China’s Xinhua news agency, which functions as a propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and is this year celebrating its 80th year as a disinformation machine, started life in Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) caves in Yanan, Shaanxi Province, and it is still living in a dark cave of a repressive regime, despite its use of glistening, sleek modern technology. Xinhua is fooling no one in the West, despite the enormous sums it is forking out in its attempts to brainwash overseas readers.
It is not going to work. Brainwashing and disinformation are things of the past, which is exactly where Xinhua’s leaders are still living.
Sure, Xinhua purchased advertising space on a giant outdoor billboard in New York City’s famous Times Square, hoping to win friends and influence people.
The sign, while perhaps known as a “spectacular” in the world of US advertising, is not spectacular at all. The LED billboard may be 18.2m high by 12.2m wide and scream Xinhua’s name, but Americans are not fooled by such blatantly deceptive tactics and see the agency for the propaganda machine it is.
Li Changchun (李長春), the No. 5 in the party’s hierarchy and China’s top propaganda official, in a recent speech in Beijing to mark the 80th anniversary of Xinhua, said the agency has a responsibility to uphold a recent CCP resolution to expand the Chinese government’s reach into cultural affairs.
To translate that directive into plain English, Li hopes to curb the expanding influence of the Internet and microblogging sites in China in order to keep the people under the control of the dictatorship.
With its high-tech bureaus and Times Square billboard, Xinhua wants to make friends and allies in the West, but it also wants to quieten dissent and stop the free flow of information in China.
This anniversary, like Xinhua and the People’s Republic of China, is a sham. China is in no way a republic of the people, for the people, by the people.
It is a dark dictatorship just like the former Soviet Union. The West is not fooled by anniversary parties and flowery words.
There is more. Li Congjun (李從軍), who runs Xinhua and is a member of the CCP’s powerful Central Committee, has often stressed in his public remarks that Xinhua is deeply loyal to the party and its succession of leaders, from Mao to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
“We must fight for socialism with Chinese characteristics [and] foster a Marxist news concept,” Li Congjun said on Monday in remarks that were widely quoted in the West.
I have news for Li Congjun: “Marxist news concepts” are draconian newsroom ghosts of the past, and they were supposed to die when the USSR finally collapsed in the late 20th century. Evidently, however, they are still alive and well in China.
Let’s see what Xinhua’s 100th anniversary brings in 2031. Will it still represent disinformation and repression or will it stand for a brave new China open to the world?
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer in Taiwan.
Apart from the first arms sales approval for Taiwan since US President Donald Trump took office, last month also witnessed another milestone for Taiwan-US relations. Trump signed the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act into law on Tuesday. Its passing without objection in the US Senate underscores how bipartisan US support for Taiwan has evolved. The new law would further help normalize exchanges between Taiwanese and US government officials. We have already seen a flurry of visits to Washington earlier this summer, not only with Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), but also delegations led by National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu
When the towers of Wang Fuk Court turned into a seven-building inferno on Wednesday last week, killing 128 people, including a firefighter, Hong Kong officials promised investigations, pledged to review regulations and within hours issued a plan to replace bamboo scaffolding with steel. It sounded decisive. It was not. The gestures are about political optics, not accountability. The tragedy was not caused by bamboo or by outdated laws. Flame-retardant netting is already required. Under Hong Kong’s Mandatory Building Inspection Scheme — which requires buildings more than 30 years old to undergo inspection every decade and compulsory repairs — the framework for
President William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced a plan to invest an additional NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.8 billion) in military spending to procure advanced defense systems over the next eight years, and outlined two major plans and concrete steps to defend democratic Taiwan in the face of China’s intensifying threat. While Lai’s plans for boosting the country’s national security have been praised by many US lawmakers, former defense officials, academics and the American Institute in Taiwan, the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan, they were not equally welcomed by all Taiwanese, particularly among the opposition parties. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman
President William Lai’s (賴清德) historic announcement on Wednesday, Nov. 26, of a supplemental defense budget valued in excess of US$40 billion is a testament to the seriousness with which Taiwan is responding to the relentless expansionist ambitions of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the Chinese Communist Party and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Lai is responding to the threat posed to Taiwan sovereignty along with US President Donald Trump’s insistence that American partners in good standing must take on more responsibility for their own defense. The supplemental defense budget will be broken into three main parts. The first and largest piece
RSS