"How Chinese media ignores the environmental toll of the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa" Global Voices, 12 June 2025

Chinese investment and the presence of Chinese companies in Africa [...] are rarely scrutinized in terms of environmental harm [...]. Local community members are rarely quoted, interviewed, or centered in the storytelling. Instead, they remain nameless, stripped of agency, and disconnected from the audience.

Independent or commercial Chinese media [...] find it nearly impossible to send reporters into the field to gather stories [...]. There is little financial return and even less political cover for such reporting, as criticism of Chinese overseas ventures [...] is discouraged or censored.

In the early 2010s, liberal outlets [...] invested in environmental reporting and maintained robust international beats. [...] But that era has faded. [...]

[...] several Kenyan journalists describe growing difficulty in reporting critically on Chinese projects without editorial pushback or quiet blacklisting.