Stories are how you write a new chapter in friendship
In Beijing this spring, Chinese and Nigerian media professionals gathered around a question that has quietly shaped every great partnership in history: who gets to tell the story, and how honestly will it be told? A senior official from China International Communications Group invited Nigerian journalists to see beyond official statistics and infrastructure tallies, arguing that the deeper work of bilateral friendship is carried not in steel and concrete but in narrative. The two nations have built railways, ports, and power stations together — yet genuine mutual understanding, he suggested, remains the unfinished project.
- China and Nigeria have constructed a formidable economic relationship — rail lines, deep-sea ports, hydropower stations — but officials now acknowledge that infrastructure alone cannot close the gap between official cooperation and genuine human understanding.
- A Beijing seminar brought over twenty Nigerian journalists face-to-face with the argument that single, dominant narratives about China's role in Africa distort more than they reveal.
- Chinese officials invoked Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's warnings about the danger of a single story to press journalists toward more layered, honest reporting on bilateral ties.
- China International Communications Group — a state media organization publishing in over forty languages and distributing to nearly two hundred countries — is positioning media training as a strategic instrument of soft power and mutual trust.
- Both governments have formally committed to building a 'shared future,' with growing student exchanges and development partnerships meant to give that phrase human weight beyond diplomatic language.
At a seminar in Beijing this spring, Li Hengtian, a senior official at China International Communications Group, made a pointed case to a room of Nigerian journalists: the stories they choose to tell are as consequential as any infrastructure deal. China and Nigeria have spent decades building an economic relationship that is, by most measures, impressive — Nigeria is China's largest engineering contracting market on the continent, its second-largest export destination, and its third-largest African trading partner. The Lagos Light Rail, the Abuja Rail Mass Transit, the Lekki Deep Sea Port, the Zungeru Hydropower Station all stand as physical proof of what the two countries can accomplish together.
But Hengtian's argument was that something essential was still missing. Official cooperation had outpaced genuine understanding, and that gap was precisely where journalism mattered. Borrowing from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's famous caution against the single story, he urged the assembled media professionals to move beyond the dominant, often reductive narratives that frame China's presence in Africa — and to replace them with something more honest and more human.
The seminar itself was an expression of that ambition. Hosted by an institute within China International Communications Group — an organization founded in 1949 to tell China's stories globally, publishing thousands of books yearly across dozens of languages — it offered Nigerian journalists a structured encounter with Chinese institutions, culture, and perspective. The hope was that they would return home not as advocates, but as more informed storytellers.
This year, both governments have committed to building what they call a community with a shared future, a phrase given texture by expanding student exchanges and growing numbers of Chinese workers on Nigerian development sites. Hengtian's invitation to the press was, in essence, a recognition that no such future assembles itself — it has to be narrated into existence, carefully and truthfully, by the people whose job it is to bear witness.
In Beijing this spring, a Chinese official stood before a room of Nigerian journalists and made a simple argument: the stories you tell matter more than you might think. Li Hengtian, deputy director of the Education and Training Centre at China International Communications Group, was opening a seminar for media practitioners, and his message was direct. News organizations and commentators, he said, are the bridges that let people understand one another. They are also the tools that clear away misunderstanding.
China and Nigeria have been building a relationship for decades now, and by most measures it has worked. The two countries have signed deals, completed projects, moved money back and forth. But Hengtian suggested something was still missing: real knowledge. The people of both nations, he said, still want to know each other more deeply. That gap—between official cooperation and genuine understanding—is where journalists come in.
He invoked Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian author, to make his point. Stories, he argued, are how humans truly communicate. They are how you tell China's story accurately. They are how you write a new chapter in the friendship between two countries. The implication was clear: the infrastructure projects and trade deals matter, but so does the narrative around them.
The economic relationship is substantial. China describes Nigeria as its largest engineering contracting market on the continent, its second-largest export destination, and its third-largest trading partner overall. The evidence is visible in concrete and steel. The Lagos Light Rail, the Abuja Rail Mass Transit, the Lekki Deep Sea Port, the Zungeru Hydropower Station—these are not small undertakings. They are the physical manifestation of what Hengtian called "monuments of China-Africa cooperation." They rise across the landscape as proof that the two countries can build things together.
But there is also a human dimension. More Nigerian students are traveling to China to study. More Chinese workers are coming to Nigeria to work on development projects. This year, the two governments have committed to building what they call a China-Nigeria community with a shared future. Hengtian spoke of this with optimism, framing it as inevitable progress—the natural result of two countries working in tandem.
Yet his invitation to the journalists in the room suggested he understood something else: that none of this happens in a vacuum. The stories people tell about these relationships shape how they are received. A rail project is not just infrastructure; it is also a narrative about who built it, why, and what it means. A student exchange is not just numbers; it is a story about opportunity and connection. Hengtian was asking the media to tell those stories with care and honesty, to move beyond the single narrative that often dominates coverage of China's role in Africa.
The seminar itself was an instrument of that effort. Over twenty Nigerian journalists and media professionals had traveled to Beijing to participate. The Institute of International Studies and Advanced Training, which hosted them, is part of China International Communications Group, an organization founded in 1949 with an explicit mission: to tell China's stories to the world. The group publishes more than four thousand books yearly in over forty languages. It edits thirty-six periodicals in fourteen languages. Its reach is global. The book "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China" alone has been published in forty-two languages and distributed to more than a hundred and eighty countries.
What Hengtian was proposing, then, was a kind of partnership. Chinese institutions would help train Nigerian journalists. Nigerian journalists would return home with a deeper understanding of China. Both sides would benefit from more authentic, more nuanced storytelling about their relationship. The window he hoped the seminar would open was not just for understanding China, but for building the mutual tolerance, trust, and support that any real partnership requires. In his view, that work happens not in government offices or boardrooms, but in the stories that journalists choose to tell.
Notable Quotes
News media and commentators are the stone arches that build the bridge of understanding, and the clear breeze that dispels the mist of prejudice.— Li Hengtian, Deputy Director of China International Communications Group
The people of the two countries still desire to understand each other more deeply, despite great results achieved since the commencement of their relations.— Li Hengtian
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does China care so much about how Nigerian journalists tell the story of their relationship?
Because a rail project or a trade deal only means something if people believe in it. If Nigerians see Chinese investment as exploitative, or if Chinese people see Nigeria as chaotic, the actual cooperation falls apart. The story shapes the relationship.
But isn't that just propaganda? Getting journalists to tell a friendlier version of events?
That's the tension, isn't it. Hengtian says he wants "authentic" storytelling and breaking single narratives. But he's also training journalists from another country at a state institution. The line between education and influence is thin.
What does Nigeria get out of this arrangement?
Access to Chinese media expertise, visibility for Nigerian stories in Chinese outlets, and potentially a more balanced understanding of Chinese intentions in Africa. If it works as intended, it's mutual. If it doesn't, it's one-way.
The infrastructure projects—the ports, the railways—are those actually working for Nigeria?
They exist. They're built. Whether they're working well, whether they're serving Nigerians or just Chinese interests, whether the debt is manageable—those are the stories that matter most. And those are exactly the stories that need careful, independent journalism.
So what's the real ask here?
Tell our story, but tell it honestly. Don't ignore the good things we've built together. But don't ignore the complications either. Just make sure the world understands that China and Nigeria are partners, not master and servant.