Category: Soft Power

For the second year in a row, the Women's Chinese Super League (WCSL), China's professional soccer league, awarded its top prize to an African player. 20-year old Zambian forward Barbara Banda took home the Golden Boot this week thanks to an impressive 18-goal season with ...

After he scored his 50th goal on Monday, Congolese forward Cédric Bakambu became the all-time scoring leader for Beijing Guoan in the Chinese Super League. The Chinese embassy in Kinshasa noted the achievement on Twitter.

The hugely popular Chinese-owned African pay-TV service StarTimes has always tried to put some distance between itself and the Chinese government, reminding anyone who asks that it is a private enterprise. Regardless of its status, the company is nonetheless a powerful ...

There's been a surge of media coverage in recent days about African athletes, mostly soccer players, in China. Both the men's and women's Chinese Super Leagues have spent big money in recent years to lure top-level talent from Africa and now those investments are starting to pay ...

Just by looking at social media and news coverage in countries like Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, it would be safe to assume that China-Africa ties are in serious trouble. The prevailing narrative in many countries is one where Africa is ...

The Chinese embassy in Cameroon posted a short, seemingly innocuous video today that commemorated 40 years of development in Shenzhen, a once-sleepy fishing town near Hong Kong that is now one of the world's leading tech hubs with a population of 13+ million people. ...

2020 has been a tough year for China's soft power engagement in Africa. A furious backlash to anti-African discrimination in Guangzhou in April, growing public hostility to Chinese debt and, of course, questions about Chinese accountability for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic ...

China's apparent unwillingness to engage Nigerian civil society in a discussion over the ongoing loan controversy is eroding what's left of Beijing's credibility in the media, politics and among the country's enormous young, online population that gets most of its news from social media. ...

After months of waiting anxiously, reports of the COVID-19 virus spreading across is now a daily occurrence. As of today, there are 1198 confirmed cases in 41 African countries. Most of Africa's 1.3 billion people live in ...

The U.S. government-funded human rights and free speech organization Freedom House published a scathing report Wednesday about China's stepped-up efforts to influence media at home and abroad, particularly in developing regions like Africa. “Beijing has a large toolbox ...

Kenya is the epicenter of China's media presence in Africa, with Nairobi hosting the regional headquarters of CGTN and an expanded presence by the state-run news service Xinhua. Also, Kenya is one of the largest markets for Chinese-owned private sector media and technology companies like the pay-TV ...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on his way back home today after wrapping a busy weekend visiting three African countries to wrap up his latest African tour. He also made an unscheduled stop in Nairobi. For all intents and purposes, ...