Beijing's Global Media Offensive: China's Uneven Campaign to Influence Asia and the World

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Joshua Kurlantzick

Beijing's Global Media Offensive

China's Uneven Campaign to Influence Asia and the World

Joshua Kurlantzick

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English

Oxford University Press
23 February 2023

History; Media studies; Geopolitics

A major analysis of how China is attempting to become a media and information superpower around the world, seeking to shape the politics, local media, and information environments of both East Asia and the World.

Since China's ascendancy toward major-power status began in the 1990s, many observers have focused on its economic growth and expanding military. China's ability was limited in projecting power over information and media and the infrastructure through which information flows. That has begun to change. Beijing's state-backed media, which once seemed incapable having a significant effect globally, has been overhauled and expanded. At a time when many democracies' media outlets are consolidating due to financial pressures, China's biggest state media outlets, like the newswire Xinhua, are modernizing, professionalizing, and expanding in attempt to reach an international audience. Overseas, Beijing also attempts to impact local media, civil society, and politics by having Chinese firms or individuals with close links buy up local media outlets, by signing content-sharing deals with local media, by expanding China's social media giants, and by controlling the wireless and wired technology through which information now flows, among other efforts.

In Beijing's Global Media Offensive--a major analysis of how China is attempting to build a media and information superpower around the world, and how this media power integrates with other forms of Chinese influence--Joshua Kurlantzick focuses on how all of this is playing out in both China's immediate neighborhood--Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand--and also in the United States and many other parts of the world. He traces the ways in which China is trying to build an information and influence superpower, but also critically examines the new conventional wisdom that Beijing has enjoyed great success with these efforts. While China has worked hard to build a global media and information superpower, it often has failed to reap gains from its efforts, and has undermined itself with overly assertive, alienating diplomacy. Still, Kurlantzick contends, China's media, information and political influence campaigns will continue to expand and adapt, helping Beijing exports its political model and protect the ruling Party, and potentially damaging press freedoms, human rights, and democracy abroad. An authoritative account of how this sophisticated and multi-pronged campaign is unfolding, Beijing's Global Media Offensive provides a new window into China's attempts to make itself an information superpower.

By: Joshua Kurlantzick
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 163mm, Width: 240mm, Spine: 43mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780197515761
ISBN 10: 0197515762
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 23 February 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Chapter 1: Building a Giant - or a Giant Failure? Chapter 2: A Short Modern History of China's Soft- and Sharp-Power Approaches Chapter 3: The First Charm Offensive Sets the Stage for Today Chapter 4: Motivations for China's Modern Influence Campaign Chapter 5: Opportunities Chapter 6: The Soft-Power Tool Kit: Media and Information Coming Through the Front Door Chapter 7: Xinhua and Content-Sharing Deals: A Success Story Chapter 8: The Sharp-Power Tool Kit: Media and Information Slipping Through the Back Door Chapter 9: Controlling the Pipes Chapter 10: Old Fashioned Influence Chapter 11: China's Mixed Effectiveness Chapter 12: A Path Forward: Pushing Back against China's Information and Influence Activities

Joshua Kurlantzick is a Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Kurlantzick was previously a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he studied Southeast Asian politics and economics and China's relations with Southeast Asia, including Chinese investment, aid, and diplomacy. He is the author of five previous books on China and Southeast Asia.

Reviews for Beijing's Global Media Offensive: China's Uneven Campaign to Influence Asia and the World

Foreign information campaigns in and against the United States are nothing new, but China's global effort is unprecedented in scale. This detailed assessment brings the threat into focus and suggests important ways to counteract it. * John Bolton, Former US National Security Advisor (2018-2019) and Former US Ambassador to the United Nations (2005-2006) * A highly illuminating narrative and a remarkable articulation of how China builds sharp power around the world and wield influence especially in developing countries. The book is a must-read for anyone trying to understand China's global information campaign. * Yun Sun, Director of China Program, the Stimson Center * In Beijing's Global Media Offensive, Joshua Kurlantzick has produced a lucid and penetrating investigation into the history, theory, and practice of China's global influence efforts. He shows that behind a veil of 'non-interference' in other nations' internal affairs, Beijing engages in a growing range of open and covert efforts to make friends, influence people, and shape foreign nations in ways supportive of its increasing global ambitions. Kurlantzick knows this terrain well, detailing the challenge posed by China's global media and influence efforts, and what the democratic world can do in response. Essential reading for a dawning era of superpower competition. * Sebastian Strangio, Southeast Asia editor at The Diplomat and author of In the Dragon's Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century * This is a truly important book. Full of thoughtful insights and copious details, Joshua Kurlantzick has produced the missing link in our understanding of one of the most underappreciated geopolitical phenomena of our time: China's use of media and information tools to present itself to the world in a benign light while undermining the United States and other liberal democracies. Kurlantzick leads the way for an important reconsideration of how political motivations, rather than economic concerns, are now the main driver behind China's international engagement. * Joshua Eisenman, Associate Professor of Politics in the Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame *