Chinese official media coverage of Wang Yi’s visit to Nigeria closely adhered to the Foreign Ministry’s three priorities for its policy in Africa: 1) vaccine cooperation, 2) economic recovery and 3) a yet to be defined concept called “transformative development.” 

On the CGTN talk show Dialogue, host Zou Yue spoke with one of China’s most well-known Africa scholars, He Wenping, a research fellow with the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said health security is the paramount concern in China-Africa relations, as long as COVID-19 remains uncontrolled.

The Global Times, however, in keeping with its more provocative tabloid sensibilities, said that any problems in the China-Nigeria relationship are the fault of so-called “Western media” that’s “been stoking up anti-China feeling by pushing the unsubstantiated “debt trap” narrative” and that “hyping discrimination toward Nigerians in China in 2020 cast a shadow over people-to-people exchanges.”

SUGGESTED READING AND VIEWING:

• Global Times: Chinese FM meets Nigerian top officials, consolidating ties with Africa’s largest economy by Chen Qingqing and Li Aixin
• CGTN Africa: Dialogue — Where do China-Africa relations go from here?