Part II (Part I can be viewed here)
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The widespread use of propaganda at home and abroad, and espionage and cyber-espionage against the United States by the People’s Republic of China are increasingly becoming issues of concern for China experts. The direction in which China’s propaganda is evolving and expanding was the subject of a hearing April 30 on Capitol Hill.
The United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) (“China” Commission) heard testimony from expert witnesses on what China is doing, its intentions, and how U.S. public opinion is targeted. There was consensus among the experts that China’s propaganda has become much more effective since the days of Chairman Mao. Today it aggressively promotes a “benign” image of itself both at home and abroad.
Part I focused on China’s espionage and cyber terrorism. Part II describes the expert testimony before the Commission on China’s expanding propaganda program.
Not ‘Propaganda’
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) understood the value of propaganda from the beginning, when during Mao Zedong’s reign, they actively tried to export their Red revolution.
“Radio Beijing harangued the world about the Chairman’s monopoly on virtue,” said Dr. Nicholas J. Cull, Professor of Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California.
The crude self-promotion in the Mao era began to change with Deng Xiaoping’s reforms launched in 1979, as China opened up to trade and tourism. A major setback to its image happened during the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, a “public relations” nightmare so to speak. Since about 1992, China began to shape its internal and external propaganda departments with an eye to how Chinese leadership is perceived in the west, and change its message to portray China as a stable, peaceful nation that works hard to reduce poverty.
For “sensitive” topics: Tibet, Xinjiang, ethnic minorities, religion, human rights, democracy movements, and Falun Gong, the Office for Foreign Propaganda (OFP), more commonly known as the State Council Information Office (SCIO), “guide the Chinese media,” said Associate Professor Anne-Marie Brady, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
She added, “For extremely serious incidents, only Xinhua News Agency is allowed to report on them and all other Chinese media must report word for word.”
In the last decade the regime has dropped the term propaganda (xuanchuan) in favor of “explaining” (shuo ming), said Dr. Cull, an innovation due to Zhao Qizheng, who headed the SCIO office from 1998-2005, with the full backing of the leadership of the Party.
Nevertheless, while China Daily and Xinhua have replaced “propaganda” by terms like “publicity’ and “information,” these activities are still classified as foreign propaganda (waixuan) in Chinese language publications, said Dr. Brady.
Another change of emphasis is what Dr. Cull called its leaders’ “charm offensive,” drawing on a book with the same title by Joshua Kurlantzick. He described the development of China’s “soft power”—diplomacy, trade incentives, cultural and educational exchanges, Beijing Olympics, Confucian Institutes, and the internet—to project a message that China’s intentions are benign.
Dr. Cull quoted from Chinese leader Hu Jintao calling for “raising China’s cultural propaganda abilities,” which “have already become a decisive factor for a national culture’s strength.”
At the same time, their diplomacy is being carried out with the domestic audience in mind. “The Chinese [regime] wishes above all to give the Chinese people the gift of the admiration of the world, to buttress their own legitimacy…” said Dr. Cull.
