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From China With Love or Hate(AllAfrica Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Claims that Chinese investment in the nation's media landscape is symbiotic look far-fetched. Here is why. Three months ago, Chinese Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, toured five African countries, a trip that was initiated by the signing a $7.6 million aid grant to Zimbabwe. Yang's trip came a year after similar visits to various African countries, including Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Algeria. These recent developments underscore China's rapidly increasing influence on the African continent. Over the last decade, China has signed a string of multibillion-dollar deals to build highways, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure in return for rights to African minerals and oil reserves. Sino-African bilateral trade topped $115 billion last year and it continues to grow at a rate of 44% each year. Chinese aid to African countries has grown so much in recent years that it has already outstripped aid provided by the World Development Bank. Many African leaders have hailed Chinese investment as a saviour. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe proclaimed during Yang's visit that Chinese investment "demolishes colonialism". The gushing praise was not surprising, given that African nations are understandably happy to find an alternative to Western nations that have exercised unrivalled influence on the continent since the Soviet Union collapsed. As a result of its enormous investments, China has shown appetite for the continent's media sector, where it has similarly commited funds. Experts reckon that heavy Chinese investment in the African media sector is driven by both commercial and cultural impulses. To achieve commercial and cultural goals, China has invested about $7.2bn to fund the global expansion of state media. As its influence continues to grow, the country seeks to find avenues through which it can transmit its messages and get the global audience to understand its perspectives. China entry into the scramble for the African mind brings it into direct competition with other powers which, for years, have been bombarding Africans with their respective messages. The US has CNN-CNBC, VoA and several channels on payTV bouquets), while Britain has BBC. France has France24 and TV5MondeAfrique, CFI, RFI, Canal+ and AFP. Germany owns Deutsche Welle TV and Radio, while Russia's channel is Russia Today. The Arab world has Al Jazeera as its voice. China's CCTV, a global news channel, has opened an office in Nairobi, Kenya. It is also seeking to increase its African news coverage and has commissioned the production of local programmes. The country's Xhinua News Agency is also represented in many African countries, including Nigeria, and its new items are regularly used by African newspapers. Those familiar with Chinese-owned media concerns in Africa suspect that they have both missionary and mercenary sides. While the missionary side is represented by the benign delivery of its messages through the various media platforms and the treatment of African nations as diplomatic equals, the mercenary side is represented by its biggest private sector player StarTimes. On its launch on the continent, StarTimes offered to assist respective state broadcasters in the digital migration process in exchange for the opportunity to get enough channels to run pay TV services. When it came to Nigeria three years ago, StarTimes, the public was enthusiastic about its arrival, particularly with its promise of cheaper Digital Terrestrial Television, DTT, service. StarTimes was relentless in promoting itself as part of China's direct investment in country and one that pushed a win-win rhetoric. Current evidence, however, decline to support the rhetoric. In Nigeria, StarTimes' operation is the child of a Joint Venture, JV, agreement between her and the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA. There is very little, if anything, to suggest that it is a partnership founded on mutual benefits. The NTA owns 30 per cent equity, which was acquired at a cost of N750million paid by the Federal Government to the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, as operating licence fee. The came into effect on 1 March 2010, first as a trial. Just four months after, it was fully launched. According to the NTAStarTV Network Limited website, the purpose of the agreement is "to provide digital pay television services to Nigerians". This, however, was contrary to what the Federal Government prescribed as the mandate of the agreement. The mandate, the Federal Government stated unambigously, is for NTAStarTV Network Limited to help in the country's march towards digital migration, the deadline of which is 1 January 2015. Though the agreement gives room for part-pay TV and part free-to-air services on their DTT platform, Nigerians have got nothing more than pay TV service. For instance, at the expiration of subscription, subscribers are confronted with immediate loss of access to the payTV platform as well as free-to-air channels. This implies a curtailment of their freedom to information. That, obviously, is small beer to the Chinese, who are used to curtailment of freedoms. There is also the suffocating grip the Chinese company has on the NTA. Terms of the agreement prohibits the NTA from entering into any relationship with another broadcaster, satellite or terrestrial. The NTA was also compelled to annul those it had entered into before the agreement. For this, broadcasters with which NTA had agreements before StarTimes came were forced to remove all broadcasting equipment from sites it shared with the