have discussed, chinese state media is very rigid, very top down and produces packages that speak to people like in my grandparents generation who grandpa rents generation who liked grandparents generation who liked the predictability of the seven o clock news and what comes first and second and third. it does not speak to my generation, or gen z. and that will be an increasing challenge the state media to really speak to younger audience, notjust china, but around the world. how they manage to co opt or work with the independence content generators who produce much more, by all means, much more snappy headlines, will be an interesting interplay to watch. an interesting interplay to watch. , ., watch. and before i ask you howard, sean, watch. and before i ask you howard, sean, i watch. and before i ask you howard, sean, iwant i watch. and before i ask you howard, sean, i want to i watch. and before i ask you| howard, sean, i want to ask you, did you have a sense in beijing that
and i think china s state media partnerships in african countries are particularly notable. some of them have been quite successful, some of them have been much less successful. and chinese state media incursions into europe have also been quite notable for the fact that in fact the uk has rejected the broadcasting licence of cgtn, which is the main foreign facing state broadcaster in china, because it is controlled by the chinese communist party. now, the chinese state broadcaster continues to broadcast into europe with a french licence, but that is also something that has been discussed as a topic of concern. and since that investment has been escalating, howard, could we see a shift in where the money is being spent and where the emphasis is in this strategy? i can see there is more emphasis on social media, for sure.
generation or to gen z. and that will be an increasing challenge for state media to really speak to younger audience, notjust china, but around the world. so how they manage to co opt or work with the independence content generators who produce much more, by all means, much more snappy headlines, will be an interesting interplay to watch. and before i ask you howard, sean, i want to ask you, when you were in xinhua in beijing, did you have a sense that you are right in the middle of one of the most important chinese institutions in terms of how it positions itself in the world? because if you listen to yuan and joshua and others, clearly, that is where it is heading. put it this way, we had an army regiment on the office campuses. did you? we did! we knew it was lunchtime when they sang their patriotic songs. so you were fully aware. i was fully aware. that is where we have to leave it. many thanks to all of our guests. thanks for watching wherever you are and will be back very soon on
and then you can inject something into that discourse. in chinese state media, from my understanding, all the kpis, all the targets you are meant to achieve in the state media are set up to please the big bosses back at home in beijing rather than people abroad or even have any kind of reflection on the real impact and ability to go viral or to influence debates abroad. yeah, absolutely nailed it, laughter. your audience isn t the audience, it s party members. it s your bosses. and on the issue of disinformation and the use of bots to sometimes push disinformation, howard, we were talking before we started the programme and you are saying you re seeing a huge rise in chinese bots. on twitter, on youtube, facebook and many, even instagram and many. forget about wechat, it s just full of disinformation. and that is at platform inside china? i can give one example.
to advocate for my colleagues and say these people have more talent than i do. but they want, ultimately, me on camera. and at some point did you decide you can t do this, or you decided to move away for other reasons? well, so i worked there for two or three years. i looked at my colleagues around me and ifelt i was slightly more politically aware that some of them. so i thought, at least if i m on the inside, i can nudge slightly and temper some of the worst excesses of what i saw. did you manage to? did you manage to nudge xinhua in one direction or another? it sounds like a hard organisation to nudge. well, i got fired twice, so that s probably the answer. well, sean haines, you have joined us, and we re also joined by howard zhang and yuan yang. let s also bring injoshua kurlantzick, the author of beijing s global media offensive: china s uneven campaign to influence asia and the world. thank you very much indeed forjoining our discussion. i m wondering if you can