How Donald Trump’s tweets outgunned China’s heavy media weapons in the trade war publicity battle
- Beijing’s tightly controlled propaganda apparatus has been no match for the US president’s information leaks
- China’s decades-long preference for secrecy over transparency was not able to keep up as the US took the offensive and dictated the narrative
China is losing the publicity battle in its trade war with the United States, as its propaganda apparatus fails to respond to information challenges, according to analysts.
Beijing’s decades-long preference for secrecy over transparency was not able to keep up as US officials including US President Donald Trump took the offensive and dictated the narrative, the analysts said.
While Chinese officials have kept a tight lid over what is discussed behind closed doors in the past 10 months, US officials, especially Trump, have constantly leaked details of the talks through public comments.
Wu Qiang, a Beijing-based political analyst and former university professor, said that if the “trade war is a war of publicity, Beijing has been on the losing side since the start”.
“For a long time, the Chinese government had almost no say over the narrative of the talks,” Wu added.
By far the loudest voice has belonged to Trump. He has turned up the rhetoric even higher since progress in the negotiations began to falter two weeks ago over claims by Washington that Beijing had reneged on several key commitments.