China Daily Africa: Constructing China’s Soft and Hard Power for Africa’s Security

Abstract

This study applies framing and resource-dependence theories to a content analysis of a census of news articles and reports published in China Daily Africa’s (CDA’s) weekly edition from October 1, 2013, through September 30, 2017. It demonstrates how CDA’s news and reports on China’s modernization program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a dimension of its evolving foreign policy, serve to strengthen and expand its relationships with Africa. Some findings: (a) the hypothesis that CDA’s coverage of BRI will, more often than not, indicate a win-win, symmetrical strategy espoused by China’s government was not supported; (b) the differences between Africa benefitting more than China from BRI and win-win outcomes were statistically significant, by message valence (χ2 [1, N = 704] = 56.09, p < .001), indicating that Africa was mentioned significantly more as benefitting in articles with one-sided message valence than in those with two-sided valence, as were results for win-win outcomes; and (c) the coverage of BRI was more within economic and trade contexts (that is, soft power) than within political (that is, public diplomacy), cultural and educational contexts (soft power) and military contexts (hard power). Such news-coverage patterns suggest a smart-power strategy geared toward enabling maximum regional effects of BRI and toward ensuring Africa’s security.