative analysis of the film’s reception among Chinese and African post-secondary students in different countries was conducted. Ten focus groups were organised, five in mainland China and five in Canada, with a total of thirty-one college students from China and Africa participating. The results showed that Chinese and African audiences have vastly different or even opposing understandings of the ‘China in Africa’ discourse presented in the film. This seems to reflect a problematic but under-addressed aspect of the China-Africa relationship." (Abstract)
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"In recent years, the economic exchanges between China and Latin American countries have been further deepened, and news about Chinese foreign direct investments (FDIs) in the region responds to economic reality and the different stages of changing international relations and media characteristics.
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The current study includes a content analysis by human coders of 308 news articles on Chinese FDIs in three types of Peruvian news outlets from 2001 to 2020, namely the Left-leaning newspaper (La República), the Right-leaning newspaper (El Comercio), and specialized economic news outlets (Gestión Online and Semana Económica). In this context, it explores how international economic news volume is related to real-world economic indexes and how news interpretations of Chinese FDIs, as manifested by news frames, are influenced by contextual and political factors." (Abstract)
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"This book focuses on China’s media diplomacy and its interplay with a range of international conflicts. It assesses the representation and framing of China, as well as the perception and reception of China’s media communication in relation to various crises and conflicts. Including detailed ana
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lyses of many cases, it highlights the complex, fluid and dynamic relationship between media and conflict, and discusses how this both exemplifies and also affects China’s relations with the outside world." (Publisher description)
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"Drawing on field observations and extensive interviews, this study investigates how Kenyan media practitioners exercise their agency when interacting with Chinese stakeholders. When dealing with Chinese stakeholders or China-related stories, Kenyan media practitioners developed three strategies to
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exercise their journalistic agency: (a) situational negotiation, (b) collective reflection, and (c) resistance, through which they have approached, negotiated with, and resisted their relations with their Chinese counterparts. This article challenges the misconceptions that Chinese media organizations always hold a powerful position vis-à-vis African media organizations, and that African agents are dependents or innocent victims with neither agency nor creativity." (Abstract)
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"This study assesses the impact of China’s mediated communication strategies implemented in Latin America from 2013 to 2021. We content-analyzed the press coverage about China in nine countries and unveiled tones, topics, and frames which were then examined further across different sources. Public
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sentiments toward China were gauged to infer a potential link to China’s communication efforts. Overall, China’s program to influence Latin American media outlets and public opinion has not resulted in substantial gains; the region’s sentiment toward China actually deteriorated. There is a communication gap between Chinese and Latin American publics, which is inimical to public diplomacy." (Abstract)
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"Vietnamese nationalism has a strong undercurrent of anti-China sentiments, and Vietnam’s leaders have regularly tapped into such sentiments to shore up their legitimacy and boost Vietnamese nationalism. Over the last decade, the helter-skelter growth of social media has bred new popular actors in
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Vietnamese cybersphere, who are deeply nationalistic but who pursue entirely different political and social agendas. In sum, they give rise to a new nationalistic narrative, one that paints the Vietnam Communist Party as being often too meek and subservient to China, and calls for drastic reforms to the political system—regime change not excluded—to deal with Chinese threats. An examination of prominent cases of online Vietnamese nationalism shows that anti-China sentiments have been a recurrent theme and a consistent trigger. The online nationalistic movements have been mostly instigated by popular figures, with state actors playing a facilitating role in stoking and harnessing them for their own ends. Manifestations of online nationalism, especially those centred on anti-China and sovereignty issues, may hold serious consequences, including violence and deadly riots. In some instances, online nationalistic campaigns both galvanize and dissipate relatively quickly once state and popular actors have somehow managed to achieve their aims. The growing salience of online Vietnamese nationalism has posed serious challenges and dilemmas for the regime. The authorities have had to encourage nationalistic patriotism without letting Sinophobia spiral out of control or turn against the regime." (Executive summary)
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"China does not seem to have a regional soft-power strategy and prefers bilateral relations with SEE countries. Institutional ties take the shape of Friendship Associations, business bodies or twinning agreements which, however, rarely live up to expectations. Scientific cooperation between numerous
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universities and thinktanks is of dubious quality to date and there are relatively few scholarships granted to SEE beneficiaries. Confucius Institutes and Classrooms as well as Chinese cultural centres are mushrooming across the region, though the precise number of beneficiaries is hard to verify. History is a key component of China’s cultural diplomacy, but modern Chinese culture is not popular in the region. Beijing seeks to influence the media sector in several formal and less formal ways. Yet, a number of negative reports in the regional media reveal controversial contracts awarded to Chinese companies, if not outright corruption." (Executive summary)
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"The sixth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) co-hosted by China and South Africa in Johannesburg was historic in that it was an event to chart the next stage of China-Africa relations. The event was also symbolic in showcasing that FOCAC is co-owned by China and Africa. In view of the growin
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g China-Africa relationship under FOCAC, this study investigates how the media from four main regions in Africa framed this FOCAC. The voices that narrate the FOCAC story, dominant themes and tones were examined from the selected media in South Africa (The Star), Kenya (Daily Nation), Nigeria (Vanguard) and Egypt (Ahram Online). The findings shows that voices of Chinese officials dominated the media in South Africa and Kenya while African voices were given overwhelming focus in Nigeria and Egypt. Optimistic frames and themes were largely used by the media. On the whole, there is evident convergence of outcomes of FOCAC and the narratives in the media which suggests more balanced representation of the China-Africa relations. However, there is bias towards hard and event focused news at the expense of in-depth features that create understanding on fundamental issues such as how FOCAC interacts with the African development goals. Against this view, it is argued that the challenge for the media in Africa is to explore more approaches for effective narratives that dispel misrepresentations and resultant misunderstandings about FOCAC and the China-Africa relationship." (Abstract)
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"This article examines global representation of the primary continental imperialisms reshaping contemporary Africa: the parallel expansionist exercises of China (centering on commercial expansion) and of the United States (centering on military expansion). Our analysis assesses the current state of
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these continent-wide involvements and sets out the background of how US-African and Sino-African relationships have been portrayed by news media. We then analyze how both Chinese and US expansions in Africa are represented by three prominent global media organizations online: Al Jazeera English, BBC and CNN. This research concludes that global media report modern imperialism in Africa mostly in ways that support the imperial project rather than mobilize resistance toward it." (Abstract)
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"The prevailing consumerism in Chinese cyberspace is a growing element of Chinese culture and an important aspect of this book. Chinese bloggers, who have strongly embraced consumerism and tend to be apathetic about politics, have nonetheless demonstrated political passion over issues such as the We
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stern media’s negative coverage of China. In this book, Jiang focuses upon this passion — Chinese bloggers’ angry reactions to the Western media’s coverage of censorship issues in current China — in order to examine China’s current potential for political reform. A central focus of this book, then, is the specific issue of censorship and how to interpret the Chinese characteristics of it as a mechanism currently used to maintain state control. While Cyber-Nationalism in China examines fundamental questions surrounding the political implications of the Internet in China, it avoids simply predicting that the Internet does or does not lead to democratization. Applying a theoretical approach based on the Foucauldian notion of governmentality, the book builds on current scholarship that has attempted to move beyond examining the dynamics of the socio-cultural and political use of new media technologies." (Publisher description)
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