Chinese Media and the War in Iraq
Mar 26, 2003
stratfor.biz
Summary
Despite the Chinese government's opposition to the war against Iraq, the Chinese media -- fearing foreign competition in the lucrative domestic market -- are providing balanced and substantive coverage of the war.
Analysis
Despite Beijing's expressed opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, a substantial portion of Chinese media coverage has been evenhanded and highly competent. The official Xinhua news agency is demonstrating an ability to go head-to-head with CNN and BBC in war coverage, and thus capture China's domestic market instead of letting it fall prey to foreign competitors. On the other hand, the official People's Daily newspaper and other traditional mouthpieces for the Congress of the Communist Party (CCP) have characteristically offered colored war analysis. This two-pronged approach by state media allows the government to compete in the country's lucrative media market and still shape public opinion.
Since the end of 2002, Beijing has supported Chinese media efforts not merely to reflect the party line, but to offer more balanced news and commentary. The People's Daily in February 2002 encouraged the press to practice the "three closenesses": close to reality, close to the masses and close to real life.
Reform of media controls is motivated more by economics than by a newfound appreciation for the free press. To meet World Trade Organization requirements, Beijing needs to grant foreign media greater access to China's market -- pitting state-owned companies against foreign competitors.
In an effort to shore up its domestic media industry, therefore, the CCP in November 2002 introduced a policy to allow the press -- still predominantly state-run but absorbing increasing amounts of private investment -- to become more competitive and take greater advantage of China's domestic advertising market. Yu Guoming, a media expert at People's University in Beijing, told Reuters that Chinese leaders have ordered news agencies to commit themselves to coverage of breaking news and to objective and substantive reporting.
China has become a major engine of global growth in advertising. According to Initiative Media Worldwide, a large independent media services company, China alone raised the global advertising expenditure average expected for 2003 by 1.6 percentage points.
If Xinhua and other domestic outlets don't offer substantive and balanced coverage, the large Chinese audience will turn to foreign publications and broadcasts that gradually have been encroaching in the market through the years -- despite explicit governmental controls -- and local media will lose market share.
It therefore makes sense that Xinhuanet's rapid online reportage of events in Iraq is, on the whole timely and impartial, covering a spectrum of events from breaking battlefield news to diplomatic movements in Washington and Baghdad. The unprecedented converge of a major global event offers the Chinese audience a broader, more complex view of the world than that previously supplied by state-controlled media.
Despite movements twoard a freer press and competition, however, Beijing still runs an extensive propaganda machine. A People's Daily editorial on March 11 described U.S. policies in the Middle East as part of a larger goal of "worldwide domination." And the newspaper has run several other articles detailing the Chinese government's opposition to the war.
Beijing will continue to show little patience for media attacks on government policy concerning such sensitive issues as Taiwan and the Falun Gong, and it will continue peppering state media with the party line. However, because of market pressure, large segments of the Chinese media are in the process of transforming themselves into reliable and dynamic news sources. |
