By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, April 8: A whopping 12-page advertisement spread entitled “50 years of Democratic Reform in Tibet” at first appeared “remarkably like editorial content” to an American blogger, thanks to The Daily Times of Malawi for running a bizarre ad for China on Monday.
“To my eye, this spread looked far more like editorial content – a newsmagazine, perhaps. This illusion is aided by the statement, which appears on all twelve pages, reading ‘Supplement to The Daily Times’,” blogger John Duffel writes on his blog.
“At no point is there any indication of who wrote, or paid for, these twelve pages. It blends in so well with the surrounding editorial content, I myself was not aware that it was an advertisement at all, until I had almost finished reading it,” he adds.
Duffell later found out that the advertisement, extolling the virtues of China’s policies in Tibet, was paid for by none other than the Chinese Embassy in Malawi.
In a letter along with a copy of the newspaper supplement sent to Passport, a blog by editors of Foreign Policy, Duffell further writes:
“I’m an American who’s been living in southern Malawi for nearly a year and a half. Yesterday (Monday) morning, during a trip to town, I picked up a copy of Malawi’s “Daily Times” newspaper to find a 12-page advertisement celebrating “50 years of democratic reform in Tibet.” It’s mostly about how grateful the people of Tibet are that China has reclaimed what’s rightfully hers, and given them freedom at long last. […] The ad spread looks remarkably like editorial content, and I’ve since learned that it was paid for by the Chinese Embassy in Malawi.”
As has been widely reported, the Chinese government is launching a massive “external propaganda” mission by providing substantial funding to create media that will be broadcast and distributed overseas.
Apparently, this effort now includes Malawi, a landlocked country in Southeast Africa.
Malawi is among the world’s least developed and most densely populated countries. The Malawian government depends heavily on outside aid to meet development needs.
“It’s not news that China is waging a public relations campaign along with its economic expansion in Africa, but it’s a bit hard to understand why Malawians would care that much about Tibet, or why China would care that much what they think,” Passport comments.
There’s more info on Duffell’s blog, including a bizarre conversation with the newspaper’s editor, which, in part, reads:
“I have been told by the paper’s Advertising Manager that the Chinese Embassy in Malawi is responsible for the ad. I managed to contact the Managing Editor of the paper as well, and I asked him why they printed an advertisement designed to disguise itself as editorial content, and why, instead of clarifying that it was indeed advertising, the paper thought it necessary to incorporate their own logo into the layout of the advertising spread – thereby giving the impression that this advertising content was, in fact, approved by the Daily Times of being “worthy” of its brand. The managing editor insisted that the text reading “ADVERTISING” in the corner of each page provided all the necessary clarification.
When asked whether anyone who wanted could write up a news story – no matter its truth or falsehood – and run it in his paper as advertising, the Managing Editor told me no – there are standards in place, and each advertisement is carefully screened to see if it is worthy of being printed in The Daily Times. The Chinese Embassy’s advertisement, he said, passed this test.
At this point, he began to make some accusations. He accused me of trying to get him sacked from his job, of hating the Chinese, and of being from Tibet myself (though I speak with an American accent) – or being a covert agent of Tibet.
[…] I’ll let you all be the judge of whether I am, in fact, a Tibetan agent. In the meantime, if you have something you’d like to say to the Editorial Office of The Daily Times, they can be contacted at dailytimes@bnl.bppmw.com.”
Duffel has painstakingly scanned all twelve pages (each one in two parts, 24 scans overall) and and has uploaded them to his Flickr account.
