China's Media Go Global

Daya Kishan Thussu, Hugo de Burgh, Anbin Shi, Daya Kishan Thussu, Hugo de Burgh, Anbin Shi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138665842
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317214618
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Social Sciences

As part of its 'going out' strategy, China is using the media to promote its views and vision to the wider world and to counter negative images in the US-dominated international media. China's Media Go Global, the first edited collection on this subject, evaluates how the unprecedented expansion of Chinese media and communications is changing the global media landscape and the role of China within it.

Each chapter examines a different dimension of Chinese media's globalization, from newspapers, radio, film and television, to social media and journalism. Topics include the rise of Chinese news networks, China Daily as an instrument of China's public diplomacy and the discussion around the growth of China's state media in Africa. Other chapters discuss entertainment television, financial media and the advertising market in China.

Together, this collection of essays offers a comprehensive evaluation of complex debates concerning the impact of China on the international media landscape, and makes a distinctive addition to Chinese media studies, as well as to broader global media discourses. Beyond its primary readership among academics and students, China's Media Go Global is aimed at the growing constituency of general readers, for whom the role of the media in globalization is of wider interest.

PART I
Conceptualizing the rise of China’s media

1
GLOBALIZATION OF CHINESE MEDIA: THE GLOBAL CONTEXT

Daya Kishan Thussu

The accelerated globalization of China’s media is coinciding with shifts in international geopolitical and economic power relations, in what has been termed variously as a ‘post-American’ and a ‘post-Western’ world (Zakaria, 2008; Jacques, 2009; Acharya, 2014; Stuenkel, 2016). It has been suggested that the ‘assertive China discourse’ emanating from the ‘Middle Kingdom’ has become a narrative widely recognized by the West and its allies. There is also a parallel narrative in China – increasingly being circulated around the world – replacing the ‘keeping a low profile’ approach with ‘striving for achievements’ (Johnston, 2013).

As the ‘Washington Consensus’ – based on globalization of economic liberalization, deregulation and privatization, spearheaded by the US government and the Bretton Woods institutions – faces a rupture, a ‘Beijing consensus’ (Halper, 2010) appears to have strengthened. Indeed, China has emerged as the most vocal champion of neo-liberal globalization. One key difference, though, is that in the Chinese version of globalization, the state continues to play a pivotal role. State intervention is seen as crucial for developmental economics, for boosting growth and maintaining social harmony, and for creating and controlling a national ideological narrative (Brady, 2012). This chapter sets out to contextualize the globalization of the Chinese media, examining it from a geopolitical perspective.

The geopolitical context of China’s media rise

China’s media going global has been necessitated by the extraordinary expansion of the Chinese economy in the last two decades and its rapid globalization. Since 2006, China has been the largest holder of foreign-currency reserves. In 2014, China became the world’s largest economy, overtaking the United States in GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP), according to the International Monetary Fund. By 2016, China had become the largest importer for more than 70 countries and accounted for about ten per cent of all imports globally. Chinese companies are becoming increasingly competitive in global markets, making sizeable investments and acquisitions all around the world. This is assisted by the inclusion of the renminbi in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights, making it one of the world’s reserve currencies. According to the IMF, China’s share of global GDP in PPP terms has grown from just over 4 per cent in 1990 to nearly 18 per cent in 2016, while that of the G7 countries – the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Italy – shrank from nearly 51 per cent in 1990 to about 31 per cent in 2016. Since it joined the World Trade Organization, China’s imports have surged from $243.55 billion to $1.68 trillion in 15 years, an average annual growth of more than 10 per cent. As the world’s second biggest investor, China’s outbound direct investment rose for a 13th straight year in 2015, reaching $145.67 billion (IMF, 2017). Such an unprecedented rise of a non-Western nation evokes concern in Western capitals (Roach, 2014; Le Corre and Pollack, 2016; Alden, 2016; RAND Corporation, 2016). Writing in the journal Foreign Policy, Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institute warned that the US must check assertive rising powers, such as China, arguing that accepting their spheres of influence is a recipe for disaster (Kagan, 2017).

