PEIPING'S EXCHANGE PROGRAM FOR AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79S00427A000500020038-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: November 16, 1961
• Content Type: IM

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/13: CIA-RDP79SO0427A000500020038-2
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGEN
OFFICE OF CURRENT INTELLIG
16 November 1961
7 N57. 2/61
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Peiping?s Exchange Program for Africa and
Latin America
1. Peiping has been steadily reaching out for
wider influence in Africa and Latin America mainly
at the expense of the West but also to some extent
in competition with Moscow. Overall, it has so far
made only small inroads on both continents, but its
program is a relatively new and expanding one. Key
building-blocks in this program are political and
cultural exchanges and an overlapping propaganda
activity. In their main lines the efforts directed
toward Africa parallel those toward Latin America.
A. Travel exchanges: The highlights of
the travel program so ar thisyear have been the
visits to China of President Nkrumah of Ghana, Pres-
ident Dorticos of Cuba and then-Vice President Gou-
lart of Brazil on one side and, on the other, the
tour of a Chinese "friendship" delegation through
eight West African countries and the visit of a
Chinese trade delegation to several Latin American
countries.
1. The number of delegations trav-
eling between Communist China and Africa in 1960 in-
creased to 145 from 50 in 1959. 116 of the 145 were
African delegations visiting China and 29 were Chi-
nese delegations to various African areas. During
the first six months of 1961 more Chinese delegations
(27) visited Africa than any other area. During the
same period, 29 African delegations visited Communist
China. The most important group sent by the Chinese
was a delegation from the Sino-African People's
Friendship Association led by the head of the associ-
ation whose four-month tour covered Guinea, Mali,
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Ghana, Niger, Upper Volta, Senegal, Togo, and Dahomey.
Some of the African leftist leaders who have traveled
to China have come away with Chinese financial sub-
sidies. Other aid to African nationalists has been
channeled through Chinese representatives connected
with the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization
with headquarters in Cairo. Among the recipients of
this aid have been the Algerian rebels, the Gizenga
regime in the Congo, the radical Zanzibar Nationalist
Party, and members of the terrorist Union of the Came-
roons People's Organization.
2. In 1959, some 400 Latin Americans
traveled to Communist China, with the Chinese paying
all or part of their expenses. This number--three
and one-half times the total for each of the two pre-
ceding years--may have been equaled in 1960 and 1961.
Among them were Latin American Communists who went
for training or in connection with interparty confer-
ences. For example, top representatives of 12 Latin
American Communist parties met in Peiping as a group
in early 1959, after the 21st Soviet party congress,
to discuss revolutionary tactics with the Chinese
leaders. Other Latin American visitors to China have
included parliamentary groups from Brazil, Peru, Co-
lombia, and Costa Rica as well as such Latin American
political figures as Brazilian peasant leader Francisco
Juliao. During the first six months of 1961, 42 Latin
American delegations visited Communist China, while
the traffic in the opposite direction was 17.
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B. Propaganda: Concurrently with its
travel program, thie use reach out to still wider
audiences through radio broadcasts and other propa-
ganda media.
1. Peiping beams regular programs
to African listeners in English, French, Portuguese,
and Arabic. In addition, Cantonese-language broad-
casts are directed toward Chinese minorities, which
number about 6,000 in South Africa, 5,000 in the
Malagasy Republic, and 16,000 on Mauritius in the
Indian Ocean. This August, Peiping began broadcasts
twice daily to Africa in Swahili, the lingua franca
of eastern and parts of central Africa. This marked
Peiping's first regularly scheduled broadcasting in
a native African tongue; previously only the Soviet
Union among the bloc broadcast in Swahili. Other
propaganda efforts directed to Africa include the
opening of news agencies in African capitals, the
dissemination of periodicals and publications, the
provision of educational facilities, and the pro-
motion of friendship societies. On the "people di-
plomacy" level, a Chinese-African People?s Friend-
ship Association was formed in April 1960 to promote
cultural contacts with Africa. Under its auspices,
touring dance ensembles and opera troupes from Peiping
have toured the African continent,
2. Latin America is the target of
a growing volume of propaganda through radio, press,
film, and other media. Peiping is now broadcasting
to Latin America in both Spanish and Portuguese. It
also publishes Spanish-language editions of the prop-
aganda magazines China Reconstructs and China Picto-
rial. Moreover, e Iip ng now as pro-Chinese"culTural
institutes" in the of the twenty Latin American coun-
tries, most of which have been founded in cooperation
with local pro.-Communist groups since 1958. In March
1960, a China - Latin America Friendship Association
was formed in Peiping to sponsor activities on the
"peoples diplomacy" level. In November 1959 the Chi-
nese Communists began publication of a Chinese-
language newspaper in Cuba, intended primarily for
the island's 30,000 overseas Chinese but directed also
to 35,000 Chinese elsewhere in Latin America.
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