NTA, a stituation that robbed them of the dividends expected on investments in site-sharing with the NTA and in training its engineers. The NTA also lost the income it was making from monies paid for those shared sites. Many observers, locally and internationally, are expected the turn of events, given the reputation of the Chinese for unchastity on the continent. Until early this year, StarTimes' sold first generation decoders, which had been phased out in a number of African countries, to its Nigerian subscribers. This was in total indifference to the fact that Nigeria had committed to migration to the second generation decoders, DVB-T2 technology, as far back as 2008. How and why it got away with this remains a mystery. Industry watchers reckoned that the National Braodcasting Commission was muscled into silence by NTAStarTV Network. StarTimes' sale of first generation decoders provoked anger in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, countries, which in readiness for the digital migration deadline, had adopted DVB-T2 as the standard for digital broadcasting. The anger was on account of the fear that continued sale of first generation decoders may predispose subscribers to unpleasant consequences of having to pay for second generation decoders at the expiration of the digital migration deadline. Kenyan and Ugandan authorities set a deadline for a halt to the use of first generation decoders for 21 December 2012. In both countries, StarTimes was accused of flouting the ban on further importation and sale of DVB-T decoders. According to the Uganda Consumers' Protection Awareness Association (UCPAA), a non-profit consumer rights association, "investigations carried out by the UCPAA in the market and the ongoing advertising subsequent to the announcements indicate that StarTimes continues to sell and distribute DVB-T technology at knockdown prices despite the fact that these STB (Set-Top Boxes) are to be phased out in the near future and will be unable to receive television signals once the UCC sets up its DTT infrastructure, which will support DVB T2 but not DVB T." This sparked fears that StarTimes was planning to dump decoders rejected elsewhere on Nigerians, especially as it continued to run price slash promos of its decoder, offering it for N2,999. StarTimes defended the charge with the claim that it would soon commence the sale of T-2 decoders-despite the country's commitment to T-2 since 2008. The digital migration process, for which StarTimes pledged help, is in the process of being hobbled by its agreement with the NTA. Industry sources claim that the Digital Migration Whitepaper recommends that a minimum of two or a maximum of three signal distributors will be licensed by the government when the transition analogue to digital terrestrial technology begins. The government is in the process of constituting a Digital Implementation Team, which will be made up of industry experts and stakeholders in both the private and public sectors. And with 157 transmission sites across the country, NTA has been recommended as the public broadcasting signal distributor. Industry sources say the leading candidates for the chairmanship of the Digital Implementation Team are former NTA brass. In the event of this happening, the team's first step may be the ratification of the NTA as the signal distributor. This will put in NTA's hands all distribution frequencies in the country, compelling operators to go to the NBC for licensing and the NTA for frequencies. On the surface, this poses no danger. However, with the NTA/StarTimes welded together, it has the potential of ensuring that the control of a field as sensitive as broadcasting is in the hands of a Chinese firm since NTA, which has zero technological function in the DTT roll-out, has yielded this to StarTimes. This also has the potential of encouraging the Chinese to force-feed Nigerians with their soaps and other programmes in a bid to establish a cultural hegemony. And in addition, NTA, as the public signal distributor, will have almost unfettered control over broadcasters, who will be dependent on it for frequencies. The Chinese have a reputation for self-interested policies and attitudes that show scarce concern for where they operate. Indifference to worker welfare has already generated resentment in many African countries. Many infrastructure deals signed by Chinese firms mandate that the majority of labour for the projects must be Chinese, precluding Africans from fully benefitting from the inflow of Chinese investment. This deprives locals of jobs and fosters discontent, as workers cannot reap the expected benefits of the influx of new projects. The limited employment opportunities for African workers have also become synonymous with bad working conditions, low pay or abusive practices. Managers exploiting the cheap labour available in African nations have reportedly dishonored pay contracts and prohibited unions and protests, both of which are actions that reveal a disregard for the rights of workers. In recent years, numerous examples of poor worker treatment have surfaced. In 2007, the government of Niger leased to China Nuclear International Uranium Corporation a tract of land belonging to ethnic Tuaregs, displacing the locals without compensation. With pre-agreed stipulations on the division of labour, few jobs were available for the Tuaregs, and those available were described as hazardous and poorly paid. In addition to concerns over the protection of workers' rights, China has partnered with corrupt governments eager to place foreign economic investment over the well-being of their people. -Tanimu is a public affairs analyst based in Abuja. Copyright This Day. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). |