[Photo by Jun Cheng/provided to China Daily]

"He feared epidemics," he says.

"There are many unfair stereotypes about Africa."

He says many impressions of Africa have been shaped by Western lenses, creating misleading images.

"I want to share a Chinese perspective," he says.

"I want to engage in dialogue with local communities on an equal footing, without airs of superiority arising from colonial history or novelty-seeking."

It's perhaps in this spirit that he followed Doctors Without Borders to chronicle the lives of sex workers with HIV/AIDS and prisoners in squalid conditions in Malawi.