China is experiencing its most authoritarian period since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and will soon equal Russia in the ability to spread 'fake news' around the world, predicts in this interview Joshua Kurlantzick, a researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the recently published published "Beijing's global media offensive" about the ambitious global propaganda strategy undertaken by President Xi Jinping.
Without propaganda, Maoism, which influenced even Western countries, cannot be explained. Has President Xi Jinping recovered and increased the budget and sophistication of that propaganda machine?
Xi has already done it. It had been a long time since Mao and China had abandoned their global efforts to influence the internal affairs of other countries and also that time of considerable spending on the public media. That “withdrawal” period is over. Xi Jinping is not only focusing on Beijing in influencing the domestic politics of other countries, but has injected astronomical sums to increase the global influence of Chinese public media, including Xinhua (the news agency, 181 bureaus worldwide). , CGTN (television) and others. China has also increased control of Chinese-language print media around the world. The Xi Jinping era is the most authoritarian in China since Mao.
The People's Republic has tried to project an image of a 'pacifist' and 'friendly' superpower, unlike the US or Russia. Have they achieved that goal?
China is trying to distinguish itself from Russia, with whom it has established a close relationship and with which it increasingly shares its vision of global media, information and disinformation. In the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, China tried to present itself as a different power and succeeded to some extent, but in the last years of that period it failed ostensibly. Surveys show that, in many countries, Spain among them, public opinion has a very negative image of China today. The reasons are many: the failure of China's public relations campaign, its affinity for Russia, more aggressive diplomacy and coercive economic methods.
Is Chinese propaganda more effective for its new channels like TikTok than for the classic ones like Xinhua?
The Chinese influence is very diversified. On the one hand, the traditional media, highly reinforced, such as Xinhua or CGTN. On the other, Beijing's growing control of all the Chinese-language media in the world and the advertorials in international media, which are presented as “real” news when they are pure propaganda. Chinese influence in the world also stems from a growing willingness to disseminate disinformation on platforms like Meta and Twitter, the promotion of pro-China candidates – simply by funding them – and the growing role of some agencies to control Chinese discourse on China. universities around the world.
Is TikTok harmless?
It's harder to pigeonhole. It's run, no doubt, by the Chinese state, and this is worrying, but it doesn't have many major cases in clear misinformation use. That being said, the US and other countries are considering banning it…
China maintains another very old practice: reprisals against foreign journalists, who risk being expelled if their chronicles disturb.
Unquestionably, China has retaliated against them, mainly by expelling them. And also against its media, prohibiting its dissemination in China.
To what extent did the informative "permissiveness" of Beijing during the Tiananmen massacre in 1989 influence the current regression?
The main lesson drawn by Xi Jinping from 1989, and he has expressed it this way before the charges of the CP, is that the USSR relaxed its control over the powers that it had and in a short time it collapsed and that he is not going to repeat any of those reforms in pro transparency adopted by Gorbachev. On the contrary, he has strengthened the Central Committee, crushed dissent and pushed the party further on top of the private sector.
Has China already caught up with Russia's ability to spread “fake news” or is it less effective?
China is somewhat less effective but has learned a lot from Russia. Soon you will be at your level.
Are China's Confucian values compatible with an "aggressive" Western concept of freedom of information?
Of course! Taiwan has a robust press, and millions of Chinese living around the world enjoy and support freedom of information. There is no heritage in the Chinese people that is incompatible with freedom of information.
