China's 'People's Daily' launches Swahili edition

China’s official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party has launched a Swahili edition, signalling intent to bring Beijing’s narrative closer to the African continent.

The People’s Daily, which is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, on Saturday said it has added Swahili among foreign languages in which its news is published.

Launched on September 1, but publicised on Saturday, the Swahili version of the People’s Daily means the paper is the third Chinese media to have a Swahili version after China Radio International (CRI) and Xinhua News Agency.

In a statement released by China’s state-owned media outlet, the Swahili version is part of its expansion efforts across the world with programmes targeting new regions, groups and content categories.

The People’s Daily began only as a print medium in 1948 but today runs web content published in Chinese, English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Russian and Japanese. Its history is comparable to the age of the People’s Republic of China which was formed in 1949.

Local languages

The Chinese are often seen as rivals of the West in Africa. The launch of Swahili version, however, depicts a giant following the footsteps of the West. In their conquest of the continent, the West brought their media too, to tell their story, and published content in local tongues.

Under President Xi Jinping’s school of thought — known as the Xi Jinping Thought — he has focused on cultural interactions, which Beijing called people-to-people relations. People’s Daily said it will provide citizens of Swahili speaking nations with information about China's politics, economy, society, culture, science, and education, among other subjects.

“The move will facilitate exchanges between Chinese people and people in the Swahili speaking countries,” said the paper.

“The move further lays a foundation for People’s Daily Online to build a multi-language, multi-terminal, all-media, full-coverage, world-class news outlet that is global in scope,” it added.

Since the inception of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — which birthed Nairobi’s standard gauge railway (SGR) — the Asian giant has always accused Western media of being biased in their reporting hence trying to tell its own stories from a Chinese perspective, with the latest development by the media house which was started by the powerful Central Committee of CPC being part of the broader plan.

Communications capacity

“The launch of the Swahili versions is an important step by People’s Daily Online to further bolster and improve its international communications capacity, which always strives to adopt communication methods targeting audiences from different regions, countries and groups, in this way better telling China’s stories, and presenting a true, multi-dimensional and panoramic view of China to the world,” the media elucidated.

BRI is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever conceived. It brings back memories of the original Silk Road, which connected Europe to Asia and parts of Africa centuries ago, enriching traders along the way. However, China’s project is viewed as a “debt-trap” for developing countries.

Also unveiled on Wednesday by China's biggest media was the Italian and Kazakh online news platforms.

With the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (Focac) set to mark its 21st anniversary next month, China’s Director General for African Affairs Wu Peng, who is also the country’s former ambassador to Kenya said since Swahili is one of the most spoken languages in Africa, the move by People’s Daily will gear up Sino-Africa relations.

China is Africa’s largest trading partner.

Meanwhile, Africa is now the second largest overseas project contracting market and fourth largest overseas investment destination for China.