Image credit: Oxford University Press.
The Chinese government has sought in recent times to extend its global media influence. In Southeast Asia, Beijing has found each success and failure in those efforts, in accordance with a recent book.
The massive picture: “As China becomes more powerful, it’s attempting to make use of its influence efforts to shape policymakers’ and publics’ views, in other countries, of their very own political systems and leaders — not only of China but of politics in these other countries,” writes Joshua Kurlantzick, a journalist and fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations, in his book “Beijing’s Global Media Offensive.”
Details: Kurlantzick traces how the Chinese Communist Party has managed to expand the footprint of its media narratives through Chinese state media expansion and content-sharing agreements, quiet takeovers of local Chinese language outlets, and hosting journalist trainings.
- Kurlantzick also examines the history of Chinese soft power and sharp power campaigns in Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
A few of these efforts have been successful. Xinhua, as a wire agency, has been in a position to expand its content-sharing throughout Southeast Asia, and lots of newspapers incessantly run Xinhua content as a part of their regular news.
- Most domestic Chinese-language media outlets within the region have either sold to Chinese firms or at the moment are owned by people favorable to Beijing, Kurlantzick said.
Yes, but: Some efforts have failed. “A number of the state media is outright turgid and terrible, and it’s never going to have any appeal,” Kurlantzick told Axios in an interview.
- As well as, “the more authoritarian turn in China has turned off quality reporters from wanting to work at state media,” he said. That has made it far tougher for state broadcaster China Global Television Network to realize the form of international status that Al Jazeera has, despite its major international expansion in recent times.