As the location of the Chinese media’s first big international expansion, Africa has been a testbed. These efforts intensified after the 2008 Olympics, when Chinese leaders were frustrated with a tide of critical reporting, in particular the international coverage of the human rights and pro-Tibet protests that accompanied the torch relay around the world. The following year China announced it would spend $6.6bn strengthening its global media presence. Its first major international foray was CCTV Africa, which immediately tried to recruit highly-respected figures such as Aiyetan.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...nda-xi-jinpingOver the past six years, CGTN has steadily increased its reach across Africa. It is displayed on televisions in the corridors of power at the African Union, in Addis Ababa, and beamed for free to thousands of rural villages in a number of African countries, including Rwanda and Ghana, courtesy of StarTimes, a Chinese media company with strong ties to the state. StarTimes’ cheapest packages bundle together Chinese and African channels, whereas access to the BBC or al-Jazeera costs more, putting it beyond the means of most viewers. In this way, their impact is to expand access to Chinese propaganda to their audience, which they claim accounts for 10m of Africa’s 24m pay-TV subscribers. Though industry analysts believe that these numbers are likely to be inflated, broadcasters are already concerned that StarTimes is edging local companies out of some African media markets. In September, the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association warned that “If StarTimes is allowed to control Ghana’s digital transmission infrastructure and the satellite space … Ghana would have virtually submitted its broadcast space to Chinese control and content.”