By Harsh Pandey
Propaganda has been an essential tool in the toolkit of authoritarian and communist regimes. The power of propaganda has been observed since the start of the 20th century. The Soviet dictator Stalin used propaganda successfully to manage the Russian and Soviet masses. The same has been replicated after the communist revolution in China. Mao used propaganda against the landed elites of China, causing the death of hundreds of thousands of gentries. He also used propaganda campaigns against his own party officials. Similar kinds of propaganda campaigns are run in North Korea, which is also a communist society, where the father and grandfather of its current leader, Kim Jong Un, are revered like gods. These states, including China, follow a similar pattern in that they ban information coming from other parts of the world. For example, most popular social media applications and websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are banned in China. However, the Chinese state-run media agencies work tirelessly in their attempts to present the ‘pro-China’ narratives worldwide. These attempts became increasingly visible after China started being heavily criticised for the human rights abuse it did during the Beijing Olympics of 2008. During that time, there was a buzz in the global media about the situation in Tibet. It started getting slow in the last decade as China asserted itself economically. It has also invested heavily in ventures that help make a positive overview of the Communist state.
Construction of Pro-China Propaganda: Radio, Television and Print News Papers
Since the last decade otherwise being on the backfoot because of global media criticism, China has tried to embrace the global media (read Western) with much funding in terms of giving jobs to international journalists in China’s state-run television network, providing funding for the advertorials where heavy emphasis is maintained on publishing pro-China contents. If we decode these efforts in simple language, we will find nothing but another system for propaganda development.
So-called “media warfare” has been an official component of Beijing’s military policy since 2003, when changes were made to an official document that outlined the political objectives of the People’s Liberation Army. The goal is to sway public opinion abroad to persuade other governments to adopt policies advantageous to the Communist Party of China.
China has also resorted to other ways to influence the global information networks, where Chinese companies are contributing to the change from analogue to digital networks in Africa. As mentioned above, the big push in developing Sinocentric narratives happened after 2008. It started in Africa. China announced a whooping sum of more than 6 billion US dollars to make its presence felt in the global media landscape. It is developing different television satellites for Africa, clubbing African channels with Chinese channels and giving the audience a benign view of China.
Along with doing all this, China actively sought to recruit journalists with a positive and unbiased image to harness their personality to pursue its agenda. More than any other media organisation, China’s official news agency, Xinhua, maintains 37 offices around Africa. Additionally, China’s propaganda efforts centred on Africa have been effective in cultivating dozens of powerful African intermediaries who support China’s interests and image.
These campaigns are not limited to Africa, though Africa lies at the heart of Chinese propaganda because of its size and population. The other areas where Chinese propaganda machinery has a real good presence are Europe, Australia and the United States of America. According to a report by Reuters, “investigation spanning four continents has identified at least 33 radio stations in 14 countries that are part of a global radio web structured in a way that obscures its majority shareholder: state-run China Radio International, or CRI”.
WCRW is a famous Washington-based radio station in which China has direct financial culpability. The records show that a Chinese state-owned broadcasting network has 60 per cent of shares in an American company, often taking the radio station’s significant airtime. Corporate documents reveal that CRI’s surrogates employ identical organisational structures all over the world. Together with Beijing, the three Chinese billionaires founded local media companies, each of which is currently 60% controlled by Guoguang Century Media Consultancy, a Beijing-based organisation. According to Chinese corporate documents, a subsidiary of CRI owns all of Guoguang.
For newspapers, which are still considered the most trustworthy means to gain information, China is using the ‘borrowed boat’ approach. China Daily, a government-run newspaper in China, has signed deals with at least 30 global newspapers. It includes the most famous names, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. In the United Kingdom, it collaborates with the Daily Telegraph. A report published by Hong Kong Free Press mentioned that the Daily Telegraph was paid about 750,000 pounds annually to publish a special issue, mostly monthly, named China Watch. Through these kinds of global engagements, China tries to gain the required credibility for the content to look more truthful.
Internet and Chinese Propaganda
China has carefully curated the internet for its usage. There has been credible evidence that Chinese-owned apps like TikTok blocked anti-China content. These apps also enhanced the publicity of pro-China content among the apps’ users. China has also harnessed search engines such as Google Search and Bing Search. In a report published by Brooking Institutions mentioned that Chinese state media has manipulated search engines in such a way that if you search for some China-sensitive term like Xinjiang, you will see the results from the Chinese state media. These contents increase in manifold if they are searched on YouTube.
These tasks have been made accessible by different Think Tanks established to promote harmony between different countries and China. In the wake of any crisis, the officials of these Think Tanks help push the pro-China narratives in their countries. It is interesting to note that China has not allowed any global information network inside its country, but it has exploited the freedom of expression and free press in all democracies, particularly in the West. To conclude, it is for the global media community, journalists, and the citizens of the free world to decide how they will consume the information coming out of China, which might be tainted with disinformation and false news. It will compromise the integrity of the media and journalism as a profession. It is also high time to check Chinese investments in the media platforms of Africa through which it is trying to make itself a voice of the Global South.
The author is a PhD researcher at the School of International Studies, JNU.
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