China Plays Mediator in the Horn of Africa, Leverages Local Media to Reinforce Narrative of Benevolence

The Chinese government has been courting the Global South to advance its image as a responsible guarantor of international security and development. Last week, China took the initiative by hosting the first China-Horn of Africa conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, followed by the 14th BRICS summit in Beijing. The resulting joint-statements praised Xi Jinping's new Global Security Initiative (GSI) and sought to rally states around non-Western approaches to international affairs, despite producing little substantive action. However, in a bid to reinforce public traction for Beijing's leadership, Chinese state media content has made its way into local media coverage of these…