Editor’s note: This blog was adapted from remarks given by Samantha Custer, AidData’s Director of Policy Analysis, at the January quarterly meeting of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.
How can we better understand Beijing’s playbook for engaging with foreign leaders and publics through information influence and public diplomacy? Asked this question earlier this month, I reflected on a decade’s worth of AidData research to provide three pieces of strategic context to decode how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) approaches public diplomacy.
- There is a strategic imperative that informs China’s public diplomacy: a desire to “win the narrative.”
- China has the financial means and political will to employ a formidable public diplomacy and broadcasting toolkit to wage this narrative competition.
- China seeks synergies between public diplomacy, information influence, and economic cooperation as a force multiplier to amplify its narratives.
A strategic imperative: China’s approach to public diplomacy is informed by a desire to “win the narrative”
We live in a world of contested narratives.
- Is China using economic power to coerce countries to do things not in their interest? Or is it working towards their mutual benefit?
- Is the U.S. promoting a free, open, secure, and prosperous world? Or is it a neocolonial bully, curbing the rise of other nations in a bid to maintain its dominance?
Chinese and U.S. leaders each have their preferred answers to these questions. More than empty words, these narratives jockey for position within traditional and social media, in public and private discourse, between great powers, and within third countries.
In an era of intensified geopolitical competition, economic and military might is insufficient for a great power—be that China or the United States—to get the outcomes it wants without cooperation with other countries.
The target audience of interest here is not limited to advanced economies or historical military allies but an expanded set of low- and middle-income countries. These players have more options to guard their strategic autonomy and navigate great power competition by playing both sides in pursuit of better deals.
Chinese leaders have internalized this critical lesson. Winning the narrative is not merely about warm and fuzzy reputation management but about accumulating invaluable currency to weaken rivals, win friends and allies, and shore up power at home.
Beijing has multiple objectives for its narrative competition.
Economic:
- If foreign citizens and leaders admire the PRC’s economic success and believe that Beijing is a beneficial partner in their country’s development, this generates demand to buy, trade, and work with the PRC.
- It also creates willing partners to supply critical raw materials, energy, and transportation roots to fuel China’s economy.
Geopolitical:
- Beijing’s ability to inform, control, and co-opt narratives is critical to:
- win support for its positions in the UN and various regional fora;
- inoculate the CCP against criticism that foments discontent at home;
- and project strength to check the influence of its competitors like the United States.
Security:
- It is easier for the PRC to justify its assertive maritime and territorial claims if others either accept its actions as legitimate or lack the will to mount a compelling objection.
- This requires bringing other countries along to feel that the PRC is a protector rather than a threat to their national interests.
A formidable toolkit: China has the financial means and political will to use public diplomacy and broadcasting to wage this narrative competition
There is not a single country on earth that is not reached by PRC state-run media.
- Xinhua, People’s Daily, China News Services, and China Daily disseminate customized content in both official and popular languages of its target countries.
- The PRC invests in radio and television capabilities—from short-wave transmitters in mainland China, Cuba, and Mali, to television channels available via satellite in every country.
More consequential are Beijing’s attempts to borrow local credibility through partnerships with media outlets and journalists in other countries.
- As of 2022, Beijing had brokered 429 content-sharing partnerships with local media outlets to reprint, share, or co-create Chinese state-run media content.
- These agreements allow PRC narratives to directly infuse domestic media coverage with minimal intermediation. Citizens who consume local news are oblivious to the fact that they are effectively consuming the CCP’s propaganda.
- Journalist exchange programs build rapport with individual journalists in the hope that they view China more favorably and that this translates into more positive coverage when they return to their home countries.
- Access to officials, credentials, and visas to cover important events, advertising revenue and sponsored content are also important levers of control to incentivize media outlets to promote Beijing’s preferred narratives and censor criticism.
- Beijing has used social media platforms, working with local influencers, to spread pro-China content aimed at younger, tech-savvy audiences.
The PRC uses personalized public diplomacy to build people-to-people ties between Chinese citizens and foreign publics in counterpart countries.
- As of 2022, it had 448 Confucius Institutes and Classrooms overseas to promote Chinese language and culture, with one or more in nearly every country worldwide. Europe and Asia host the majority, but the African continent is home to the third largest share of these institutions.
- Pre-pandemic, Beijing positioned China as a premier study-abroad destination. Confucius Institutes expose foreign students to study abroad options in China, promote scholarship opportunities from multiple ministries, and provide language training.
- The PRC also provides vocational training for civil servants and professionals in counterpart countries and brings professionals to study in China. This allows Beijing to shape professional norms and build relationships with local communities. Using a similar model to the Confucius Institutions, China had opened 18 Luban Workshops globally as of 2021 to socialize demand for Chinese technology, standards, and training.
A force multiplier: China seeks synergies between public diplomacy, information influence, and economic cooperation to amplify its narratives
The PRC is intentional and systematic in exploiting synergies between its public diplomacy, information influence operations, and economic cooperation activities to reinforce and amplify preferred narratives:
- It aims to redefine international norms on human rights, emphasizing collective over individual rights and economic over political rights.
- It raises the PRC’s development model as one to which other countries can aspire and cements its credentials as a non-colonial power.
- It promotes Beijing as a good neighbor and responsible global leader interested in win-win solutions and working together as part of a community of common destiny.
These refrains in the PRC’s state-run media and senior leader communications are reinforced by education and exchange programs that train journalists, law enforcement, border patrol agents, justice officials, and future leaders, among other key demographics.
The PRC’s economic importance is the most often cited reason why leaders in low- and middle-income countries say they view Beijing favorably or as having influence over their priorities.
This subjective perception is based on objective fact, for the PRC is now the world’s:
- Largest financier of overseas development projects…
- the largest official creditor…
- and the number one trading partner for 70 percent of the world’s countries.
Beijing amplifies this narrative by ensuring that:
- its economic assistance is highly publicized by its state-run media;
- and that its Confucius Institutes and Classrooms reinforce the appeal of learning Mandarin and studying in China as a gateway to economic opportunity.
Of course, just as multiple tools can work together, they can also undercut each other, and this is very much true for the PRC:
- Beijing’s assertiveness of its maritime claims in the South China Sea, for example, does not win China many friends.
- The strong association in people’s minds between China and the Belt and Road Initiative has proven to be a double-edged sword, making Beijing vulnerable to accusations of encouraging irresponsible borrowing, negative ESG impacts from projects, and worsening corruption in partner countries
- Beijing’s heavy-handedness in curbing the independence of journalists has generated both attention and pushback
The United States has much work to do to strengthen how it uses information and public diplomacy to counter false narratives and articulate its unique value proposition to partners abroad. In this narrative competition, U.S. policymakers should be focused first on ends (i.e., articulating the outcomes they want to achieve) and audiences (i.e., the people they want to reach) rather than fixating on disparate tools. U.S. policymakers also need to become better at proactively scanning the horizon to understand how counterpart countries perceive U.S. narratives and the means by which competitors may undercut them. AidData is excited to be at the cutting edge of producing novel data and research to speak into this strategic context.
