As Beijing gears up for a major charm offensive to endear the West, expect no genuine change from the Chinese Communist Party—only “more cunning,” analysts warn.
In late May, Chinese leader Xi Jinping convened a “study session,” telling top communist officials to make it a priority to create a “trustworthy, lovable, and respectable Chinese image.”
That, according to Xi, requires them to “widen their circle of friends,” “win over the majority,” and “pay attention to the strategy and art of narrative warfare” so that on key issues they can make themselves heard. They must set the tone right to present themselves as both “open and confident, yet modest and humble,” said Xi.
The communist leader’s speech was a call to arms directed at the officialdom, said Sydney-based academic Feng Chongyi.
“He’s waging a war of words to control global narratives,” Feng, a China studies professor at the University of Technology, told The Epoch Times.
Xi, he said, was trying to “help his minions work more effectively.”
In the leader’s view, the regime hasn’t done enough to deceive the world with so-called positive stories coming from China, so “now it needs to double down,” Feng said.
That, according to Xi, requires them to “widen their circle of friends,” “win over the majority,” and “pay attention to the strategy and art of narrative warfare” so that on key issues they can make themselves heard. They must set the tone right to present themselves as both “open and confident, yet modest and humble,” said Xi.
The communist leader’s speech was a call to arms directed at the officialdom, said Sydney-based academic Feng Chongyi.
“He’s waging a war of words to control global narratives,” Feng, a China studies professor at the University of Technology, told The Epoch Times.
Xi, he said, was trying to “help his minions work more effectively.”
In the leader’s view, the regime hasn’t done enough to deceive the world with so-called positive stories coming from China, so “now it needs to double down,” Feng said.
A ‘Self-Rescue Measure’
While the regime’s efforts to sway the global narrative are not new, the current international pressure has given it added urgency.
The Chinese regime has suffered a series of setbacks as its diplomats have sparred with countries around the world under an aggressive approach, known as “wolf warrior diplomacy.”
In the European Union, lawmakers have shelved a proposed EU-China trade agreement several years in the making, after Beijing imposed retaliatory sanctions on Parliament members.
Australia, which has borne the brunt of Beijing’s anger after last year calling for an independent investigation into the origins of the pandemic, recently teamed up with New Zealand—a country that had been a reluctant critic of China—to express “grave concerns” about Beijing’s tightening control of Hong Kong and its treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, which a growing number of countries have recognized as a genocide.
BY EVA FU
