正文
It took the StarTimes satellite TV salesman about 30 minutes to install a pipeline for Chinese propaganda into Francis Gitonga’s squat, cinder-block home here in southern Kenya, near Africa’s Great Rift Valley.
在肯尼亚南部离东非大裂谷不远处，四达时代卫星电视推销员花了大约30分钟，为弗朗西斯·吉通加宽大的煤渣砖矮房接入了中国的政治宣传节目。
First, he climbed onto Gitonga’s roof, drilled a satellite dish onto the chimney, and dangled some wires through the door frame. He plugged it all into a StarTimes set-top box, and turned it on.
他首先爬上了吉通加家的屋顶，把卫星信号接收碟钉进了烟囱，然后垂放下几条线路，顺着门框拉进屋里，并把它们都接到了一个四达时代的机顶盒上，最后打开了机顶盒。
Gitonga, 43, flipped through the channels, and Chinese programs filled the screen: an old kung fu movie, a Chinese news broadcast, a Chinese documentary about Japan’s wartime atrocities, most dubbed into English.
43岁的吉通加挨个换台看了一遍，满屏幕都是中国的节目：武打老片、中国的新闻频道、关于日本战时暴行的中国纪录片，大多都有英文配音。
Gitonga was elated. His new digital TV package gave him better reception than he’d once thought possible in Kajiado, a small town on the savannah where Masai tribesmen wander past rickety storefronts and goats cluster in the shade.
吉通加一阵狂喜。
在
大草原上的小镇
卡加多
，马赛部落的汉子们在摇摇欲坠的街头店铺前来去游荡，山羊在太阳照不到的地方结群扎堆，而吉通加没想到他的新数字电视套装竟然能收看这么多节目。
“I didn't know about China before,” he said. “I can say it's good. They have changed this country in a big way, very fast.”
他说：“我此前不了解中国，现在我可以说它是个好国家。他们给我们这个国家带来了巨大的变化，非常迅速。”
大卫·姆吉塔是四达时代在肯尼亚卡加多唯一的推销员。四达时代是北京的一家私有的媒体和电信公司，自2002年以来席卷非洲。
Although StarTimes — a privately owned, Beijing-based media and telecommunications firm — is virtually unknown in the West, it has been sweeping across Africa since 2002, overhauling the continent’s broadcast infrastructure and beaming Chinese content into millions of homes. It has subsidiaries in 30 African countries, including such war-torn states as the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
尽管四达时代这家私有的北京媒体和电信公司在西方几乎无人知晓，但自2002年以来它已经席卷了非洲，彻底翻改了这片大陆的广播电视设施，将中国出品的内容送入了成百上千万人家。四达时代在30个非洲国家设有分部，其中也包括刚果民主共和国和中非共和国这样兵荒马乱的国家。
"Our aim is to enable every African household to afford digital TV, watch good digital TV and enjoy the digital life,” StarTimes Vice Chairman Guo Ziqi told China’s official New China News Agency in December.
接受中国官方新闻新华社采访时，
四达时代副总裁郭子琪
表示：“我们的目标是让每个非洲家庭都能买得起、看得起、看得好数字电视。”
But there’s a catch. StarTimes has substantial backing from the Chinese state — and an explicit political mandate.
但这里暗藏着一个问题：四达时代是得到了中国政府的大力支持的，并负有明确的政治使命。
China’s relationship with Africa — for decades defined by resource-for-infrastructure deals — is evolving, as Africa becomes wealthier and China’s foreign policy objectives grow more ambitious.
中国与非洲在
几十年来主要进行的都是资源换基建的交易，而随着非洲逐渐富裕、中国的外交目标愈发野心勃勃，双方的关系也在不断演变。
Beijing has invested billions of dollars into “soft power” campaigns aimed at convincing the world that China is a cultural and political success story. Yet beyond China’s borders, its heavily censored state media broadcasts go mostly unwatched; its newspapers go unread; and outsiders often continue to associate China with pollution, opacity and repression.
北京投入了几十上百亿美元发动“软实力”作战，旨在让全世界相信中国在文化和政治上取得了成功。然而，在中国境外，它那受到重重审查的官媒新闻几乎没人看，报纸没人读，外国人提起中国时想到的往往仍是污染、政府不透明和压迫。
四达时代最便宜的电视套装叫Novo，费用约为每月4美元，Novo中包含了肯尼亚和中国的电视频道。半岛电视台、法国24电视台和BBC等其他国际频道的价格是大多数肯尼亚人付不起的。
StarTimes signals a change in tack, one that highlights the depth and complexity of Beijing’s efforts to win hearts and minds — with much of that effort now being directed at Africa, one of the world’s great emerging media markets.
四达时代标志着宣传方式的变化，体现出了北京赢取人心的手段之复杂、努力程度之深——而在目前，那份努力主要用在了非洲这个全世界最大的新兴媒体市场上。
As a digital infrastructure provider, StarTimes is helping African states transition from analog television — a technology akin to FM radio, rife with snow, static and dropped signals — to digital, which ensures high-quality image and sound. As a pay-TV company, it is stacking its networks with pro-China broadcasts.
作为数字设施供应商，四达时代正在帮助非洲国家完成从模拟电视——一种和调频收音机类似，常常发生“雪花屏”、杂音和信号丢失的技术——到高图质、高音质的数字电视的转型。而作为收费电视公司，四达时代在它的电视网络里堆满了亲善中国的频道。
As both, it is materially improving the lives of countless Africans, then making China’s role in those improvements impossible to ignore.
两者综合来讲，就是一边改善无数非洲人的生活，一边让他们无法忽视中国在这些改善过程中扮演的角色。
“There’s a huge ideological element” to StarTimes’ African operations, said Dani Madrid-Morales, a doctoral fellow at the City University of Hong Kong who has researched the company. “It’s a huge effort to get Africans to understand China. Even the selection of TV shows is very carefully done. It’s very specific shows that showcase an urban China, a growing China, a noncontroversial view of China.”
香港城市大学的博士研究生马诞宁对这家公司进行了调查研究，并表示四达时代的业务中“有着庞大的意识形态成分”。“这是在极力让非洲人了解中国。就连电视节目都是精心挑选的，专门播出那些展示中国的发展和都市化的节目，那些对中国不加争议的节目。”
Pang Xinxing, StarTimes’ chief executive, who could not be reached for comment, has told Chinese state media that he expanded to Africa to counter “exaggerated and biased reports” about China in the Western media.
四达时代总裁庞新星接受中国官方媒体采访时表示，他向非洲扩张业务是为了对抗西方媒体对中国的“夸大、偏颇的报道”。本报未能联系上他。
“There’s a mindfulness among China’s leadership that China doesn’t get fair treatment overseas, and something needs to be done about it,” Madrid-Morales said.
