China Talking Points Podcast: China’s post-bin Laden Foreign Policy by ChinaTalkingPoints

Chinese society has changed so much over the past three decades that it has been difficult for peoples’ emotions, spiritual and moral beliefs to keep up. Throughout much of the economic reform period of the late 20th century, the focus was squarely on economic development. Now, as China has reached a milestone of becoming the world’s second largest economy and on its way to becoming the first, a growing number of Chinese are seeking more than just economic advancement.

Spiritual and religious activity is on the rise. This brings up a number of extremely sensitive issues as the Communist Party regards all unofficial religious activity as a direct challenge to its authority. Hundreds of under-ground churches have been closed, dissident priests, imams and all variety of spiritual leaders have been jailed in recent years.

Yet despite the government’s unwavering insistence to assert control over Chinese religious institutions, there has been a surge of interest in recent years, particularly among young people, to engage with different religions. In this week’s edition of the China Talking Points podcast, Eric suggests that the new interest in spirituality, morality and religion may be born from the excesses of materialism that have come to dominate so much of contemporary Chinese popular culture. In fact, Eric contends, that large swathes of Chinese society are encountering something of a “morality crisis.”  The basic premise, he explains, is that as the CCP replaced Confucianism (among other beliefs) with Communism in the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, when communism made way for capitalism, there was no spiritual companion. Instead, people began to invest their faith in to money and achievement. The only problem, he argues, is that is ultimately unfulfilling prompting millions to now look to elsewhere for spiritual development.

Michael, in contrast, disagrees with this assessment. In his opinion, Chinese religious beliefs never really disappeared. They may have receded for a period of time but they were always there. Now, we are witnessing a resurgence of those deeply held religious values that have been central to Chinese life for centuries. Michael clearly rejects Eric’s proposition of a morality crisis in China.

Listen to the podcast and tell us what you think. Do you agree with either Michael or Eric’s perspective? Let us know.

You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by clicking here.

Can the US still assert any authority?  Is China powerful enough to hold sway on any topic?  The duel topics of debt and dissent seem oddly in parallel as Eric and I discuss what external influences may play a role within China.

In this podcast, we debate and discuss the impact of China’s economy on Egypt. We see ramifications of the “China Price” impinging on business interests and China’s wealth creating standing in juxtaposition to what this generation of Egyptians have experienced.

Join us as we sort through perceived and real influences.

China in Africa Podcast: China and the Egyptian Uprising by ChinaTalkingPoints

Take a listen as we debate everything from territorial concerns to submarine range to leadership of UN combat missions. Are you ready for a China that assume the mantle of global leadership?

China Talking Points Podcast: China’s Military Power Projection by ChinaTalkingPoints

In an article in yesterday’s New York Times, potential testing of a new stealth fighter by the Chinese Military was featured over the Defense Secretary Gates’ visit to Beijing.  Later editions of the article changed the lead to highlight the visit first, but the bulk of the article was about the stealth fighter.

The overall story of Beijing’s military modernization program is certainly important, but I think more print should have been spilled on the high level exchanges – without which the risk of conflict increases.   There will always be more modern weapons in Beijing’s arsenal (and don’t forget we inspire this because our own weapons are so frequently on display).  The point is what is Beijing’s intentions, aspirations, strategies; this is what military exchange is all about.

On one point, the article did a good job of highlighting how ham-fisted the PRC continues to be over discussing it’s modernization efforts.  Transparency breeds trust and if Beijing wants us to believe in a peaceful rise, then we could use some more open dialogue.

In the United States, overseas Chinese students have a well-deserved reputation for ‘blowing the curve.’  That is, often Chinese students are among the top in the class and, thus, make it difficult for other students to compete academically.  In France, there is an entirely different concern, one that blows away this narrative of overseas Chinese students being such academic powerhouses.  Instead, the fear is that the quality of Chinese university students is so low that it’s potentially weighing down the higher education system.

In this France 2 report (re-broadcast on France 24), French education officials contend that they are attracting only those Chinese students who were unsuccessful in entering the Chinese university system and have chosen to come to France as some sort of back-up choice.  The fact that many of these foreign students do not speak French very well and may be struggling to adapt to France’s notoriously rigid educational system are also of concern.

One of the big mistakes that many international observers make about the Chinese and their global media ambitions is to frame the issue in purely, Western terms.  That is, if CNC World or CCTV News are not competitive with any of the major American or European media brands than somehow China’s media strategy is a failure.  While the Chinese no doubt have ambitions to create media properties with equal heft of CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera among others, I do not think that is their only benchmark of success.

There is growing evidence that networks like CNC may not be targeting already competitive markets in North America or Europe but instead focusing their energy on emerging ‘Southern’ markets in Africa, South Asia and elsewhere. So it is critical to look at this issue in considerably broader terms than most Americans and European media watchers are accustomed.

The barriers to entry in the mature media markets in the developed world are simply too high for networks like CNC to viable without billions of dollars to invest in marketing and distribution.  By contrast, it is considerably cheaper for the Chinese to gain traction in less developed markets where it will not only be cheaper to penetrate but their product will likely receive a much better reception.

