Opportunities for Chinese soft power

Which ethnic group controls West's banking, law and media sectors? The Jews. If we could make some secret pact with those folks then the rest will be taken care of.

However, OP's point of implementing a positive image of China among Arabs, Blacks and Hispanics is definitely worth trying. The important thing is to not piss off the Muslim extremists too often or else terrorist groups will be play the religion card to set up IEDs for the Chinese expatriates all over Africa as well. The kidnappings would then never end...

cn_habs said:

Which ethnic group controls West's banking, law and media sectors? The Jews. If we could make some secret pact with those folks then the rest will be taken care of.

However, OP's point of implementing a positive image of China among Arabs, Blacks and Hispanics is definitely worth trying. The important thing is to not piss off the Muslim extremists too often or else terrorist groups will be play the religion card to set up IEDs for the Chinese expatriates all over Africa as well. The kidnappings would then never end...

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Er, I don't think there is an ethnic group that controls Western banking/law/media. However, China certainly has formed a tete a tete with banking, legal, and media interests in the West, insofar as China has made them plenty of money and influence.

Peaceful integration of Chinese power into global structures is for the benefit of all. Unfortunately, folks like Andy Marshall at the Pentagon's Office of Threat Inflation, and Japanese right-wingers with lots to lose (e.g. Ishihara) seem hell-bent on keeping that from happening.

Soft power media is what it is. It's power is soft....period. It's a popularity contest to the gullible non-inform viewers out there. To me it means nothing when China's continuing growth and steady advancement to better the lives of it's people. People in America and Europe has already taken notice of that as well. They're used to the dramatization of the media, therefore never take it whole hearted. Take the Lance Armstrong as an example, one day you are a hero and the next day you became a vile villain that embarrassed the nation (yes, he cheated, but that's not the point here) in the medias eyes. The internet provides so much avenues of approach to news and opinions that the big boys no longer has the upper hand of the matter. Look at the top newspapers and magazines are losing out to the public and cutting costs by letting go many of their editors and writers.

kyanges said:

It's good that the thread has already reached the conclusion that nearly anything can be spun into nearly anything else, because, this idea (The specific quote above.) is so incredibly vulnerable to spin, I find it ironic that it's even suggested as a counter spin strategy.

If China's paying the locals, then the obvious spin is that the Chinese are cowardly, dirty dealing scum, who use their resources to blackmail innocent foreigners with no other choice, to die for Chinese. It's too easy.

I'm with paintgun on this. There's just no point in doing actions just for the sake of currying favor.

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While I have no doubt that there is a massive media bias against China, I so not think there is a massive determine conspiracy against China whereby every western journalist is secretly in on the game.

For the vast majority if cases, the journalists who propergate anti-China views simply don't know any better.

Western media almost systematically send their biggest China haters to China as their dedicated Chjns correspondents, and these guys and girls control what stories are filed on China.

The vast majority of journalists, most of whom I believe to be fair and reasonable, simply never gets to see the real China because the only stories their colleges report out of China are yes hand picked few designed to highlight the negatives.

Whenever mainstream western journalists have gone to China to report on special events of stories, heavyweights like John Simpson and Andrew Marr etc, the kinds of stories and the underlining tone is like night and day compared to the trash the regular China correspondents file.

By going abroad, China can expose a great number of journalists to the real Chinese government, and I believe that at least some of them will give China a fair representation. Certainly far fairer than anything China can expect from the cretens currently based in China.

It is no silver bullet, but it is a good start. The good that China would be doing in the world would be worth such a programme on it's own, so any positive publicity in the western press is just a bonus. The target audience, as I have already stressed, is not the west, but the locals the Chinese will be helping.

plawolf said:

While I have no doubt that there is a massive media bias against China, I so not think there is a massive determine conspiracy against China whereby every western journalist is secretly in on the game.

For the vast majority if cases, the journalists who propergate anti-China views simply don't know any better.

Western media almost systematically send their biggest China haters to China as their dedicated Chjns correspondents, and these guys and girls control what stories are filed on China.

The vast majority of journalists, most of whom I believe to be fair and reasonable, simply never gets to see the real China because the only stories their colleges report out of China are yes hand picked few designed to highlight the negatives.

Whenever mainstream western journalists have gone to China to report on special events of stories, heavyweights like John Simpson and Andrew Marr etc, the kinds of stories and the underlining tone is like night and day compared to the trash the regular China correspondents file.

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So here's the thing: I don't think Sinophobes get sent to China as dedicated correspondents on purpose; it's that most large media firms are run by risk-averse corporate bureaucrats. They pick people for their China bureaus who've been credentialed by the great filtering process of East Asian graduate studies programs at elite colleges, because these picks can't be criticized. Unfortunately for China, the vast majority of these programs are filled with strains of academic discourse left over from anti-communist and missionary thinking.

Take John Pomfret as an example. The guy can really write, and he's got the right laurels hanging off his CV. Trouble is, his deepest professed love is for 'Chinese traditional culture', a nebulous concept which he (rightly or wrongly) believes the current techno-autocracy of the Party is destroying. Couple that with the missionary complex he acquired spending time in Beijing prior to Tiananmen Square (where he educated all the Chinese people he could meet on democratic ideals with the same quiet fervor that a Franciscan reserves for the Catholic scripture).

Don't believe me? Google Rick Baum (may he rest in peace) and China-Pol, the invite-only listserv he created for academic sinologists and edited to keep a strongly anti-CCP stance. (Also, read this excellent article while you're at it: )

China should fix the root of the problem--the subtle patronization of academia, and the quiet censorship of pro-China viewpoints that goes on amidst grad students eager to please their advisors and acquire tenure--and then work from there. A few billion dollars of investment into creating those sorts of programs, coupled with helping the graduates of those programs find jobs in the consulting/think tank/academic/media wings of the punditocracy, could go a long way toward fixing China's image problems.

Or perhaps China should engage in humanitarian efforts and acts and do what it thinks right without the consideration of what the Western media would say? Since it's damned if you will, damned if you don't, then might as well let those gossiping trashmouths play their game while China does its own actions?

airsuperiority said:

Or perhaps China should engage in humanitarian efforts and acts and do what it thinks right without the consideration of what the Western media would say? Since it's damned if you will, damned if you don't, then might as well let those gossiping trashmouths play their game while China does its own actions?

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No, China should just buy into Western institutions and find ways to turn them 'global'. For a good example of what I mean, look at how much money Saudi Arabia splashes around Western NGOs and lobbying groups to advance their influence.

Another major problem is Chinese media and propaganda apparatus are simply outdated and antiquated in terms of PR and image building.

On the GvG arena, they are doing their job right, but on PR, it's just shameful.

I will be blunt and brief.


The best thing for Chinese soft power? Reevaluate China's priorities, Especially when it comes to territorial claims.

Blaming it on 'Western media' only is a pity party in the making, we get Chinese media in return.

There's a mistake I see in interpretations of soft power. If your goal is to get something from someone else to gain soft power, that's not any power at all. Real soft power is when others want something from you. How do you get that is you have something that others want where they have to get on your good side to get it. That's where China has to concentrate.