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This is a major criticism I see from Chinese folks on r/sino. The west is waging a massive propaganda war and the Chinese Government isn’t really hitting back. Beijing thinks truth will prevail, but it rarely does in the face of coordinated disinformation.
There’s exceptionally little China can do about it though. Aside from dismissing the West’s claims as nonsense and lies, anything they publish will simply be counter-dismissed as Chinese gommulist propaganda, topped off with a double helping of sinophobic red scareism.
I mean I’m sure they can do something, especially in places in the global south.
I think we in the west have a tendency to overestimate and project people’s distrust of China onto others with drastically different material conditions. What western imperialist governments find repulsive might be viewed positively or indifferently. For the most part, China’s role in Africa is leaps and bounds far less harmful than anything the west ever did since they set foot there. Its regional neighbors depend heavily on it for trade and support. Same applies to South America, and they have plenty of problems of their own with their belligerent neighbor to the north. For the most part, poorer nations are simply content to have China as a beneficial trade partner and care little for their domestic politics as it doesn’t affect them.
You seen Wolf Warrior 2? They still have a lot to learn about implementing film-as-propaganda.
Chinese propaganda for foreign consumption is all hamfisted too. Not nearly as sophisticated as what VOA or the big European state-run broadcasters put out.
True, I’ll watch some CGTN and CCTV videos and it is very obviously state-run propaganda, which is going to turn off most western viewers. China is a massive and rich country, they’ve gotta be able to get someone who understands how to effectively propagandize westerners. I saw one of those little segments they run in between news shows that’s like a commercial for the network and tbh it looked like an SNL skit. The white people had really weird makeup on that made them look like androids and they said something like “I’m an American but I live in China and I’m bringing you the news”. Any normal american who saw that would immediately think it was bizarre unless they were like 75.
