Washington September 8, : China is intensifying its efforts to influence and alter information and news around the world and is employing a range of tools to create an image of positivity of China overseas an American watchdog group stated in an article that was released on Thursday.RFA reported.In Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia were a target for Beijing’s influence campaign from the beginning of 2019 to the end of the year, whereas the Philippines was more resilient, according to a new report released by Freedom House, a non-profit organization based in Washington.
“The Chinese government, under the direction of the President Xi Jinping, is accelerating an enormous campaign to influence news media outlets and consumers across the globe.
While certain aspects of this campaign rely on methods of traditional public diplomacy the majority are secretive, coercive and possibly corruption-related,” the report said in providing an overview of Beijing’s media influence campaign across the world, RFA reported.
“A increasing number of nations have shown a lot of resistance in recent years, however Beijing’s tactics are becoming more sophisticated more aggressive, and difficult to discern.”
The report looked at efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to sway the media and consumers starting the 1st of January, 2019 until the last day of December 2021.It discovered that China’s government stepped its media coverage in 29 countries as well as Taiwan during this time.
“Since the beginning of the 2000s following orders from the top leaders, CCP officials have invested billions of dollars in an even more ambitious campaign to influence media content and narratives across the globe and in many languages,” the report said, RFA reported.
The CCP has intensified its international media influence campaign, which is accompanied by an apparent decrease in the worldwide reputation of China as well as its leader, in particular in the eyes of those who live in democratically-elected democracies.
“This mission has taken on greater importance and urgency in the last year, as the world’s public has shown their support toward protesters for democracy in Hong Kong, and Uyghurs who were detained in Xinjiang and blame Chinese officials for not disclosing information regarding the first epidemic of COVID-19.”
In the course of the campaign Chinese diplomats as well as state-owned media have “openly promoted falsehoods or misinformation,” the report said, RFA reported.
“[T]here was an effort to deny and whitewash the human rights violations and the violations of international law that are being perpetrated against the members of religious and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” Freedom House declared in a statement, describing this as “the most alarming outcome of the CCP’s media influence campaigns across the globe.”
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