Why?

China’s media leaders may want to consider the French approach with France24 if they want to grow audience share with their own media properties:

1. Editorial autonomy + Higher Content Legitimacy = Audience Loyalty

It is hard to tell if online users and TV viewers of France24 clearly understand that they are consuming a media property owned and operated by the French government.  Just as viewers of Al Jazeera may not be fully aware of the Qatari government’s backing of that network.  What’s important here is that both France24 and Al Jazeera afford their editorial staff considerable editorial autonomy in determining the news.  I can speak from personal experience (full disclosure: I am currently a freelance journalist at France24′s english language online service) to attest that there is never any concern among the editorial staff about government censorship or oversight of any kind.  Conversely, the pressure from management is to produce the highest quality news comparable to the standards of any of the international newsrooms I have worked in, including CNN, CNBC Asia and the Associated Press among others.  Consider this example from July 14, 2010, France’s national holiday.  In an effort to rebuild relations with its former African colonies, the French government invited those states celebrating 50 years of independence to have a delegation of military representatives march in the grand Bastille Day parade up the Champs Elysees. In China, such national day festivities would be greeted with patriotic enthusiasm by official media organs, but not so in France.

The Chinese are making it much harder than it needs to be for international viewers to access their content online.

Both the TV and online editors at France24 led with stories of accusations from a federation of  international human rights groups that war criminals may be among those marching in the parade. The headline (left) led the coverage for most of the day and never was there a concern that France24 was embarrassing France’s leaders or the state itself.  Instead, the story generated above-average traffic online.

The lesson here for China’s own media entities is that by giving experienced media producers greater autonomy to report a story, even if it may be critical of China, will ultimately improve the content’s legitimacy among its target audiences and thus lead to increased user loyalty.  I fully understand how difficult it would be for some within the Propaganda Ministry, and even in the State Council, to loosen the reigns of media control.  However, it should be considered essential if the ultimate objective is to persuade sophisticated international media consumers to divert themselves from rival websites and TV channels to CNC World, BON Live or CCTV International.

2.  Make it Easy to Watch and Access the Content

When CNC World debuted in July 2010, I rushed to find the live stream online the very first day it went on the air.  It went without saying that CNC would have a live-stream, or even on-demand video available, considering the importance the government had placed on reaching out to international viewers like myself.  Yet after four attempts using three computers on two platforms, I have still not been able to access the CNC World live stream.   CNC World is making it much more difficult than it needs to be for viewers to access their content online.  Here are a few suggestions on how the network can improve its usability to make it significantly easier for viewers, such as myself, to watch CNC World over the internet:

A. Domain Name: select an easy to remember URL.  http://www.xhstv.com is NOT a good domain name for an international audience.   Now, as a Chinese speaker, I understand that XHS stands for 新华社, the average American viewer will not.

B. Make it Mac Compatible:  No, in fact, make it platform agnostic.  Currently, CNC World can only be viewed on PCs which eliminates tens of millions of prospective viewers who use Apple’s products.  This is critical in both the United States and Europe.

C. No Plug-ins!:  This is a massive mistake on the part of Xinhua.  First of all, web users in the U.S. and Europe are accustomed to watching online video using any of the established methods ranging from Flash to HTML5.  The era of downloading additional software applications to run video ended about five years.  Secondly, Western internet users will NEVER download a plug-in prompted by text written in Chinese!   This is a screen grab of the prompt to download the program “UUSEE” to watch CNC World.  To the vast majority of non-Chinese speaking Westerners, this looks extremely ominous.

D. Do not use Chinese characters: Even if a user in the U.S. or Europe wanted to download the UUSEE plug-in, there is a very good chance that s/he would not be able to because many of the anti-virus programs block Chinese language applications.  This is even more so on corporate networks that often have much stricter security measures than most home users.  To avoid this restrictions, the English-language streaming site should be entirely in English with no Chinese language prompts for plug in requirements or any Chinese-character metadata that will trigger the security programs to block the site.

3. Quality Counts

Just as China is not a native-English speaking country, France faces a similar challenge in how it staffs its English language media channels.  Unlike most of China’s multilingual media outlets, France24′s english and Arabic services are staffed by native speakers.  In China, by contrast, CCTV9, China Radio International and other channels are often staffed with Chinese employees whose english skills are quite strong relative to other mainland Chinese however nowhere near international broadcast standards.  Subsequently, there are significantly higher levels of on air and online mistakes that are often directly associated with language abilities.  In an extremely competitive news markets, these kinds of mistakes are unacceptable as it undermines the credibility of the product and encourages consumers to seek elsewhere for similar information.  There is ample evidence of poor language and copy editing skills of China’s international media editors.  On three separate occasions over the course of a single week, the home page of CNTV (left) featured prominent spelling errors and template layout mistakes that, once again, indicate China’s media products are just not competing at the same level as French and other international media outlets.

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