Chinese media kept a close watch on the violence in Kenya following the December 27 elections that resulted in the deaths of more than 300 people and the displacement of at least 250,000.
China has substantial investments in the east African nation, including telecommunications projects, infrastructure construction, and oil prospecting by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
China is also helping the Kenyan armed forces modernize. Military exchanges between the two countries began in 1996, and April 1997 saw the delivery of the first batch of Chinese made Y-12 aircraft to the Kenyan air force. During his visit to Nairobi this past November, Chinese defense minister Cao Gangchuan pledged to president Kibaki that Beijing would continue to support the country's military modernization.
Bilateral trade between the two countries hit a record high of $646 million in 2006. This represented a 36.1 percent increase over the previous year. In December 2007, amid the global "Made in China" recall scare, Xinhua ran this report by its Nairobi correspondent. The story discusses the fact that cheap Chinese consumer goods have been extremely beneficial to the Kenyan people, nearly half of whom live below the poverty line.
It was against this backdrop that on January 3 Xinhua and People's Daily both ran the exact same opinion piece discussing the turmoil that has ravaged Kenya. Initially published in Guangzhou Daily, the official newspaper of the Guangzhou municipal party committee, the article characterized protests by Kenya's opposition "Orange Democratic Movement" (ODM) over alleged vote-rigging as "street-corner politicking":
The world has seen such "street-corner politicking" before. Five years ago in Georgia, four years ago in Ukraine, and three years ago in Kyrgyzstan, there were conflicts resulting from protests by the opposition following a presidential election. Of course, in the above-stated cases, "street-corner politicking" was mostly carried out in a peaceful fashion, and these episodes were labeled "color revolutions" - because there was a hint of American intervention throughout…
The article found "no hint of Western meddling" in the Kenyan elections, but went on to attribute the subsequent turbulence to the "multi-party system that the United States has been promoting in Africa":
After Kenya gained independence in December 1963, its first president was the pro-Western Kenyatta. Under his leadership, corruption was rampant and the economy deteriorated. In 1978, Moi succeeded Kenyatta as president. Under what the West called a "dictatorship," the economy picked up. The economic growth rate in 1984 was five percent, the highest in Africa. Subsequently, Kenya began to practice American style "democracy" - the multi-party system. Domestic unrest ensued and the economy began to weaken…
Conspicuous by its absence from the piece is any mention of the tribal strife that has plagued this part of Africa for generations. The omission is puzzling, since political and economic domination by the Kikuyus in Kenya is clearly identified in other Xinhua and People's Daily reports as a key factor in the current crisis.
Violence in Kenya appears to be subsiding as president Kibaki and ODM leader Odinga moved closer toward negotiations after their respective meetings with assistant secretary of state Jendayi Frazer. It will be interesting to see how Chinese media characterize efforts by the United States to mediate this potentially disastrous humanitarian crisis.
