“Wherever the readers are, wherever the viewers are, that is where the tentacles of propaganda reporting should be extended,” Chinese President Xi Jinping had famously said during a visit to the People’s Liberation Army Daily newspaper in 2015.
Since Xi rose to power in 2012, the Chinese government’s grip on the country’s media has tightened considerably.
Along with that, its efforts to set its preferred narrative across borders have also expanded.
State broadcaster CCTV — rebranded as CGTN for global audiences — and news agency Xinhua have rapidly opened bureaus worldwide.
But even before that, since 2007, Soft Power as a concept had become important for Chinese leadership, officials, and scholars alike.
The country made massive investments in state-owned media outlets such as China Daily and CGTN, to expand them globally so that they could emphasize the “Rise of China” by highlighting its economic breakthroughs.
For the same purpose, it also established cultural and language centers, known as Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, in 162 countries.
Its state media, such as Xinhua, CCTV-4, CGTN and China Radio International, which airs in multiple languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, Bengali, Sinhalese, Burmese and Tamil, was meant to further this narrative.
Chinese diplomats and other government representatives have intimidated, harassed, or pressured journalists, at times even demanding that the content be deleted.
When it comes to press freedom, China is one of the world’s worst performers, continually ranking near the bottom of the Reporters Without Borders index.
In 2023, the country stood at a shocking 179th place, out of 180 countries, ahead only of North Korea.
Yet, today, Chinese media companies, both state-owned and private, are globally engaged in content production and distribution, direct investment in other media ventures, and training and media development efforts.
“Managing” public opinion overseas, especially on subjects such as the Communist Party’s legitimacy, Tibet, alleged violations of Uyghur rights in Xinjiang, demolition of political rights and civil liberties in Hong Kong, and the country’s role in Covid-19 pandemic, is one of the major parts of the propaganda.
So is the standard messaging showcasing China’s economic and technological prowess, celebrating key anniversaries or the benefits of bilateral relations, and highlighting attractive aspects of Chinese culture. In the Xi era, propaganda has become a lucrative business.
For instance, in 2015, China’s richest man Jack Ma acquired the South China Morning Post (SCMP), a 115-year-old Hong Kong paper.
Joseph Tsai, executive vice-chairman of Jack Ma’s e-commerce empire Alibaba, made it clear that the new owners aimed to provide an alternative view of China via SCMP.
Also, since 2014, the China Public Diplomacy Association has been organising a training program for foreign journalists, under which lectures are held on Chinese society and polity and controlled field trips are organised to the Xinjiang province to promote what the state policy calls “to tell China’s story well.”
Influence in South Asia The influence of Chinese media in South Asia and its potential interference in democracy is a complex and evolving issue.
Chinese media has been attempting to shape public opinion and political discourse in South Asian countries for some time now and frequently engages in self- censorship to avoid criticism of China’s policies and actions.
Buying advertisements to push its narrative, especially in countries with poor freedom of the press, is also not uncommon.
China monitors political developments in Nepal through the latter’s think tanks and media.
In 2020, the Nepal-China Media Forum and the Confucius Institute of Kathmandu University invited Nepali journalists to be trained in Chinese language and culture.
Nepal’s state-owned media now mostly refrains from reporting on China-funded projects in Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Similar efforts have been afoot in Bangladesh. Journalists there were offered one-year, allexpenses-paid fellowships to Chinese institutions; workshops were organised on BRI engagement, partnerships were created with local newspapers and local journalists were hired for Chinese state media.
China has also invested in Sri Lankan media organisations. Sri Lanka Red Cross Society and China Radio International, which has been running its most popular Tamil service (1963) from Colombo and Sinhala language service (1975), jointly publish the quarterly magazine Subhasara.
Platforms such as the Sri Lanka-China Journalists ’Forum are quite active. China’s control over Pakistan’s domestic media has been facilitated by the rhetoric of an all-weather friendship between the two countries and the mutual benefits of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Similarly, an International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) report shows that Xinhua has inked contracts with 25 to 30 media outlets in Afghanistan.
In fact, China’s state news agency Xinhua has become the second-most-influential in the South Asian region, behind only The Associated Press.
The propaganda organ is gaining readership in many states through content-sharing deals or simply because more outlets are using Xinhua stories.
So far, India and Bhutan have been out of this game but there also, proxies have been deployed.
Through funding, China often gets slots in Indian newspapers and websites. The Chinese embassy in India, for instance, has published advertorials in The Hindu, an Englishlanguage newspaper with an estimated daily readership of six million people.
Use of new media Since 2019, China has also been deploying other influence tactics, besides traditional media, such as cyberbullying, fake social media accounts, and targeted disinformation campaigns.
Hundreds of new accounts belonging to embassies, consulates, and individual Chinese envoys have been created since then.
Accounts run by major state media outlets like People’s Daily, Xinhua, CGTN, and CRI are available in multiple languages and have tens of millions of followers worldwide.
Popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have become a common tool to disseminate favourable content.
Purchase of fake followers, creation of armies of fake accounts that artificially amplify posts from Chinese diplomats is common.
Other than that, unaffiliated social media influencers are routinely paid or trained to promote pro-Beijing content, without revealing their CCP ties.
One particularly disturbing trend is the use of coordinated online harassment campaigns against journalists working in overseas countries.
The campaigns especially tend to target women of East Asian, including ethnic Chinese, descent.
Pro-Beijing trolls have been reported to make “crude sexual innuendos and alarming threats of physical violence.”
Public awareness regarding Beijing’s activities has been growing and social media platforms have improved their monitoring and response capacity.
Chinese diplomats and other government representatives have intimidated, harassed, or pressured journalists, at times even demanding that the content be deleted.
Threats were made regarding withdrawal of advertising, defamation suits, or other legal repercussions.
In March 2021, a well-known China-based hacking group hacked into the servers of the Times of India, a popular Indian newspaper, and transferred data to an off-site server.
Cybersecurity experts investigating the breach stated the attackers “wanted to know who is talking to the media and what people are reporting on.”
Similar attacks have been reported in many other countries. Pushback from democracies South Asian countries has diverse media landscapes.
Strength of local media, government regulations, and resilience of democratic institutions all dictate how far China could be successful in its endeavours.
As such, the impact of Chinese media influence in South Asia is a subject of ongoing debate and study.
In many countries, Chinese diplomats, state media outlets, and their proxies have encountered serious obstacles.
Public awareness regarding Beijing’s activities has been growing and social media platforms have improved their monitoring and response capacity.
In some cases, fake accounts that were amplifying Chinese diplomatic or state media content or spreading false information have been rapidly detected and removed
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