Better propaganda will not raise China's status
Authoritarian governments have a tendency to feel aggrieved over the bad press they receive from the outside world. They complain bitterly that the world does not understand them. However, what they completely fail to appreciate is that the world probably does understand them but simply dislikes what it sees.
China, a long-standing complainer about the coverage of its affairs in the international media, is now joining the long list of one-party states that have poured vast amounts of money into media campaigns designed to put their case to the rest of the world. The Ministry of Finance has set aside a staggering 45 billion yuan (HK$51 billion) for this purpose. This is considerably more than practically any other nation has spent on a scheme of this kind.
It remains unclear how this money will be spent but there is talk of launching a global television station modelled on the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network. There are also suggestions that existing Chinese publications will be published in English and tailored for an overseas readership.
Setting aside the dubious notion that China's image problems can be fixed by better propaganda, it remains doubtful whether the Communist Party cadres who run the nation's media have any real idea of how successful international media organisations work.
Arguably the most successful international broadcaster is the BBC, whose domestic programming is almost entirely financed by British taxpayers but, and this is the key point, is not controlled by the government. On the contrary, the British government often finds itself at loggerheads with the BBC's news coverage and complains bitterly about it.
Yet, by and large, every attempt by the government to control the BBC's news agenda has been fought off, not least because its independent stance has considerable support among the British public. The net result is a network with a high degree of credibility both at home and abroad.
The case of Al-Jazeera is also interesting because the network was set up by the Qatari government with a quite specific propaganda aim in mind: to raise its international profile and establish itself as a player in world affairs. What is surprising, even to those initially sceptical about the station, is that its founders were savvy enough to realise that a crude propaganda network was hardly likely to work; it would only gain prestige by establishing its independence and readiness to offer objective coverage even in a country like Israel, where an Arab television station has understandable difficulties achieving both credibility and access.
Were there the smallest indication that China's media mandarins had even a modest understanding of how to operate an independently minded news organisation, then the 45 billion yuan might be well spent.
The fact is that China's current crop of international publications and broadcasts provide little evidence of an intention to do anything other than offer propaganda, albeit more sophisticated than in the past. Their news coverage continues to be highly selective, the willingness to discuss taboo subjects in an objective fashion ranges around nil, and the commentaries contained in the newspapers and magazines make little effort to match the increased professionalism of the news reporting.
It seems far more likely that Beijing will be attracted to the model established by Singapore with its Channel Asia television station, which is quite slick but has little credibility and quite dismal audience figures.
Meanwhile, the Chinese media is facing a new barrage of edicts reminding journalists of the need to exercise censorship, while historical drama series on television are increasingly being forced into a propaganda straightjacket. China's problem is that the outside world knows something of this and does not like it. That dislike will not be overcome by being served an English-language dose of propaganda from Beijing. Indeed, the opposite result is likely.
Stephen Vines is a Hong Kong-based journalist and entrepreneur
