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China’s power has been growing in recent years – its economic clout, its military capacity, its political influence on the international stage. But there’s one kind of power China’s leaders still crave – soft power. This is the informal influence a country has – through the attractiveness of its culture and values. The obvious example is the United States – which has gained soft power through its values, its lifestyle, its movies, and its music. China’s leaders now want the same for China – but, characteristically, they’re trying to do it in a state-planned way. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports from Beijing. (flickr image: d’n'c)
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. As we reported, the U.S. and China concluded talks in Beijing today. China has become an increasingly important player on the world stage as its economic, military, and political power has grown. But there’s one kind of power China lacks, soft power. That’s the influence a country exerts through the attractiveness of its culture and values. China is trying to increase its soft power, but characteristically, its leaders are trying to do so in a state planned way. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports from Beijing.
MARY KAY MAGISTAD: The title of the Chinese Communist Party magazine Squish means seek truth from facts. And its editor Li Bashan, thinks it’s time the world hear more about how China sees the facts.
INTERPRETER: There are more western values flowing to China than Chinese values flowing to the west. Unlike trade, this is a big deficit for China. I think it’s because Chinese and western media report the western perspective. But when Chinese media report the Chinese perspective, or Chinese values, no one is listening.
MAGISTAD: That’s arguable. After all, there is a difference between not listening and not agreeing. But the Chinese government has decided it’s time to be more aggressive in getting its perspective out. And, getting people to like it and embrace it. As part of that effort, the state run Xinhua News Agency is setting up its own international TV news network to compete head to head with CNN, the BBC and Al Jazzier. This is just a sample. The Xinhua English language TV network goes live in July. Wu Inca is its deputy editor.
INTERPRETER: What we can do is to provide, as fully as possible, our coverage in the world, not like some western media which turn a blind eye to things that they don’t care so much and only focus on its own stereotype agenda setting stories.
MAGISTAD: In other words, Xinhua, and by association China, wants to be seen as a champion of the underrepresented by covering Africa and Latin America more than western news outlets do. Wu says Xinhua will use its existing news wire network of 700 foreign based journalists and 123 bureaus. He admits their English language and television production skills could still use some work, but he says they are working on it. Still, there’s a nagging question. I’m wondering how you compete internationally when there’s a sensitive story about China that’s being censored within China. So if international journalists are writing about those issues, you’ve got BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN reporting those issues and you’re not, a viewer is not going to have a lot of confidence in your news reporting. So how would you deal with that issue?
INTERPRETER: I think first of all there are different understandings of the word sensitive issues.
MAGISTAD: And anyway, Wu argues, every country has sensitive issues. Maybe so, but not every country has a propaganda department like China’s that issues daily instructions on what journalists can and can’t cover. Eventually, Wu admits as much.
INTERPRETER: In terms of politics, or in terms of politically sensitive issues, it’s up to the Chinese law because in the law it rules that we cannot break anti-government rules.
MAGISTAD: That could pose a problem, as censoring isn’t likely to win Xinhua’s new network many admirers. David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University’s School of International Affairs, says China is still trying to figure out the influence game. He says at this point, its media outreach falls more into the category of public diplomacy than what academic Joseph Nye meant when he coined the term soft power.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH: The way Nye defines it anyway, is intrinsic to a society. Intrinsic attraction of a society to others, like a magnet.
MAGISTAD: And in a 2008 survey on soft power in Asia by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Shambaugh says the Chinese didn’t do so well.
SHAMBAUGH: They scored very low on every category except traditional culture basically, and history. But otherwise, a seven nation survey shows that China’s soft power appeal is really rather low. Their public diplomacy, however, is very robust.
MAGISTAD: That robust public diplomacy includes generous aid programs to Africa and South America. That makes governments there happy because the aid ostensibly comes without strings attached, though China does occasionally call in favors. China’s public diplomacy has also been robust in another way, trying to silence speech that China’s leaders consider too critical of their policies. Chinese officials succeeded last year in pressuring the Frankfurt Book Fair to withdraw its invitation to two Chinese dissidents and, Chinese diplomats and government back Chinese student groups regularly protest when the Dalai Lama or other exiled Tibetans are invited to speak in the west. Nicholas Bequelin is senior China researcher for Human Rights Watch.
NICHOLAS BEQUELIN: The goal is not necessarily to win a debate over a particular point, but just to be able to present a coherence, detailed, alternate view and to present it in a forceful way with the backing of the government with a sort of threat of reprisals if the other party doesn’t back down.
MAGISTAD: China’s leaders don’t seem to have registered that this kind of strong arming costs them soft power, which is why another soft power effort by the Communist Party is so interesting. This is the newsroom of the Global Times, an English language newspaper that does critical investigative reporting of social issues in China. Its parent company is The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s newspaper. Yet Editor Li Hong Wei describes his paper as an outsider upstart.
LI HONG WEI: I think it’s an alternative newspaper for foreigners to understand China and know what’s happening in China. I think that foreigners need to know more and they need to know more voices from the grass roots of the Chinese society and not just from the officials and the party colors.
MAGISTAD: In the years since the Global Times began publishing, its circulation has climbed to 150,000 reaching diplomats, foreign correspondents and others who help shape opinion about China abroad. Again, Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch.
BEQUELIN: I think the Global Times is an attempt to see whether you can have a government controlled outlet in English that would broach on these issues that normally cannot be discussed in China, but sort of trying to spin them in a way that ultimately is favorable to the government.
MAGISTAD: The Global Times also hedges its more daring investigative stories with a strong nationalistic streak that calls on China to be strong and to say no to foreign countries. But if soft power is what China is after, there’s that problem again with mixed messages. A bellicose, nationalistic China has more potential to repel than attract. If they want soft power, the challenge for China’s leaders is to genuinely change their tone and embrace values the world can more readily admire. For The World, I’m Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing.
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