China�s Chain Of Media Nodes

Chinese media is ‘Going Global’ to counter Western monopoly to showcase its superpower status in a non-threatening and non-confrontational manner. State media at all levels is being centrally coordinated to work towards intensifying overseas activities, including launch of multi-language satellite TV channels and websites, sponsoring study of foreign students in China and paying for Chinese-language programmes abroad. After more than three decades of reform and opening up, China’s overseas PR strategy has graduated from Deng Xiaoping’s passive low-profile diplomacy to a more pro-active approach in line with President Xi Jinping’s emphasis to ensure a peaceful and stable international climate for China’s rise.

China considers the media sector a key part of this effort and is therefore expanding its communication channels rapidly. Media organizations could receive liberal funding for ambitious schemes geared towards enhancing China’s international influence. CCTV International (CCTV’s English-language channel) has within the span of a few years, staked its claim in the worldwide media and communication landscape, covering 98% of the global landmass. China’s strong economic clout has lent it the confidence to assert itself as a global player in the field. Initiated in 2005, it has built an ‘all-dimensional, multi-channelled, wide-ranging grand framework of overseas publicity,’ a centrally managed, coordinated framework for influencing and moulding worldwide public opinion in its favour.

China’s media diplomacy has evolved from being a product of necessity to forward-looking foreign services concerned with establishing relationships abroad. Implementation of the ‘grand framework of foreign propaganda,’ and expansion of communication channels has ensured that the crucial infrastructure, namely social, political and technological conditions, are in place for China’s emergence as a soft power. Additionally, focus is on sites specifically designed for overseas publicity towards key national overseas publicity interface. These websites are multi-lingual with specific topics and different layouts for target regions and provide China with a new medium to publicize itself to the world. Growing confidence in its PR abilities has also helped China track its target audience. Focus is now on mainstream society in US, Europe and the ‘Neighbourhood’. Hence, English and other foreign-language channels are the prime medium to promote China’s soft power.

Chinese media present China’s own version of issues and events, whether domestic, regional or global, but there’s been increasing coverage of global events, specifically those related to developing countries. It is competing in a very crowded global media sphere with well entrenched transnational organizations like BBC, CNN, Aljazeera and France 24.

Silk Road Economic Belt Media Cooperation Forum was held in Beijing on 2^nd July 2014. Nearly 100 officials, diplomats and media representatives from  Russia, India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and some central Asian countries including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan were present at the forum.  Yang Zhenwu, President of People's Daily said the Media Silk Road Economic Belt also has two sub-forums:city development forum of the Silk Road Economic Belt and roundtable dialogue of the Media Cooperation Forum of the Silk Road Economic Belt.  President Xi Jinping proposed the strategic vision of Silk Road Economic Belt has profound significance for more understanding of neighbouring countries, promoting communication among media in different countries and ensuring an important role for media in the Belt’s development. 

President Xi’s proposal of ‘one belt and one road’ New Silk Road brought a new connotation for the old Silk Road. New Silk Road is so dear to President Xi that The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China recently celebrated the ‘renaissance’ of the route by holding grand functions in Beijing, Xi’an, and Quanzhou. The daily announced: “Two reporting teams consisting of more than 60 journalists, celebrities, opinion leaders will work along the Silk Road economic belt starting from Xi’an and the Maritime Silk Road from Quanzhou respectively for about two months.” This is the way China is deploying its media to mould public opinions in its favour.

Inroads into India’s Neighbourhood

Chinese media has already made inroads into Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Maldives. China is on a spree of all-round spread of influence globally and especially into the Indian neighbourhood through its ancient ‘Silk Trade Route’, Maritime Silk Route, Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) 'Economic Corridor' and fast rail connectivity activation.  It is only a matter of time that China will also have its media nodes in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan in view of its Silk Road Economic Belt Media Cooperation Forum.

Africa: China is making a big play to control African media, apparently to promote its own media agenda in the continent; from newspapers and magazines to satellite television and radio stations, China is investing heavily in African media as part of its long-term campaign to bolster its ‘soft power.’ The second high level official forum on China-Africa Media cooperation was held on 16^th June 2014 in Beijing. It aims to deepen cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and promote the development of a new China-Africa strategic partnership. More than 150 delegates from more than 40 African countries, as well as high level officials from the Chinese side attended the forum.

Chinese media finally make inroads into India by signing an agreement between the Indian and Chinese national broadcasting networks Doordarshan and CCTV during PM Modi’s visit to China. China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the predominant state television broadcaster in mainland China. It was founded on September 2, 1958. Its parent organization is the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. CCTV has a network of 45 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers. The organization is considered one of the "big three" media outlets in China, along with the People's Daily and Xinhua.

China’s strategy towards India comprises three,namely, ‘encirclement’ or strengthening its strategic presence in India’s neighbourhood and marine spaces; ‘envelopment’ or integrating all of India’s neighbours into its economic fold; and ‘entanglement’ or exploiting India’s domestic contradictions and multiple security concerns.The emergence of Chinese ‘media nodes’ are like its ‘String of Pearls,’ which indicate its growing geopolitical influence in India’s periphery. China's hard power bolstered by its soft power capital could create a security nightmare for India in its strategic space.

Robert David Steele an authority on ‘Open Source Intelligence’ (OSINT) has stated that OSINT is the only discipline for effective classified intelligence collection and analysis, and a full multi-media discipline in its own right…  OSINT is uniquely important to the development of strategic intelligence, not only for the government, but for the military also as OSINT allows itself to be shared with anyone anywhere especially at the strategic level in particular, but also at all four levels of analysis - strategic, operational, tactical, and technical.  “In the long-run, I anticipate that OSINT will displace 80% of the current manpower and dollars devoted to secret sources and that this will at least be one thousand times better than what is obtained now through secret sources and methods.” *

US Central Command former Commander-in-Chief General Tony Zinni on OSINT said in 2006: “80% of what I needed to know I got from open sources rather than classified intelligence and within the remaining 20%, if I knew what to look for, I found another 16%.The classified intelligence, he said provided him, at best, with 4% at the cost of just over $250 million a year. That means the US spends $60 billion dollars a year on secret sources and methods that provide only 4% support towards relevant decisions.”*

India has perhaps failed to grasp the significance of media or say OSINT vis-à-vis China. Through the global spread of its ‘Media Nodes,’ China has not just extended its influence, but gainfully synergizing media inputs into implementing all kinds of infrastructure development and cornering lucrative energy and other strategic deals. China is essentially using media as an instrument of protracted warfare and foreign policy and has finally made inroads into India as well!

Col RC Patial, SM, FRGS, PhD (Retd) has served with the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) as a Senior Defence Specialist. Views expressed are personal.