Winds from the East: How the People's Republic of China Seeks to Influence the Media in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia

The Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy will hold an an afternoon panel discussion on the PRC and media in Washington, DC.

As Western news outlets have cut their overseas staffs and U.S. and European governments have allocated fewer resources for international training and support, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has made media aid a high priority in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. By using various components of public diplomacy to influence the media sector in these areas, the PRC is attempting to present China as a reliable friend and partner and to create a positive image for itself. A new CIMA report by Douglas Farah and Andrew Mosher, Winds From the East: How the People's Republic of China Seeks to Influence the Media in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, examines the Chinese government's efforts to reshape much of the world's media in its own image. The authors argue that such activities shift the media's role away from a watchdog stance toward the government to one where the government's interests are the paramount concern in deciding what to disseminate. The report calls on media development implementers and those who fund them to take note, as China's efforts also often result in helping authoritarian governments expand control over their local media, while working to undermine the democratic model of a free and independent media.

About the authors:

Douglas Farah is the president of IBI Consultants and a Senior Fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. He is a national security consultant and analyst. Previously, he served as a foreign correspondent and investigative reporter for the Washington Post for two decades, covering Latin America and West Africa. He has also written for the Boston Globe and US News & World Report, among other publications. Farah was awarded the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Foreign Correspondence in 1988 for a Washington Post series on right-wing death squads in El Salvador. He also received Columbia University's Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 1995 for outstanding coverage of Latin America. Farah is the author of Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror (2004) and Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes and the Man Who Makes War Possible (2007). He holds bachelor's degrees in Latin American Studies and in Journalism from the University of Kansas.

Andy Mosher is a law school student at Georgetown University and a media consultant, who has worked closely with CIMA and the International Research & Exchanges Board. He is the author of a CIMA report, Good, but How Good: Monitoring and Evaluation of Media Assistance Projects. He spent 28 years in the newspaper business, most recently with the Washington Post, where, between 1990 and 2008, he was deputy foreign editor, foreign copy chief, and national business editor. In 2000, Mosher trained journalists in Zambia as a Knight International Journalism Fellow. A native of California, he attended the University of San Francisco.

About the Discussant:

Deborah Bräutigam is a professor in the International Development Program at American University's School of International Service, where her research focuses on China-Africa relations, foreign aid, industrialization, state-building, and development. A long-time observer of Asia and Africa, she has lived in China, West Africa, and Southern Africa, and traveled extensively across both regions as a Fulbright researcher and consultant for the World Bank, the UN, and other development agencies. Bräutigam is the author of The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Oxford University Press, 2009), as well as publications on foreign aid and governance; taxation and state-building; and comparative development in Africa and Asia. Her blog, chinaafricarealstory.com, delves into the myths and realities of China's African engagement.