Archives: Dispatches

On September 5, 2022, Du Xiaohui (杜曉暉), China’s ambassador to Zambia, published a signed op-ed titled “The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Is of Great Significance to Zambia” (中非合作論壇對贊比亞意義重大) in three Zambian outlets: the Zambia Daily Mail, the Times of Zambia, and The Mast. The article was timed to promote the outcomes of the eighth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (中非合作論壇) ministerial coordination meeting, held on August 18, 2022 and chaired on the Chinese side by State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (王毅), which was framed around building a “China-Africa community of shared future for the new era” (新時代中非命運共同體). The piece highlighted Chinese-built infrastructure in Zambia — notably the Lower Kafue Gorge 750-megawatt hydropower station, which the ambassador claimed accounts for 22 percent of Zambia’s total generation capacity and made Zambia a net electricity exporter — and promoted China’s support for reactivating the TAZARA railway between Tanzania and Zambia as evidence of ongoing partnership.

On December 6, 2022, Du Xiaohui (杜曉暉), China’s ambassador to Zambia, published a signed op-ed titled “Understanding Universal Human Values Through the 20th Party Congress” (從二十大讀懂全人類共同價值) in four Zambian outlets: the Zambia Daily Mail, the Times of Zambia, the Daily Nation, and The Mast. The article promoted the conclusions of the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress — at which Xi Jinping secured an unprecedented third term as general secretary — to a Zambian audience, arguing that China’s political system embodies universal values including peace, development, democracy, and freedom. It presented China’s “whole-process people’s democracy” (全過程人民民主) as a model of genuine democratic governance, framed Chinese foreign policy as inherently peaceful and non-expansionist, and called on China and Zambia to jointly uphold “the democratization of international relations” (國際關係民主化) — a CCP formulation that in practice refers to resistance to Western-led multilateral norms. Du also cited Xi Jinping’s remarks at the 17th G20 Summit in Bali on November 15, 2022 — in which Xi claimed China had suspended the largest amount of debt service payments of any G20 member — to argue that China was Zambia’s most committed partner on debt relief, at a moment when Zambia was in active debt restructuring negotiations.

On March 28, 2023, Du Xiaohui (杜曉暉), China’s ambassador to Zambia, published a signed op-ed titled “Whether Democracy Is Good, the People Decide” (民主好不好，人民說了算) simultaneously in two Zambian newspapers: the Daily Nation and The Mast. The article argued that democracy takes multiple legitimate forms and that no single model should be imposed on other countries — a standard formulation in CCP discourse used to deflect Western criticism of China’s political system. Invoking Xi Jinping’s dictum that “whether a shoe fits, only the foot knows,” the piece framed China’s “whole-process people’s democracy” (全過程人民民主) as a valid alternative to liberal democratic norms and held up the National People’s Congress session then underway in Beijing as evidence of popular participation in governance. The op-ed dismissed the U.S.-hosted Summit for Democracy as geopolitical bloc-building designed to stoke “camp confrontation and ideological antagonism” (煽動陣營對立和意識形態對抗), and attacked the U.S. State Department’s 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights for its criticism of Zambia and other countries as an affront to “civilizational diversity.” The piece also invoked Xi Jinping’s concept of a “community of shared future for mankind” (人類命運共同體) as the normative framework for international cooperation, in explicit contrast to what it characterized as American hegemonic interference in sovereign affairs. The placement of the op-ed in The Mast — an independent newspaper founded in 2016 by journalist Fred M’membe as a successor to The Post after the latter’s government-pressured liquidation, and one of Zambia’s most prominent critical voices — is notable as an instance of Chinese Embassy messaging reaching beyond state or pliant media.