NEW PRC "AL-JAZEERA-LIKE" NEWS CHANNEL AIMS TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 BEIJING 000905

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/03/2029
TAGS: PROP PGOV PREL PHUM CH HK
SUBJECT: NEW PRC "AL-JAZEERA-LIKE" NEWS CHANNEL AIMS TO
BOOST CHINA'S IMAGE

REF: A. OSC CPP 20090113968075

B. OSC CPP 20090102702014

Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Aubrey Carlson.
Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) Still smarting from the public relations
bloody nose they received in the international media
during 2008's Tibet riots and the Olympic torch run,
Communist Party leaders hope to improve China's
image overseas by spending large sums of money on
state media outlets' international operations,
according to contacts in Beijing and press reports.
A new international TV news channel run by the
official Xinhua News Agency and modeled after Al-
Jazeera is to be the centerpiece of the new program.
China Central Television (CCTV) will receive a
portion of the funds for more overseas bureaus and
foreign language programming, though many at CCTV
are unhappy with Xinhua's incursion into their TV
broadcasting territory. Hong Kong media claim the
plan includes RMB 45 billion (USD 6.6 billion) in
new spending, but other sources say numbers are not
yet set. The plan also reportedly includes support
for more English-language print media. A contact at
the Global Times hopes his newspaper will receive
some of the new money to support a new English-
language edition, which will start publication April

20. Other contacts were highly skeptical that this
new spending will translate into greater influence
over international public opinion because of Chinese
state media's inherent weaknesses, which include
censorship and a dearth of talented journalists.
Others resented the plan's lack of transparency,
arguing that cloistered and uncompetitive state
behemoths like Xinhua and CCTV are poor choices to
build new media outlets of real international
stature. End Summary.

CHINA'S AL-JAZEERA?
--------------


2. (SBU) China plans to spend RMB 45 billion (USD
6.6 billion) to expand China's international media
presence and improve the PRC's image abroad,
according to a January 13 report in the independent
Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP)
(ref A). Though China's official media has not
confirmed the RMB-45-billion figure, several
Beijing-based media contacts said the PRC government
had initiated a large spending program aimed an
increasing China's "speaking rights" (huayu quan) in
the global media market. The largest component of
this plan is a 24-hour television news channel to be
operated by the Xinhua News Agency and modeled after
Al-Jazeera and CNN. The station, according to Hong
Kong media reports, will likely have its
headquarters outside mainland China, possibly in
Singapore. Chinese media contacts outside of Hong
Kong, however, told us that much about the proposed
satellite TV station remained unknown, including its
budget and the ratio of Chinese- to non-Chinese-
language programming. The Hong Kong-based Phoenix
Weekly magazine, in a March 14 story on the media
expansion campaign, said Xinhua has been
aggressively recruiting television journalists in
preparation for this new project.

MORE XINHUA BUREAUS
--------------


3. (C) In addition to the new global news channel,
the plan includes investment to expand the number of
Xinhua's overseas bureaus from the current 100 to

186. Cheng Mingxia (protect),international editor
at the Economic Observer newspaper (Jingji Guancha
Bao),told PolOff March 25 that her friends at
Xinhua had confirmed this expansion of foreign
bureaus. Cheng said that as part of this program,
Xinhua was increasing pay packages and benefits for
its journalists overseas.

MONEY FOR ENGLISH PAPERS AND MAGAZINES?
--------------


4. (C) In addition to giving new resources to
Xinhua, the government is encouraging newspapers to

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expand their English-language content, though it is
uncertain how much of the new money will be
dedicated to this. According to the SCMP and
Phoenix Weekly, the China News Service, an official
news wire aimed at overseas Chinese, may receive up
to RMB two billion (USD 194 million),with some of
these funds going to support a new English-language
edition of China Newsweek (Zhongguo Xinwen Zhoukan).
In a conversation with PolOff April 1, however,
China Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Qin Lang (protect)
downplayed these reports. Qin stressed that even
though China Newsweek was published by China News
Service, his magazine operated as an independent
commercial entity and "just because the China News
Service gets money does not mean that we will." Qin
commented that China's government had "more money
than most," though he expressed considerable
skepticism that state-run organs, rather than
commercially run media, were best positioned to
explain China to the rest of the world. Qin
predicted that China's official media would use
"traditional methods" (i.e., propaganda) in
approaching this project. Liu Wanyuan (protect),
chief editor of China Newsweek's English-language
edition, called the SCMP story "misleading" and said
the English-language edition had been in the
planning stages for three years and was thus
unrelated to the RMB-45-billion campaign. (Note:
The China Newsweek English-language edition, called
"News China," started publication in New York in
August 2008 and, according to Liu, will begin
publication in China sometime in 2009.)

