Gu Xiulian, vice-chair of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), meets with Grace Mugabe, the First Lady of Zimbabwe and head of a visiting women's delegation, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 19, 2007.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Zimbabwe Herald Reporters
A FIVE-MEMBER crew from the Chinese Central Television Channel Six is in Zimbabwe on a post-election tour to counter the negative publicity that the country continues to receive from the Western media.
The five are producer Mrs Wang Ning Tong, who is the leading the group, Mrs Lui Hong, Mr Xiao Quan, Miss Wang Hui Fen and Mr Wang song.
The crew, from one of China’s biggest television stations, is in the country as part of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority’s ongoing Perception Management Programme, which is part of the national marketing strategy aimed at promoting tourism through celebrities, opinion leaders, media and travel agencies from source markets.
ZTA chief executive officer Mr Karikoga Kaseke on Sunday said Zimbabwe had received unprecedented negative publicity from the Western media that had created an impression that the country was a no-go area.
"The visit by CCTV crew brings an opportunity to prove to the world that Zimbabwe is a safe destination and contrary to what the world has been subjected to by the Western media.
"They will have an opportunity to sample the country’s tourism products and package their experiences for their television channel programming when they return to China," said Kaseke.
He urged the Chinese crew to be factual, professional and honest about the situation in Zimbabwe and publicise the truth about what they would have gathered from their tour of the country.
"We will not influence what you are going to produce when you go back to China, but we only ask you to publicise the truth," said the ZTA boss.
He said apart from touring the country, the group was also interested in interacting with the film industry as they had expressed their appreciation of Zimbabwean movies such as Everyone’s Child, Yellow Card, A World Apart and I Can Hear Zimbabwe Calling.
In welcoming the guests at a local hotel, ZTA board member Advocate Martin Dinha said it was the authority’s obligation to gain from the tourism industry and extended his gratitude to the Chinese people for their support.
Adv Dinha said part of ZTA’s efforts was to re-energise the tourism sector towards economic revival and that tourism was a strategic sector that enjoyed quick wins.
Mrs Tong said they were in the country to explore a country most Chinese do not know about.
"Our task here is to open the eyes of the Chinese people about Zimbabwe and also to promote Zimbabwe through every media.
"We have been doing this for the past five years through 40 countries for the Chinese people to understand the world from different countries.
"Focusing on tourism destinations in Zimbabwe is also part of our visit and there are many people intending to visit and this is a good chance to promote Zimbabwe in China," said Mrs Tong.
China has in recent years been strategically placing itself as one of Zimbabwe’s leading tourism market.
CCTV6 will do a documentary that will be shown in China and will also write editorials as part of their pledge to market and package Zimbabwe to the Chinese people.
During their weeklong stay the group will focus on the ancient civilisation of Zimbabwe, its culture and the outstanding film industry.
The crew’s tour will cover destinations like Harare, Great Zimbabwe in Masvingo, Victoria Falls and Hwange.
EDITORIAL
China stuns the world
Published Aug 20, 2008 10:32 PM
Chinese athletes, children, artists and choreographers, 15,000 performers and an abundant display of new technology since the opening of the Beijing Olympics have stunned billions of people around the world. The transnational imperialist-dominated media have left most people unaware of the tremendous progress made in the world’s most populous country since the earthshaking revolution led by Mao Zedong’s Communist Party in 1949, less than 60 years ago.
Perhaps the most shaken up were the U.S. media professionals themselves—that’s a nice way of saying paid propagandists—who were rendered speechless by the opening ceremony. When these pundits got their act together, they were still reduced to nit-picking about the age of Chinese gymnasts and some debatable decisions about lip-synching a song and technologically enhancing some fireworks. Hollywood and U.S. television use these techniques on a regular basis; only rarely are they made an issue.
Then there were the stories about the difficulties applying for a protest permit in Beijing. One New York Times op-ed analyst applied for his own protest permit. We recommend he apply for such a permit in Denver or in St. Paul in an attempt to get close to the national conventions of the Democrats and Republicans. Protest organizers in those cities need a team of lawyers to get anywhere near the conventions and still face threats from tanks, tear gas, lasers, water cannon, and rubber and lead bullets.
And the reasons for protesting here are so much more compelling, as the conventions will be filled with war criminals like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who have ordered illegal foreign occupations and destructions of entire countries while they abandoned New Orleans’ Black population, persecuted immigrants and destroyed the environment at home. That’s only a partial list of their crimes.
You might think that the corporate media’s analysts would try to credit China’s progress solely to its decision to allow in foreign investment and private capital. These pro-capitalist hacks recognize, however, that something else is behind the massive show of Chinese confidence. They see that “kow-towing” to Western rulers is in the dustbin of history.
A hundred years ago, though China still had 5,000 years of civilization behind it, foreign imperialist ruling classes with far less history but more powerful weapons and a stronger industrial and financial base enslaved China’s people.
It took more than technological improvements to turn this situation around. Nor was it done through the good will of China’s foreign rulers. A revolution lasting decades, led by the Chinese Communist Party, not only pushed out foreign imperialist invaders and exploiters but mobilized hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants and workers, women and men in the effort to build socialism. This revolution turned the Chinese people into conscious actors on the world scene, soldiers and organizers who could liberate their nation and shake the world in 1949, just as the performers on Aug. 8 this year stunned the billions watching on television screens.
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