China and the Media

Good excerpt here from The Beijing Consensus (Stefan Halper). The book is good, but I am doing some others at the moment. This snippet talks about the ongoing media frenzy that uncle C is undertaking. excerpt: “The Chinese public information chief, Li Chang-Chun, explained his government’s view that the global information space now ranks among the crucial battlegrounds for power in the twenty-first century. As he told an audience of executives at China Central Television (CCTV) in similar terms, “Communications capacity determines influence. . . . Whichever nation’s communications capacity is strongest, it is that nation whose culture and core values spread far and wide . . . with the most power to influence the world.” Previous attempts to present China’s case internationally, Li admitted, had reached only a limited audience; they also proved inadequate in countering Western criticism of the Chinese government during the protests in Tibet and the Olympic Torch Relay in 2008. Under the new project, he said, China would “try to produce news the way that Western media do” and beat the West at its own game.5”