GLOBAL TIMES GOES GLOBAL
--------------


5. (C) The Global Times (Huanqiu Shibao),an
international news daily run by the CCP's flagship
newspaper People's Daily, is also preparing to
launch an English-language edition. The English
Global Times, according to contacts at the paper,
would begin publication April 20 and compete with
the China Daily, a paper run by the State Council
Information Office that is currently China's only
official, nationally distributed English-language
daily. Global Times International Forum Editor Wang
Wen (protect) told PolOff March 19 that, contrary to
popular belief, the decision to start an English-
language edition predated the RMB-45-billion
spending plan. Now that the Party had decided to
make such large new investment in international
media, however, the Global Times hoped that it would
receive some of these funds to support this new
venture. During EmbOffs' visit to the Global Times
offices March 25, Wang and other editors said that
the paper had hired 10 foreigners to work on the
English-language edition. These foreign editors,
they said, would play a role in choosing content,
rather than merely polishing English-language copy.
Initially the Global Times English edition would be
published only in China, but they later planned to
distribute it overseas.

PLAN BORN OF PR DISASTERS OF 2008
--------------


6. (C) Zhou Qing'an (protect),Director of Tsinghua
University's Public Diplomacy Research Program and
an editorial writer for The Beijing News (Xinjing
Bao),told PolOff March 11 the international media
expansion was a direct result of the negative
Western media reporting of the March 2008 Lhasa
riots and the subsequent Olympic torch relay. Zhou
said that during a Party meeting convened soon after
the August 2008 Olympic Games, CCP General Secretary
Hu Jintao had directed the Party Propaganda
Department to come up with a plan to expand China's
international media influence. Hu and other top-
level leaders had since made repeated calls for
China's media to boost its overseas audience. Hu
himself, in a December 20 congratulatory letter
marking China Central Television's (CCTV) 50th
anniversary, said China should "actively build a
modern media system and further raise (our)
broadcasting ability domestically and overseas."
Speaking at the CCTV anniversary celebration the
same day, Li Changchun, a Politburo Standing
Committee member with overall authority over China's
propaganda system, said he hoped China's television
industry "will serve domestic and overseas audiences

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both, instead of serving domestic ones only." In a
January 1 article in the Party journal Qiushi
(Seeking Truth, ref B),CCP Propaganda Department
Director Liu Yunshan argued "in the final analysis,
the competition of the press and public opinion is a
contest for the right of speech (huayu quan de
zhengduo)." China, Liu added, had to "build world-
class media that covers the globe with multiple
languages, a large audience and abundance of
information and huge influence."

"NARROW DEFINITION" OF SOFT POWER
--------------


7. (C) Yu Tiejun (protect),General Secretary of
Peking University's Center for International and
Strategic Studies, told PolOff March 27 that the
campaign reflected the Party's new emphasis on "soft
power." China's leadership nevertheless maintained
a "narrow" definition of soft power that was largely
confined to propaganda and "how to persuade Western
people." China's leadership still viewed the
projection of soft power as primarily a government-
led endeavor rather than something done by society
as a whole. While Yu said he felt it was good that
the Chinese leadership was paying more attention to
public diplomacy and was willing to invest more
funds to enhance China's overseas image, he
expressed concern over whether the money would be
spent efficiently. Tsinghua's Zhou was even more
pessimistic, describing the plan as a "huge waste of
money" that was unlikely to fundamentally change
Western perceptions of China. Zhou said the Party
had brought in several "media specialists" from
academia as advisors to the RMB-45-billion project.
These scholars were mostly experts on the business
side of media management, not in journalism. Zhou
said this indicated that propaganda officials were
paying very little attention to content even as they
prepared to spend billions to create new
international media outlets.


8. (C) Peking University Assistant Professor (and
frequent contributor to Global Times) Yu Wanli
(protect) leveled similar criticisms at the
government's approach. In an article he wrote for
Global Times in March (but which has not yet been
accepted for publication) he argued that China was
at a severe disadvantage when competing with the
West "on the propaganda front" because Western ideas
were disseminated organically through thousands of
small and large media and civil society
organizations. Chinese ideas, by contrast, were
disseminated domestically and internationally
through one channel, the state, and this
"unnatural/inorganic" (bu tianran de) source reduced
their impact. Yu told PolOff that he had
recommended in his article that China encourage the
free development of civil society, because without
the "natural, organic" flow of Chinese ideas,
China's "great power diplomacy" would inevitably
fail.

