Beijing’s Running Dogs in Australia: Beijing Pressures Chinese Media in Australia to Parrot the Official Line, by Yan Xia.
As the editor of an independent Chinese-language media company in Australia, I know firsthand the pressure Beijing brings to bear on outfits that do not parrot the official line. For us it has meant intimidated advertisers and lost revenue. For many it amounts to a systematic brainwashing.
Our sales manager pulled me aside with a worried look and more bad news. “They are being harassed by the Ministry of State Security,” he said of the Beijing-based immigration agency that has been advertising in the Chinese-language media we produce here in Australia. My heart sank. Yet another long-term customer gone. …
Our lost client illustrates but one of the mounting pressures faced by independent Chinese media in Australia. Tensions have heightened over recent months, with Australia’s Chinese media under pressure to support President Xi Jinping and Beijing’s foreign policy. That pressure is part of China’s exercise in “soft power”. …
Do we kowtow to the Chinese government, like so many of our counterparts? Do we fall mute on matters that would otherwise prove detrimental to our commercial interests? How, most of all, do we keep our journalistic integrity intact while trying to reach the many of our readers whose pro-China political views remain staunch, despite their extended time overseas?
How Beijing exerts control in Australia:
As Beijing’s soft power grows, increasing numbers of Australian politicians, Chinese community groups and Chinese media companies are becoming more reliant on commercial and political ties with China. Thus, news that touts pro-China views and agendas is becoming ever more pervasive among the local “mainstream” Chinese news sources. …
The prevailing pro-China sentiment is rooted in Communist culture and ideology that have been relentlessly instilled over decades. State-run mouthpieces, such as XinHua News, perpetually propagate the notion to overseas Chinese that “without your country, you are nothing”. This gives rise to the conviction that, regardless of any foreign citizenship, expatriates cannot divorce themselves from the blood that runs in their veins. Hence, if China is not strong, expatriates are nothing in the eyes of their adopted countries and countrymen. …
Many Chinese are also afflicted with the mentality of moral equivalence which argues that “China is lacking in many respects, but the West isn’t any better.” This nationalistic sentiment is so firmly entrenched many Chinese are extremely averse to criticism of their country. Any media or journalist that is critical of the Chinese government is labeled as “anti-China”. This is in stark contrast with the West, where criticism of the government is natural and normal. … The Chinese government’s growing influence on local Chinese language media reinforces viewpoints that become even more entrenched over time, making it more difficult for Chinese readers to accept alternative perspectives.
hat-tip Stephen Neil
