Reflections on the legacy of Jiang Zemin, China’s president from 1993 to 2003, who passed away on Wednesday, emphasized how he presided over a decade of explosive economic growth. Fewer have pointed out that he was also a key architect of China’s current relationship with Africa.
After the Mao era, emblematized by Chinese involvement in African anti-colonial struggles, the relationship went dormant as China focused on building economic ties ...
Category: Social Media
One of China’s Leading Mideast Scholars Expresses Sympathy For Iranian Protestors, Testing the Limits of What’s Acceptable in His Own Country
One of China's most prominent Mideast scholars, Fan Hongda from the Middle East Studies Institute at Shanghai International Studies University, is expressing solidarity with anti-government protestors in Iran on social media. At the same time, he's pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable online speech for a Chinese ...
Indian Rumor Sparks Weekend of Baseless Speculation About Coup in China
All weekend there was wild speculation on both Indian and U.S. Twitter that Chinese President Xi Jinping had been placed under house arrest and that a military coup had taken place in Beijing. There was no coup, of course, ...
African Exploitation Videos Are Big Business on Chinese Social Media
The recent BBC documentary "Racism for Sale" pointed a powerful spotlight on the popular Chinese "blessing video" business that is both highly exploitative and very profitable. These videos feature Africans and people from other developing regions, often ...
Chinese Netizens Aren’t Keen to Bail Out Sri Lanka
While international calls grow louder for China to restructure Sri Lanka's debt obligations, a very different conversation is going on in Chinese media and online communities. Antara Ghosal Singh, an expert on Chinese domestic development and a fellow at the New ...
BBC Documentary Sparks More Reflective, Less Racist Discussion on Chinese Social Media
It took a few days, but the BBC Africa documentary "Racism for Sale," which showcased the trend of Chinese merchants selling offensive videos online that exploit Africans, finally made it over the Great Firewall and is now the subject of lively online discussions. ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Jiang Zemin Created the Africa-China Relationship As We Know It Today
TRANSLATION: Please Stop Now! Stop Exploiting African Children!!!
"Africa Bob" (波布非洲) is a popular Chinese commentator and content creator about African issues on WeChat. The following is a summary translation of his post that reflects on the controversy about the exploitation of African (Malawi) children used to produce short form videos by Chinese merchants. ...
Chinese Embassy in Malawi Responds to Video Controversy With Disingenuous Statement
The Chinese embassy in Malawi's response to the escalating controversy over the exploitative videos uncovered in a new BBC Africa documentary did little to appease critics. The brief statement, published only on its official Twitter account, broadly condemned racism ...
Chinese Social Media is Oddly Quiet About the Racism Accusations Uncovered in the BBC Documentary
Over the weekend, in the run-up to Monday's broadcast of the BBC documentary, some of the staff at the network were bracing for what they expected would be a forceful response from China's online supporters -- both Chinese and foreign. They ...
BBC Doc Tracks Origin of Racist “Shout-Out” Videos Featuring African Children
The BBC debuted a documentary investigating the origin of commissioned videos of African children being coached to recite messages in Chinese that have gone viral in China. These are frequently starkly racist and reveal the prevalence of anti-Black attitudes in China.
A Chinese Appeal For Compatriots Not to Abuse Local Workers in Africa
Earlier this year, the head of security at a Chinese company in Zimbabwe posted videos to his Douyin account (the Chinese equivalent of TikTok) that showed him beating and illegally detaining local workers, according to a story published this week on the Zimbabwe Chinese ...