How Effective Was the Global South Knowledge Exchange? The Chinese-Funded Medical Projects in Tanzania, 1968-1990s.

Knowledge circulation scholars have examined the North-South exchange as mainly one-way traffic, where the Global South is perceived as the recipient of knowledge from the Global North. In contrast, this article underscores Southern countries' role in technoscientific development by examining actors in Chinese-funded medical projects in Tanzania. It shows that Chinese sponsorship of Tanzania's health sector was critical not only in breaking the yoke of dependency on medical knowledge from the North but also in debunking the Global North narratives positing Africa as backward and lacking initiative in medical and industrial technologies. Employing qualitative analytical methods on pertinent archival, oral accounts and published sources, this article shows that despite the Sino-Tanzanian cooperation's potential, knowledge exchanges were arguably one-way rather than reciprocal, and the exchanged knowledge remained ineffective and unsustainable owing to ill-thought modus operandi from the onset.

On the Cover: Showcasing China's On-the-Job Training in Rural Africa.

The cover of this issue of Technology and Culture illustrates how China implemented-and promoted-on-the-job training in Africa. The image shows a Tanzanian dentist practicing dentistry under the supervision of a Chinese doctor in rural Tanzania, probably in the 1970s. Despite the ineffectiveness of the on-the-job training model, the photograph attempts to project the success of the dental surgery techniques exchanged between China and Tanzania, using simple medical equipment rather than sophisticated medical knowledge. The rural setting reflects the ideological struggle of the Cold War era, when Chinese doctors and rural mobile clinics sought to save lives in the countryside, while doctors from other countries engaged in Cold War competition worked primarily in cities. This essay argues that images were essential propaganda tools during the Cold War and urges historians of technology to use images critically by considering the contexts that influenced their creation.