Can China communication policy face challenges?—I

China’s global communication policy could not evolve according to the needs of its major power status. It could not deploy required communication and public diplomacy tools to show the true face of China and its vision of global order. China remained stuck in old-style public diplomacy and Chinese philosophy of diplomacy, while the world moved to war-lord public diplomacy. This created space for opponents, and they converted it into an opportunity to build anti-China rhetoric.

They created an image of China that does not correspond to real China. The country was portrayed as a human rights abuser, which is entirely different from the truth. In reality, China transformed the lives of 1,400 million people with sheer dedication and hard work. Once a poverty-ridden country, it is now a poverty-free country. Global initiatives like BRI, GDI, GSI, GCI, and a Community with a Shared Future, which were launched to share prosperity and ensure inclusive and sustainable development and peace, became a target for malicious campaigns and propaganda like debt-trap diplomacy.

Therefore, China must work on its communication policy and tune it to meet new needs. The process must start with identifying the challenges, opponents’ strengths, and, most importantly, the main pillars of modern communication policy. The most important areas to focus on are narrative trap, propaganda mediums, ideological dominance, propaganda privatisation and new funding means.

The narrative trap is the most effective and time-tested tool of communication policy. It is constructed in a logical and organised way. The process starts with recruiting think tanks, NGOs and academia, which are tasked with creating a narrative and constructing a trap.

The narrative trap is constructed to achieve objectives. Efforts are made to destabilise the institutions of vital importance. They are targeting Communist Party of China to interfere in internal matters, such as Hong Kong affairs. They demoralising the common people by constantly blaming and spreading negativity about the country or the institutions. They are criticising a nation for nothing, and degrading it by assigning negative traits. They manipulate data or facts for all fields, including economic, social, environmental, etc., to create a wedge between the State and the people and among the people. They try to create chaos or anarchy by spreading fake news or threats to institutions and the country.

The mediums and tools play a lead role in determining the success or failure of communication policy. Western countries have mastered the art and have been practicing it for centuries. For example, to undermine China and its governance system, democracy and the Party, they selected three words: authoritarian, dictatorship or autocracy. They always use these words in one way or another to describe the State of China and Chinese systems. However, they never mention the Whole Process People’s Democracy or the People-centric Governance System. They use these words because these words give a negative impression and create a bad image.

Selecting a medium is equally important because it is used to spread news, fake news, data, fake study findings, etc. The medium and its instruments kept evolving with time. The 20th century witnessed the most radical changes. Today, we have numerous mediums, such as news reports, government reports, junk science, books, leaflets, movies, social media, radio, television, posters, etc.

However, the invention of cyberspace has changed the whole dynamics of communication. For example, in November 2018, it was reported the term debt trap diplomacy received 199,000 clicks in 0.52 seconds.

Communication policy has been privatised with strong control from behind the scene. The military-industrial complex controls the process by deploying Penta-Complex, which is leading the anti-China rhetoric. Penta-complex works in a systematic way. The industry provides financial resources, the military data and reach, academia (university and think tank) creates content or justification, academia and NGOs provide public face and media disseminates material at a wider scale.

Emotions play a prominent, rather decisive role, in the success of communication policy. Therefore, all countries and groups focus on identifying emotional triggers and devising the right set of instruments to play with a nation’s emotions. For example, it is a common fact China keeps its ideology, civilisation and cohesiveness of society close to its heart. Opponents always try to attack these areas, and Xinjiang is one of the most prominent examples of this.

Ideology is a critical part of communication policy. It helps create conducive environment for spreading the desired agenda or propaganda and achieving objectives accordingly. Presently, the West enjoys unparalleled dominance in the ideological field. The Western liberal ideology of economy, democracy and diplomacy has established dominance.

They use their ideological strength to promote their message and coin new terminology to dictate the global discourse and propaganda. For example, they compare Chinese democracy with liberal democracy, which has no comparison at all. Chinese democracy is built on the philosophy of continuous engagement, people-centric governance, etc. However, by manipulating facts and the strength of their ideology, they create a bad image of Chinese democracy and the governance system.

Previously, sponsoring or funding propaganda campaigns through proxies was easier. Since the launch of the War on Terror, it has become difficult to sponsor proxies. After the war on terror, Western countries felt they could not freely transfer money or start programmes in other countries.

Therefore, they started inventing new means of funding to propel propaganda, create disturbances in other countries and undermine their initiatives. They came up with the idea of monetising social media accounts. They have turned social media into a leading propaganda medium, creating social upheavals and disturbances and introducing colour revolutions.

The most alarming aspect of social media is that if they cannot find people within the country, they deploy people from other countries with fake identities and names to do the job in the name of freedom of speech. They also try to host dissidents and allow them to malign the country of origin. For example, some Uygur Muslims who have settled in Western countries are using social media to spread fake news.

Borders have become increasingly irrelevant. You cannot protect people completely from propaganda or disinformation; VPN systems make it extremely difficult. Moreover, we live in a highly connected world; people travel for education, business, tourism or other purposes. So, it is easy for opponents to target them.

They use common people to implement communication policy. They avoid using the elite, agencies, the army, big names of government, etc. They know people do not believe messages delivered by the elite, and they think these are lies or propaganda material. Therefore, they come up with ideas like citizen journalism, entrepreneurial journalism, etc.

Against this background, China will have to refine its communication policy, which can cater to the needs of the present and future.