China's Media Colonialism
No, this is not a lesson in arts or media study. It's one in geopolitics!
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If there’s one country that takes the “many feathers in you cap” phrase seriously, it’s China. Interestingly enough, one of its many feathers happens to be news channels… in Africa. When China opened its gleaming 16-story Xinhua Tower in Nairobi in 2019, Beijing wasn’t just building Africa’s roads and railways anymore. It was coming for African hearts and minds.
Fast forward to 2026, and the results are… Well, let’s just say these channels are showing headlines, but their viewership isn’t making any.
Despite spending nearly two decades and billions of dollars building a media empire across Africa, China has hit a stubborn roadblock. Africans still prefer the BBC and CNN. By a lot.
The Infrastructure Is There. The Viewers Aren’t
China’s media footprint in Africa is massive. According to a 2024 report by Africa Centre for Strategic studies, Xinhua News Agency operated 37 bureaus across the continent. That’s more than any other news organization on Earth. China Global Television Network (CGTN) has had its Africa headquarters in Nairobi since 2012, broadcasting in English, French, and Swahili. China Radio International beams across the airwaves. China Daily prints a dedicated Africa edition.
On paper, all of this seems impressive. In practice? Not so much.
In key markets like Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria, only 6-11% of people watch CGTN at least once a week. Meanwhile, the BBC and CNN command 30-40% of weekly viewers in those same countries.
On YouTube, it’s even worse. CGTN Africa’s videos average fewer than 1,000 views. For a global superpower, those are “my cousin’s food vlog” numbers.
So Why Is China Even Doing This?
Because Africa matters. A lot.
By 2050, Africa will be home to more than a quarter of the world’s population. Beijing had poured over $700 billion into Africa by 2023 through its Belt and Road Initiative, building everything from ports to power plants.
But infrastructure deals create friction. Stories about debt traps, labor disputes, and environmental damage keep surfacing in African media. Chinese workers clashing with locals. Loans that countries struggle to repay. The kind of headlines that make Beijing deeply uncomfortable.
Enter state media.
The theory is simple. If China controls the narrative, it can paint itself as a benevolent partner rather than a neo-colonial power. Positive stories about “win-win cooperation” and “South-South solidarity” replace investigative pieces about exploitative mining operations or questionable lending practices.
It’s soft power 101. And it’s been an official element of Chinese Communist Party military policy since 2003, labeled as “media warfare.”
The goal isn’t just about selling a story. It’s about shaping the information ecosystem itself. By training thousands of African journalists on all-expenses-paid trips to China, offering free syndicated content to cash-strapped local newsrooms, and hiring recognizable African TV anchors, China is trying to make its perspective feel local rather than foreign.
According to the report by Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, 500 Kenyan journalists and local staff were employed by Chinese media agencies, dispatching 1,800 news items monthly. That’s a lot of content flowing into the African information space.
The African Verdict: Not Buying It
But China’s strategy has hit a wall. Africans aren’t stupid.
They can tell when they’re being fed propaganda. And Chinese state media has a... vibe problem.
“Constant ‘good news’ starts to feel like propaganda,” is how the Bloomberg report put it.
CGTN’s editorial meetings are dominated by Chinese Communist Party members. African journalists at these outlets quickly learn that anything critical of China or its partners is off-limits.
The result? Stilted, defensive coverage that feels more like a government press release than actual journalism.
Since 2021, Beijing has installed leaders who closely follow guidance from headquarters, spurring many talented African journalists to leave for Al Jazeera or Turkey’s TRT.
Focus groups in Kenya and South Africa found that even among regular viewers of Chinese state media, opinions of China were “predominantly negative.”
Interestingly, while Africans appreciate Chinese investment (a 2025 Afrobarometer survey found 60% view China’s influence positively), they still overwhelmingly reject the Chinese governance model. 71% prefer democracy, 81% reject one-party rule, and 80% reject authoritarian governance.
In other words, Africans like Chinese money, not Chinese politics.
The One Thing That’s Actually Working
If there’s a bright spot in China’s African media strategy, it’s StarTimes. It’s a Chinese satellite-TV company that operates very differently from state broadcasters.
StarTimes reaches about 10 million users in 37 African countries. The secret? It’s not trying to be a news outlet.
Instead, StarTimes offers cheap entertainment through Chinese kung fu movies dubbed in Swahili, soap operas, football, and crucially, local African content mixed in with everything else. Monthly packages start as low as $4, making it accessible to millions who can’t afford premium services.
It’s the “own the pipes” strategy. If you control the infrastructure people use to watch TV, you don’t need them to actively choose Chinese content. It just flows through naturally alongside everything else they’re watching.
StarTimes has also installed satellite dishes in 10,000 rural African homes across 20 African countries. Free hardware. Free access. Maximum reach.
This is influence at scale. It’s subtle, economic, and far more effective than CGTN’s earnest attempts at journalism.
Soft Colonialism? Not Quite. But...
While researching for this article, we did have a concerning question come up. Is this digital colonialism in disguise?
The answer is more than a simple yes or no.
China isn’t forcibly occupying African newsrooms or shutting down local media. What it’s doing is more subtle. It’s creating dependencies. When local outlets rely on free Xinhua content because they can’t afford original reporting, when journalists get trained in China and learn to self-censor, when cheap Chinese digital TV becomes the default entertainment option in rural areas, the information ecosystem shifts.
Xinhua’s content-sharing agreement with Kenya’s Nation Media Group gave the Chinese state news agency access to 8 radio and television stations across 4 countries, 28 million social media followers, and 90,000 daily newspaper circulations. That’s not really occupation, but it’s strong influence.
The concern isn’t about kung fu movies or documentaries about Chinese pandas. It’s about what doesn’t get covered. When African outlets become dependent on Chinese money or content, investigative stories about problematic Chinese projects start to disappear. Self-censorship becomes the path of least resistance.
Reporters Without Borders issued warnings about this in 2018, urging democratic governments and media organizations to push back against Beijing’s efforts to reshape global information flows.
But if it’s colonialism, it’s the softest kind imaginable, because it requires willing participation from African governments and media companies. And that participation is happening precisely because China’s approach is less intrusive than Western alternatives.
Meanwhile, The West Shoots Itself In The Foot
And while China is doubling down on African media, the West is retreating.
The BBC, despite maintaining the largest foreign bureau outside the UK in Kenya, has been shifting parts of its Africa output away from TV and radio toward digital-only formats. Budget pressures and strategic pivots have left gaps.
But the biggest flub? The Trump administration shut down Voice of America in 2025, gutting the U.S. Agency for Global Media that funded American international broadcasting.
Russian state media celebrated. China’s Global Times called it “an awesome decision.” And just like that, a major Western voice exited the African information space precisely when authoritarian alternatives were expanding.
The void left by VOA is now being filled by Chinese and Russian outlets, both of which have been aggressively expanding their presence since 2022.
The Takeaway
So here’s where we land. Larger, more powerful countries are taking the “global is the new local” idea a bit too far. Every powerful country wants its neighbours and partners to be an extension of itself.
To that end, these titans choose many forms of soft power to strong-arm smaller, weaker countries. The US has its tariffs, Europe has its own sanctions, and China has a bit of everything. As we said in the beginning, media is just one of the many feathers China is adding to its hats.
And when all else fails, these behemoths can always choose war at their convenience.
Until the media and geopolitics clean up, ReadOn!