MONROVIA – On July 3, the Chinese Embassy in Liberia held a high-profile media briefing in Monrovia, where Ambassador Yin Chengwu spoke extensively on China-Liberia relations, trade cooperation, Taiwan, and a list of global issues tailored to reflect China’s expanding soft power ambitions. According to reports, fourteen media institutions were invited, including top outlets like the Spoon Network, Daily Observer, FrontPage Africa, and The New Dawn. But the event was not a celebration of press freedom or open diplomacy. Instead, it highlighted a dangerous pattern of media gatekeeping and selective access that undermines the principles of transparency and journalistic equity in Liberia.
This wasn’t just a diplomatic meeting. It was a public relations exercise carefully designed to control narrative while excluding independent, community-based, and alternative media voices. The Embassy’s decision to selectively invite only favored media institutions is an affront to the values of free and fair information flow. By restricting access, the Chinese Embassy in Liberia has done more than curate an audience. It has censored dissent and reduced the event to an echo chamber of comfort and control.
Such exclusionary tactics are especially concerning in a country like Liberia where press freedom is already under strain and where media houses often struggle for sustainability and recognition. When a foreign embassy handpicks who gets to sit at the table, who gets access to sensitive geopolitical briefings, and who gets quoted in follow-up stories, it sends a troubling signal. It says that only certain media voices are trusted or welcome, while others are deliberately shut out. This is a form of information apartheid that must not be normalized in Liberia’s democratic space.
Even more concerning is the opacity surrounding the cost of these diplomatic productions. Was public money involved? Were local logistics subsidized? Are these preferred media outlets receiving incentives, direct or indirect, to propagate a specific international agenda? These are not idle questions. Liberia is a country grappling with economic hardships and institutional dysfunction. Every dollar spent under the guise of partnership or cooperation must be accounted for, especially when it influences the fourth estate, which is supposed to serve as a watchdog of power.
Ambassador Yin used the occasion to reaffirm China’s commitment to deeper cooperation under the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), and to promote what he called “more fruitful cooperation” between the two nations. But there is nothing fruitful about a process that excludes many of Liberia’s media voices. True cooperation is rooted in mutual respect, openness, and fairness. The Chinese Embassy’s decision to filter attendance runs counter to those values.
China’s growing influence in Africa is no longer a subtle shift. It is a deliberate campaign with clear diplomatic, economic, and media strategies. While nations have a right to expand their geopolitical relationships, they must do so transparently and equitably. When influence comes with the selective empowerment of some voices and the silencing of others, that influence becomes a threat to democratic integrity.
The Liberian media landscape is already uneven, with a few dominant institutions receiving disproportionate access to power, resources, and visibility. Events like the Chinese Embassy briefing only reinforce this imbalance. The danger is not just in who gets invited. The deeper threat lies in the long-term shaping of national narratives through unequal access, preferential treatment, and the quiet creation of loyalty through exposure and opportunity.
The Liberian government should take a stand against this creeping marginalization of certain segments of the media. Civil society must speak out. Media unions must demand inclusion and fairness. And above all, journalists themselves whether invited or excluded must unite in rejecting any diplomatic process that values proximity to power more than the principles of open and fair information.
China may be one of Liberia’s largest infrastructure partners. It may offer loans, aid, and diplomacy. But it must not be allowed to dictate who in the Liberian press has the right to ask questions or share information. That decision belongs not to an embassy, but to the Liberian people and the media institutions that serve them all equally.
Until media briefings in this country reflect the full diversity of journalistic voices, until budgetary transparency becomes the norm, and until foreign missions respect the principle of open access, Liberia will remain at risk of trading sovereignty for staged diplomacy and selective coverage. That is a price too high to pay.
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