An army of Western social media influencers, each with hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok, Instagram or Twitch, is set to spread positive stories about China throughout next month’s Winter Olympic Games.
Concerned about the international backlash against the Beijing Games amid a wave of diplomatic boycotts, Beijing has hired Western public relations professionals to spread an alternative narrative through social media.
In November last year, as US President Joe Biden contemplated a diplomatic boycott, Vipinder Jaswal, a US-based Newsweek contributor and former Fox News and HSBC executive, signed a US$300,000 contract with China’s consulate general in New York to “strategize and execute” an influencer campaign promoting the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics in the US.
Photo: Bloomberg
The contract, which has been registered with the US Department of Justice, lays out a detailed public relations strategy.
According to the agreement, between Nov. 22 last year and March 13, when the Winter Paralympics end, each influencer is asked to produce three to five “deliverables,” meaning content that is crafted to fit the target audience.
Jaswal said that his company has received up to 50 pitches from influencers, ranging from former Olympians to entrepreneurs.
The contract states that 70 percent of the content is to be culture-related, including Beijing’s history, cultural relics, modern life and new trends. Another 20 percent is to highlight “cooperation and any good things in China-US relations,” including high-level bilateral exchanges and positive outcomes.
Jaswal, who was born in the UK, received US$210,000 shortly after the contract was sealed with Chinese diplomats, he told the Observer.
He promised Beijing that his influencers would bring an estimated 3 million impressions on social media platforms frequently used by young Americans.
He said that he was well aware of the controversies that surround China’s policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, but “what we are trying to do is to simply highlight the integrity and dignity of the Olympics.”
“Boycotts don’t help mutual understanding... I don’t support boycotts. They are ineffective, irrelevant and inconsequential,” he added.
Jaswal’s Beijing contract comes at a time of precarious bilateral relations between China and the US.
He is under heavy scrutiny since his contract with the Chinese consulate came to light.
On Jan. 3, US Senator Rick Scott urged in a letter to Newsweek’s top brass to “reconsider its relationship with Vipp Jaswal.”
Last month, Biden announced that his administration would stage a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics, in a show of disagreement with the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighurs and other minority Muslims in Xinjiang.
Several US allies, including the UK and Australia, have since joined calls not to send government officials to China.
For more than a decade, China has been ramping up its overseas messaging through state-sponsored media outlets.
It spent nearly US$60 million in the US in 2020, said Open Secrets, an organization based in Washington that tracks money in US politics.
The funding included money for China Central Television’s US branch and the China Daily newspaper.
US businesses, including Coca-Cola Co, Procter & Gamble Co, Airbnb Inc, Intel Corp and Visa Inc, are among the 13 top partners of the Beijing Games. Other sponsors range from the Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp to German financial services firm Allianz SE and French information technology consultancy Atos SE.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS