
Inside China's audacious global propaganda campaign - Lio
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/07/china-plan-for-global-media-dominance-propaganda-xi-jinping
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jim-jim-jim
This is a kinda controversial stance, but I think foreign propaganda has some
utility. I don't trust Chinese or Russian state media to report on internal
Chinese/Russian affairs honestly, but they can provide a worthwhile counter
narrative to the West on certain international issues. RT has also given
platforms to dissident voices within the US (for completely cynical reasons of
course).

You just have to approach it all critically.

~~~
gaoshan
One thing to keep in mind, as biased as it can be the media in the West is
based on a journalistic tradition that lets it operate free from government
interference. The media in authoritarian countries like China and Russia has
no such tradition and has, from inception, existed to advance the government's
positions. This does not mean the West is free from bias but no one really is.

So while Western journalistic outlets may be far from perfect, you have the
opportunity with them to get less politically biased information. The best of
them are actually quite good at providing factual, less biased information.
The same is not true of China and Russia. One tradition offers more truthful
and factual reporting than the other (which in reality offers nothing less
than full on governmental propaganda... especially in the case of the Chinese
media. They provide a counter narrative in the same way that the Saudis have
provided a counter narrative to the Khashoggi murder).

~~~
yorwba
Yes, if you had to choose between Western and other sources of journalism,
you'd probably have a higher chance of getting reliable facts from Western
sources. But there's no need to make that choice.

You can read a diverse selection of sources and compare their reporting to not
only get a more accurate approximation of the truth, but also to notice what
various sides focus on. The latter means that even if one side only publishes
complete lies, the things they choose to lie about still tell you something.

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AsyncAwait
Worth noting that the very same Guardian is running a propaganda campaign
against Assange, despite them benefiting handsomely from WikiLeaks.

Just recently they published a story[1] that has yet to be verified by anyone
else and seems completely made up at this point.

At the same time, they did not have problems with running ads for when MBS was
visiting London.

1 - [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-
hel...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-
talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy)

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forapurpose
First I want to say, great graphic on the article, with the RSS sails.

Related: A study by a leading U.S. defense think tank on intense, active
warfare, on the part of China and Russia, in the political realm:

[https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/countering-
comp...](https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/countering-
comprehensive-coercion-competitive-strategies-against-authoritar)

 _The Chinese and Russian governments are currently waging political warfare
against the United States and its allies. Although efforts to manipulate
public opinion and political debate often receive less attention than armed
interventions or military modernization programs, Beijing and Moscow are
embarked upon campaigns to suppress dissent, discourage foreign narratives
they oppose, generate support for policies they favor, keep their rivals
distracted, and mitigate pushback against overt acts of aggression. To date,
these efforts appear to be having success._

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raincom
Western propaganda is so subtle that it is sold through various channels: area
studies in Universities; fellowships, stipends, travel grants, visiting
professorships, etc. Produce so-called research papers, then quote each other
and peddle further. Remember those professors at OxBridge working as spies.

~~~
jryle70
Western? You already forgot about discussion of Chinese student groups at US
universities?

If anything, Chinese propaganda is both subtle and obvious. Nothing wrong with
that really. PR is part of the game for anybody. Just don't pretend they do it
at lesser level or not as well than the West.

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faragon
A clone of RT (Russia Today)