Why China’s media needs to go global

To combat such negative discourses in the mainstream international media and to provide their own version of the China story, the Chinese media have been going global for over a decade (Wang and Wang, 2014; Wang, 2014; Sun, 2015). In 2014, addressing the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs, President Xi Jinping announced that China should ‘give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s messages to the world’ (quoted in Xinhua, 2014). As part of disseminating this message to the world, the state-funded ‘central media’ – Xinhua news agency, China Central Television (CCTV, which in 2016 changed its name to China Global Television Network – CGTN), China Radio International, People’s Daily and the English-language China Daily – were generously funded for global expansion (Shambaugh, 2013). This funding came as part of a broader government effort to create internationally competitive media conglomerates in China that would make ‘China’s voice heard internationally’ (Nelson, 2013).

Founded in 1981 and with 600,000 copies distributed overseas, via 34 print sites, China Daily, ‘a voice of China on the global stage’, claims to have 45 million readers worldwide for its print and digital versions. Apart from having various international editions – including in the US and in Europe, China Daily is circulated with the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal in the US and several other newspapers around the world. In addition to English, the China Daily monthly supplement, China Watch, also publishes supplements in French, German and Spanish. Since 2016, London’s Daily Telegraph has had a sponsorship deal with China Watch, while a Russian edition has also been launched in partnership with leading Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Since 1997, the online version of The People’s Daily, People.cn – one of the top ten newspapers in the world – has been available in nine international languages. In 2017, China Radio International was broadcasting in 61 languages via its six overseas regional hubs and 32 correspondents. It had affiliations with 70 overseas radio stations and 18 global internet radio services. Apart from English, CGTN news (launched with the aim to ‘re-brand our product to the world, to cope with the global trend in media convergence’) is available in French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. Xinhua too has expanded its international operations – being particularly strong in the developing world and claiming to articulate a Southern news agenda. CGTN – the main instrument of Chinese global communication – is emphatic about its mission: ‘we cover the whole globe, reporting news from a Chinese perspective. Our mission is to create a better understanding of international events across the world, bridging continents and bringing a more balanced view to global news reporting’ (CGTN website). However, massive expansion and technological prowess have not translated into professional output: none of the Chinese international media has ever broken a major global story. As one study noted, despite its globalization and marketization, ‘the lack of credibility remains Xinhua’s Achilles’ heel’ (Xin, 2012: 129), while Chinese television news has yet to acquire global credibility as ‘the perception of being propaganda vehicles for the Chinese government is hard to shake off’ (Zhu, 2012: 194).

More successful have been privately funded Chinese media conglomerates, which, although following state strictures, have a greater degree of manoeuvrability to work around China’s highly regulated media system (Stockman, 2013). The e-commerce giant Alibaba, labelled as the ‘largest virtual shopping mall in the world’ (Clark, 2016: 5), is the most prominent example: its 2014 IPO in the New York Stock Exchange raised $25 billion, the largest stock market flotation in history (Erisman, 2015; Lashinsky, 2017). What is described as the ‘iron triangle’ – e-commerce, logistics and finance – has made Alibaba, within a very short time, China’s best-known global corporate brand (Clark, 2016: 16). Jack Ma, its founder and executive chairman, is dubbed China’s Rupert Murdoch by some. Since 2013, he has acquired the Hong-Kong-based South China Morning Post, China’s largest video-sharing site, Youku Tudou, social media outlet Sina Weibo and Alibaba Pictures. Beyond China, Ma has also invested, among others, in popular social apps Snapchat and PayTM, India’s largest e-commerce venture (Ni, 2016).

Creating a communication infrastructure for going global

Such expansion has been made possible by the information and communication infrastructure that has been put in place in the past decade by Chinese government-supported infrastructural projects. One key component of this is the strengthening of China’s foreign aid programme. China’s foreign aid has expanded greatly since its ‘going global’ strategy was launched in 2005. In 2013 China contributed nearly four per cent of total global development assistance, nearly half of it directed to countries in Africa, particularly since the establishment of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000 (see essays in Zhou and Xiong, 2017). This aid is aimed at creating infrastructure, including that for communication, thus facilitating growing trade relations. China’s trade with the continent has increased exponentially – from $10 billion in 2000 to $280 billion in 2015. At the second FOCAC summit in Johannesburg in December 2016, President Xi announced a tripling of aid to the continent to $60 billion (Moody, 2016).

