people from the surrounding structures injured. a fire had been hampering rescue workers in their search for victims. you re watching bbc news. now it s time for the media show. china and the information war. hello, welcome to this latest edition of the media show, and we will spend the programme talking about china s media strategy. i m sure you have seen tiktok has been in the news. its ceo was in front of us lawmakers taking lots of questions about whether tiktok, which is owned by a chinese company, potentially poses a security threat to the us. now, tiktok absolutely denies that. chinese state spokespeople have been saying they deny that as well. but it has raised broader questions about what china hopes to achieve with its media strategy around the world. how is it trying to create narratives that suit its goals? how is it, on occasions, trying to put disinformation into the information ecosystem? let s start by understanding these broad ambitions of president xijinping
been saying they deny that as well. but it has raised broader questions about what china hopes to achieve with its media strategy around the world. how is it trying to create narratives that suit its goals? how is it, on occasions, trying to put disinformation into the information ecosystem? let s start by understanding these broad ambitions of president xijinping and everyone else within the chinese state. i am joined by howard zhang, editor of bbc news chinese. but first, yuan yang, how would you outline china s media strategy and its ambitions? yes, thanks for having me on. there has been a really big push, particularly after the us china trade war in 2018, for chinese state media employees not only to speak to a chinese audience using the controlled media environment within china, but increasingly to reach out to an english speaking audience and to a foreign audience more widely, including on foreign social media platforms like twitter that are in fact censored or banned
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, the post 90s 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 f
why are you picking out that aspect of the story? because at least from the chinese perspective, they re targeting a certain audience. they re not targeting a chinese audience with these people. if i can pick up on what howard said, it s important to mention race because race is an important factor for the communist party in its own presentation of public relations and communications. as a foreignjournalist for a long time in beijing, it s no secret in the foreign correspondents community that when foreign journalists of chinese heritage are sent to press conferences at important political events, often the chinese government press officers would ask you, do you have a western face that you can send us? by which they mean a white face, because they would like to see a white journalist filmed asking questions to a chinese officer. i think that s the same dynamic at play when the chinese state media broadcasters look for white american or european accented speakers in their social media
so we d say too north korea, so let s scale it back slightly. yes, in my experience, the critical minded journalists know very well the nature of the game they re in. they know how to get the right line that will please their political superiors and editors. they know how to produce a package very professionally. and while i was in beijing, i met some really competent and very good journalists who came to the state media machine but had very few other outlets in which they could do theirwork, because independent journalism in china is highly, highly restricted. as a chinese national, it s very difficult to join foreign media or to progress in foreign media, although we re starting to see that happen in different media organisations. so you have to consider what is the alternative for somebody who wants to produce journalism and is born in china. very useful, thank you very much indeed. now, we re going to have to talk about tiktok, of course, because there has been so much attention