Moral Dilemma: How to handle a clueless censor

So our magazine is in the midst of going to print, and our cover story, on Chinese African trade, was rather heavily attacked by the censor (who usually leaves us alone). The biggest problem usually is reference to any issue which the foreign press has spoken negatively about (China can't be involved in mining in Africa, despite the fact I'm saying their involvement is a good thing), but also there's a general cluelessness that Western readers will take something very different from a piece of information than a Chinese reader who has been used to half-truths, and generally doesn't follow what happenings in say, Zimbabwe.

So while I wrote a rather positive article (I'm rather optimistic about Chinese-African trade, as I think is pretty much anyone who has done much research on the subject), the censor took out a lot of my positive points, and replaced them with things that sound almost sarcastic.

I'm editing the last piece, about Zimbabwe, and included in her requests are:

1. Change the headline to "Zimbabwe, still a rosy picture."

2. Note that Zimbabwe ambassador says its the only place "psychologically ready" for Chinese investment

3. Note that trade has improved since 2003.... right when Zimbabwe was suffering from heavy embargoes from the West.

All of these would actually make the article sound more critical of Chinese investment than I actually intended. We can reword things to make it fit the censors demands and the needs of our readers without much problem, but my moral dilemma is whether to leave point 3 in, which again, is more critical than I intend - China hasn't been more involved in Zimbabwe than other countries, and their involvement has often been a positive thing - but it would make my life so much easier.

More on this after we go to press. I'm pretty sure the ministry reads Chinalyst.

Update: Found another one.

I had written at one point a quote from a consultant contradicting some of the things about Chinese investment in Africa: “the largest investor in Zimbabwe is South African businesses; so writing about China’s role is more western bluster than reality."

The censor wanted me to add: Bilateral trade has been growing since [2006], China soon became Zimbabwe’s second largest trade partner after South Africa,

Groan...

Comments

[Phil in China]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1063198/PETER-HITCHENS-How-China-created-new-slave-empire-Africa.html

China in Africa is the Wild West running the Wild, Wild West

[Brad Gardner]

Hey Phil,

I hope you won't take it amiss if i say I think that article is filled with lazy thinking and counter with the one below (I'm going to be direct, but I mean this all in the spirit of polite conversation):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/world/africa/23congo.html

First of all, it should be understood that every single Chinese company can't be directly represented as "China," as China has the largest diaspora of any people in the world.

Second, America is the country with the largest mining presence in the Congo, South Africa is the country with the largest trading presence in Zimbabwe. All the talk about Chinese dominating trade in Africa is nonsense, they are just moving into areas where America and Europe previously dominated faster than America and Europe are expanding their presence. The big take away with my interview with Standard Bank China CEO Craig Bond was that the financial crisis is an opportunity for China to make its presence larger than US/Europe.

Last, The deal which China recently negotiated (and is now renegotiating) with the Congo was amazingly good from the congolese side. Its all going towards infrastructure development, it should bring basic medical services to a giant swath of the population (over 100 clinics are being built), which is an important thing in a country where 45000 people die a month due to lack of basic medical services. From the Zambian point of view, the Chinese presence has largely been acknowledged as bringing huge amount of jobs into the economy, and Mr. Sata's campaign was largely based on the issue of Chinese stealing Zambian jobs because of the amount of attention he got from western press for that one issue (which was originally a fairly small issue on his platform). Every Chinese company I spoke to said that it simply wasn't cost efficient for them to bring Chinese in to do jobs that could be done by Africans.

My article was rather positive towards Chinese engagement in Africa, particularly in the congo, where congolese journals are equally positive, but my censor had read all this nonsense written by people like Peter Hitchens and assumed that I was obliquely referring to it when I said that China had set up its Zambian free trade zone in the middle of the copper belt. Yes China is interested in African minerals, and that fact alone is creating a middle class in Africa. Something which the West has consistently failed to do.

[JPoz]

Don't know where you are, but in France when the topic of China and Africa are put together there tends to be negativity and you can feel the sentiment reverberate across many places in Europe. Even if China is doing the exact same thing other countries are doing in Africa there seems to be a general feeling it's presence is bad, which is a very odd sentiment. No idea why this is, maybe people believe whatever they read but there is a negative trend especially in the west regarding Chinese activity in Africa.

[Brad Gardner]

The main people I conversed with for the story were South Africans, who were all fairly optimistic. I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about, or nothing bad happening in relation to Chinese-African trade. That's particularly the case on the lower levels, a lot of my interviewees (the Standard Bank CEO particularly), said that State Owned Enterprises are much better corporate citizens in Africa. There are also controversies relating to Chinese goods entering Africa (Africans simply can't compete in manufacturing), but I don't think many people expect closing African borders to trade to be helpful.

I'll post some of my main findings on the website after the meeting I have this afternoon (I'm in Beijing btw)

[Phil in China]

No problem, Brad....I had recently found the Hitchens' article and was just startin' dialogue!

Great article (by you!)

[Brad Gardner]

I have to figure out the tonal difference between responding and berating.

But you can understand my frustration when my point of view on the issue almost sounds like propaganda to the Western reader, but my God damn censor said I was writing from the point of view of "Chinese new colonialism." Or my favorite, that I have "Wrong point of view, wrong theory, wrong tone."

I'm going to try to post my story on the Congo, which had to be totally cut. We were completely baffled as to why at first (as you see my position is quite positive).. but in the end I think it was just that the Chinese government believes if they don't say they are mining, then no one will know that they are.

China also doesn't want anyone to know that they dominate the textile markets. Which might be worth a blog post right now.