It is no wonder that Chinese media have expanded in the continent. For example, StarTimes, one of China’s largest pay TV companies, has been operating in Africa since 2002, reaching, in 2016, seven million subscribers in ten countries, including Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya. The firm is diversifying in mobile TV services and internet business platforms, crucial as more Africans join the digital media world. Nairobi has emerged as a hub for Chinese media’s presence on the continent, with the setting up of the CCTV Africa service in 2012.

Creating information and communication networks is part of China’s major infrastructure initiatives, notably the highly ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), formerly know as the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project, outlined in 2015 by China’s National Development and Reform Committee (European Council on Foreign Relations, 2015). When completed, it will have 900 infrastructure projects, valued at about $1.3 trillion and will form an economic ‘belt’ across the Eurasian continent and a maritime ‘silk road’ through Southeast and South Asia to the Middle East ‘to deepen economic integration and connectivity’. The ‘Belt and Road’ projects are backed by a new $40 billion Silk Road Infrastructure Fund, capitalized mainly by China’s foreign exchange reserves. In addition, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – established in 2016 with a membership of 70 nations, including Germany, India, Britain, Canada and Australia – together with the Shanghai-based New Development Bank, established in 2014 by the five BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations, are involved in financing these projects, as are leading banks such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Ti, 2016).

Given the scale and scope of change that the ‘Belt and Road’ projects encompass, the Chinese media and government have been putting a favourable gloss on what is essentially an economic programme with significant geopolitical connotations. ‘We should enhance international exchanges and cooperation on culture and media’, says a government document, ‘and leverage the positive role of the internet and new media tools to foster harmonious and friendly cultural environment and public opinion’ (Government of China, 2015). Many Chinese commentators echo the official line, reiterating President Xi’s ‘Three Nos’: ‘no interference in the internal affairs of other nations; no to increasing “sphere of influence” and no to striving for hegemony or dominance’ (quoted in Zi, 2014).

To emphasize the cultural dimension of this expansion, the government is funding translations of Chinese literature, aiming to reach readers in countries along the routes of the ‘modern Silk Road’, with such Chinese publishers as China Intercontinental Press and Beijing Normal University Press being encouraged to undertake what one senior official described as ‘localization operations’, seen as ‘an important and effective way of “going out’’’ (Jia, 2017). An annual ‘Silk Road International Arts Festival’ is regularly held in the historic city of Xi’an, the Chinese starting point of the ancient Silk Road.

At the third World Internet Conference in 2016, China suggested that the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative offered opportunities for the countries involved to improve their telecommunication infrastructure using Chinese investment. China Daily quoted a senior official as saying that ‘network construction, services and applications and digital economy’ were crucial for deepening exchanges and cooperation. Yang Xiaowei, General Manager of China Telecommunications, said that the mission of the Chinese telecom operators was to bridge the gap and make people all over the world part of the ‘information civilization’. A forum at the conference – ‘Network Connection Promotes Heart Connection’ – discussed cooperation in building a better communication infrastructure to expand trade and deepen cultural ties (Liqiang, 2016).

However, the official-speak – part of China’s soft power narrative – does not necessarily match the realities on the ground. Commentators note that the Chinese government is ‘building networks carefully and deliberately to connect to minerals, energy sources and access to cities, harbours and oceans’ (Frankopan, 2015: 516). The Chinese media need to take on board the concerns of the countries directly affected by these new routes. Moscow’s traditional domination of its ‘near abroad’ is being increasingly eroded by Chinese investment and growing presence in central Asia, while the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project – an integral part of OBOR – irks New Delhi as it passes through territories claimed by both India and Pakistan. Europeans too are concerned. An article in the respected German newsweekly Der Spiegel wondered whether the real goal of OBOR was: ‘to break the West’s political dominance – a plan, in a sense, to conquer the world’? (Follath, 2016).

The focus on trade and investment has eclipsed the cultural and communicatio...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction
• PART I Conceptualizing the rise of China’s media
• PART II Chinese media abroad
• PART III Discourses of Sino-globalization
• PART IV Media with Chinese characteristics
• Index