POSTPONED: Competing for Soft Power: China's Image-Making in Africa

Maria Repnikova is an associate professor of communication at Georgia State University and holds the William C. Pate Chair in Strategic Communication. She studies Chinese political communication and also compares information politics in China and Russia. Her earlier book, Media Politics in China, won awards. She holds an Oxford doctorate and was a Rhodes Scholar.

A university book talk drawn from the new Cambridge University Press title. The book names three mechanisms of Chinese image-making: tangible enticement, ideational promotion and censorial power. It draws on fieldwork in Ethiopia, where Chinese messengers improvise on official agendas and Ethiopian audiences negotiate that influence. It also finds that many people there still look to the West as a professional standard.

The book questions the common claim that China is replacing the West in the Global South, and Repnikova speaks from firsthand research. The Asia Policy Program hosts the talk on the UT campus, and the listing is open to students, staff, faculty, alumni and the general public. It suits anyone in Austin following foreign policy, media or China-Africa relations.