In Mark Kapchanga’s view, the West, particularly the media, really don’t understand what the Chinese are doing in Africa. Kapchanga, a provocative Nairobi-based journalist and columnist, isn’t shy in arguing his case that on balance China’s presence in Africa is net plus for the continent and its people. The West, he says, just doesn’t have its priorities right in Africa, whereas Beijing’s massive infrastructure spending across the continent is the kind of engagement that has a direct impact on peoples’ lives.
Kapchanga writes a regular column in the fiery Chinese state-owned newspaper The Global Times that unsurprisingly takes a stridently pro-PRC stance. Although the Kenyan journalist does have some critical views of Chinese policy in Africa, few if any of those opinions make it past the newspaper’s censors.
So while Kapchang’s outlook on Sino-African relations in print may be filtered, he doesn’t hesitate in the least when he joins Eric & Cobus for a full debrief on his views about the state of the Chinese in Africa.
Mark Kapchanga is a media and economic consultant. He is a columnist for China’s Global Times newspaper and a former senior economics writer for The Standard newspaper in Kenya. Before that, he worked for the Nation Media Group’s The East African newspaper covering Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi. He intermittently corresponds for Beijing-based Global Times and South Africa’s Africa In Fact. Mark holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) degree from the University of Nairobi, MSC-Financial Economics from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, and an MA in Multimedia Journalism from the University of Kent, United Kingdom. He is currently pursuing a PhD in business reporting.
