CHINA’S STATE news agency has launched a trial run of an international English-language TV news service, part of an increasingly sophisticated propaganda drive to boost the country’s image as a “soft power” and increase its global media influence.
The Xinhua news agency said its reporters across China and in 110 countries would produce domestic and international news to be distributed around the world via satellite to TVs, websites, outdoor screens and to mobile users.
China is reportedly spending 45 billion yuan (€4.67 billion) on expanding its three main media outlets, Xinhua, China Central Television (CCTV) and the People's Dailynewspaper.
The new TV service is part of China’s efforts to promote its influence in the world in the way that the BBC, Al-Jazeera and CNN do already. It will aim to provide an alternative to western media coverage, especially on sensitive issues like Tibetan independence and efforts to introduce more democracy.
There was much local criticism of CNN’s coverage of the Tibetan demonstrations in Lhasa last year, while many TV news reports on the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy protesters on Tiananmen Square were blocked.
Currently China’s international TV presence is restricted to 24- hour news channels on CCTV in Mandarin, English, French and Spanish that can be picked up overseas, as well as the sale overseas of documentaries. CCTV is expected to add Arabic and Russian-language services to its current offering.
Xinhua would “interpret global events objectively and impartially from a Chinese angle and bring novel perspectives to foreign audiences”, agency president Li Congjun told an inauguration ceremony, and would become “an important TV news supplier for the world’s users”. The service will be formally launched on December 31st and transmitted through satellite to Chinese users and over the internet to other countries.
The news comes shortly after the announcement that the Communist Party's chief mouthpiece, the People's Daily,will be revamped to increase its influence at home and abroad. The People's Dailylaunched its first English language tabloid newspaper, the Global Times, in May.
The expanded newspaper will mainly cover China news, international news, literary commentary and feature stories to “better spread the central government’s policies, report from both domestic and overseas fronts and strengthen the publication of the socialism theory with Chinese characteristics and Marxism literature theory.”
Meanwhile, the Beijing government has halted the rollout of government-sponsored filtering software at the last minute, in a move hailed as a milestone for webizen power. The edict that all personal computers sold in China must be preloaded with the programme was due to come into force, but the government backed down just hours before.