SOME AT CCTV FEEL SHUT OUT
--------------


9. (C) According to some Hong Kong press reports, at
least some of the new funding will go to CCTV to
support more foreign-language programming and more
overseas bureaus. In 2007, CCTV launched new
channels in Spanish and French. In a webchat on the
People's Daily website January 8, CCTV Party
Secretary Zhang Haige said that in 2009 CCTV planned
to hire 100 new employees skilled in "minor
languages" to supplement the new Russian- and
Arabic-language channels. Zhang said CCTV also
planned to hire more foreign nationals to work at
the network's overseas bureaus. Though CCTV would
receive some of the RMB 45 billion in new
investment, Zhou Qing'an told PolOff, many CCTV
executives opposed Xinhua's entry into the
television business. Li Xiaoping (protect),a
senior producer for CCTV's international English-
language channel CCTV-9, told PolOff January 20 that
the new international media expansion plan had
"angered many at CCTV-9." Despite being China's
only news channel aimed primarily at an
international audience, CCTV-9 executives had not
been consulted and "nobody bothered to ask for our
views." Li was uncertain whether CCTV-9 would

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receive any of the proposed RMB 45 billion in
funding. With additional funds, she said, CCTV-9
would open more foreign bureaus. Currently CCTV-9
only had bureaus in London and Washington, which, Li
said, was not enough to make the station competitive
as a news outlet.

"JUST GIVE THE MONEY TO PHOENIX TV"
--------------


10. (C) Beijing-based journalists generally
predicted that a Xinhua-run television station would
not be able to produce the kind of content that
would attract a wide global audience. Wang Chong
(protect),a journalist who recently resigned from
the Communist Youth League newspaper China Youth
Daily, was especially scathing in his critique of
the plan. It would be "impossible," Wang said, for
China to follow the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC) model of a government-affiliated broadcaster
that nevertheless reported news independently. A
Chinese government-backed television channel, even
one aspiring to gain influence in the international
market, would still be constrained by censorship.
"It would be better if they just gave all the money
to Phoenix TV," Wang said, referring to the PRC-
affiliated Hong Kong-based satellite news channel
that, while considered pro-CCP, is nevertheless
popular in the Chinese-speaking world.


11. (C) Zhong Weizhi (protect),editor-in-chief of
the Economic Observer (Jingji Guancha Bao),told
PolOff March 25 that while the government had not
publicly confirmed the RMB-45-billion figure, the
program to expand China's international media
presence was underway, even if few knew the exact
details. Like other Chinese journalists PolOffs
spoke with, Zhong was skeptical that such spending
would translate into a greater "voice" for China
internationally. China's state-run propaganda
organs were not well prepared to operate "global
media." The venture was unlikely to succeed, Zhong
said, because the content of China's state-run media
was still "too traditional" and unappealing to a
global audience. Even increasing the number of
Xinhua bureaus overseas would have little effect, he
said. "Without changing the content, the money will
come to nothing."

MORE PROPAGANDA NOT THE ANSWER
--------------


12. (C) Lu Yuegang (protect),a journalist for China
Youth Daily who was demoted in 2006 from his
position as deputy editor of the paper's outspoken
Freezing Point supplement, told PolOff March 12
that, censorship issues aside, China did not have
the talent pool necessary to produce quality
journalism. "China discourages good journalism and
does not reward good reporters," Lu said. "The
government is essentially saying that 'our
propaganda has been ineffective, so let's do more
propaganda.'" Lu said the RMB-45-billion program
amounted to "throwing money at the least competitive
elements (Xinhua and CCTV) in China's media
industry."


13. (C) Other journalists criticized the lack of
transparency surrounding decisions to allocate the
new funding. Zhang Shensi (protect),international
editor at the Legal Daily (Fazhi Ribao),a newspaper
run by the Ministry of Justice, said many of her
colleagues at the Legal Daily were "not happy" with
the decision to give most of the money to Xinhua,
People's Daily/Global Times and CCTV. "On what
basis do you give them this money? This is taxpayer
money, after all, so what are the criteria for who
gets what?" Zhang predicted Legal Daily would not
receive any of the RMB 45 billion. Like other
contacts, Zhang was skeptical about Xinhua's ability
to run an internationally competitive television
channel. Xinhua, Zhang noted, enjoyed a monopoly in
China's domestic media market, and Chinese papers,
including Legal Daily, "have no choice but to use
them." For all its resources, Zhang said, Xinhua
did not produce much by way of original content,
relying heavily on recycling news and photos from
foreign news services, especially the Associated
Press. For the international media expansion to be
successful, Zhang added, China would need to

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reorient its traditional view that propaganda was
about "selling" China to foreign audiences and
instead concentrate on generating content of real
value.


14. (C) Li, the CCTV-9 producer, said expanding
China's international media influence would be
difficult "not because of hardware but because of
software." The ideological and political content of
CCTV-9 turned off foreign viewers, she said, and any
new station backed by the Chinese government would
inevitably face similar constraints. Though Li said
she felt the media expansion plan was misguided, she
added that it would likely bring personal benefits
to herself and the handful of Chinese journalists
who specialized in English-language media. "We are
suddenly viewed as more important by the leadership.
Before, we were treated as third-class citizens."
PICCUTA