In August 2023, numerous media organizations — including Agence-France Presse (AFP), the Associated Press (AP), European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), European Publishers Council (EPC), Gannett (the parent company of USA Today), and Getty Images — jointly issued an open letter calling for rules and responsible development principles for generative AI models. Soon after, the AP released its official AI guidelines, becoming the first major news organization to release AI use regulations for its newsroom.

In the Mandarin-language media sphere, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) and Public Television Service (PTS) published their own AI usage standards and guidelines in September 2023; The Reporter (報導者) , one of Taiwan’s top independent news outlets, followed with its own usage rules in July 2024. In China, the state-run China Media Group (CMG), the media conglomerate under the Central Propaganda Department, embedded political guidelines into its Interim Regulations on the Use of AI, introduced in March 2024, stressing that “adhering to correct guidance is always the foremost principle” and that “socialist core values” must be upheld regardless of technological development.

The AI-led transformation is impacting professional work cultures at some of the world’s oldest journalism outlets, including the Financial Times (FT), the British daily newspaper founded as a broadsheet in 1888. Like its English-language counterpart, the Chinese-language edition of the FT (FT中文网), broadly applies AI across its news production and distribution. It has launched its own chatbot and normalized AI integration into functions such as audio news readouts, newsletter production, image generation, and column translation. 

FT Chinese editor-in-chief Wang Feng (王丰), who also teaches journalism at Tsinghua University’s School of Journalism and Communication in Beijing, has witnessed the AI wave in journalism firsthand. Over the summer, he spoke with Tian Jian (田間), the China Media Project’s sister publication on Chinese-language journalism and media, to talk about how FT embraces AI technology while safeguarding journalistic professionalism — providing readers with more valuable services.

Tian Jian: FT Chinese makes extensive use of AI. From the reader’s perspective, the first thing that stands out is your dedicated chatbot, “ChatFTC,” whose name resembles ChatGPT. It acts as an AI financial news assistant for users. Could you share the process of the model’s development? What training data was used? And how have usage and reader feedback been so far?

Wang Feng: This wasn’t originally developed by FT Chinese. It’s a product created by the FT headquarters, where a technical team of over a hundred people built and pre-trained it. It’s based on the ChatGPT framework, but trained on FT’s news content. On that basis, we (FT Chinese) then retrained it again using our Chinese-language content.

Its special feature is that you can ask questions such as: what coverage has there been on this topic in FT’s reporting over the past year? What facts, what data? Give me a timeline, give me a long-term background introduction to this or that topic … In short, it allows an ordinary reader, beyond reading just one piece of news, to have a deeper experience, grounded in the FT news archive.

But I’m afraid it’s still difficult to completely avoid hallucinations. At least for us editors, the chatbot is still something of a black box. The tech team hands it to us after developing it, but we editors are not completely clear on how exactly they built and trained it, and to what extent it accesses the news database.

So we’ve explained to readers that this remains an experimental product. We hope it enhances their experience, but we cannot 100 percent guarantee accuracy. If someone needs reliable guidance for work or research, we recommend ultimately relying on FT-published articles as the standard.

Tian Jian: When did FT headquarters begin developing AI-related tools? Was there a delay for FT Chinese [compared to other newsrooms]?

Wang: FT now has a cooperation agreement with OpenAI. But in 2023 — before the OpenAI partnership — at the annual executive meeting at FT headquarters, all executives were required to immediately register for an Anthropic account and a Claude AI account. The idea was to press us to see firsthand how much AI had already advanced.

As FT executives, that was the first time we realized large language models had made such dramatic progress in text. Around the same time, the London headquarters began negotiating with AI companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI, and in 2023 and 2024, they began in-depth development. FT Chinese progressed in parallel — once HQ has built something decent, we can adopt it without delay.

Tian Jian: How are FT users currently using the AI financial news assistant “ChatFTC”?

Wang: Of course, we can’t see exactly what readers are doing with it. But the tech team can see how many people are using it, how much traffic it consumes, and roughly how frequently each reader engages. They regularly pass this data back to the editorial team.

But at present it’s more of an interesting novelty; the usage rate is not very high. One major issue is that ChatGPT is inaccessible in mainland China. Even for myself, though I’m based in Hong Kong, I have to use a VPN to access it. Readers in the mainland need to scale the firewall in order to use this tool, which is very difficult. It’s also limited to subscribers. So there are multiple levels of restriction, meaning perhaps only the most tech-savvy [mainland] readers who know how to successfully bypass restrictions end up using it.

Tian Jian: How is the readership for FT Chinese distributed?

Wang: Our primary market is mainland China, which makes up the overwhelming majority: 85 percent of readers are in the mainland. Hong Kong accounts for 5-8 percent, followed by Taiwan and Singapore, and then overseas Chinese readers in North America, Europe, the UK, Australia, and Canada. FT Chinese was originally created as a Chinese-language product geared toward mainland China. When we started 20 years ago, the idea was to translate FT’s English content into Chinese for those in the mainland who had very limited access to international information.

Tian Jian: From a reader-centric standpoint, when it comes to products like chatbots, has the team considered integrating DeepSeek? What experience does your team have with Chinese-developed AI tools?

Wang: This touches on the geopolitical regulatory problems with large AI models. Since our parent company (FT) is a British company, and has already signed a cooperation agreement with OpenAI, the company recognizes it as sufficiently safe. The current company policy is to mainly use OpenAI’s products for AI applications. On top of that, because cross-border data flow issues under the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) affect China, the UK, and Europe, even if FT Chinese wanted to collaborate with DeepSeek, it’s unlikely that headquarters would approve.

Our staff currently doesn’t have very strict limits on using Chinese tools. But when transcribing interviews, if sensitive information is involved, can we upload it to iFlytek’s servers? If colleagues are concerned, we discuss it together. My advice is: if it’s sensitive, don’t use iFlytek. Transcribe it manually. Luckily, most of our content doesn’t reach that level of sensitivity.

My colleagues and I use DeepSeek, Tencent Yuanbao, and Doubao quite a bit. We find DeepSeek’s most significant flaw is hallucination: it often presents fabricated information in a serious manner. This happens quite often, more often than with Perplexity or ChatGPT. So I personally rarely use DeepSeek for interviews or content-related work. That said, its proficiency in Chinese is much smoother, so sometimes I’ll use it to rewrite headlines or write summaries — but I always re-read to ensure accuracy.

FT recently began conducting surveys to better understand which AI tools everyone is using. I suspect the next step is to formulate a strategy to prevent possible data or privacy issues. We are making up the rules as we go. Internal management policies are continuously being updated.

Tian Jian: Does FT headquarters currently have a set of guidelines or rules for AI use?

Wang: They have some basic codes of conduct, and employees are required to undergo regular annual training and internal examinations. But enforcement is difficult — no company can really monitor every single task each employee does.

In daily work, the way these principles are applied comes down to individual judgment. If you’re unsure about something, you talk to your manager for guidance. If the supervisor can’t decide, it escalates to consultation with a legal counsel or an in-house lawyer.

I often discuss these issues with my colleagues and share my own AI usage experiences with my team. The most basic principle is: even if AI generates something, you are still 100 percent responsible for its accuracy. You must verify everything it tells you.

Right now, most people are still exploring how to use AI. Few are thinking far enough about how to ensure AI outputs comply with all professional, ethical, and legal standards. Even just ensuring 100 percent accuracy is already quite difficult. We are still in the very early stages.

Tian Jian: Aside from ChatFTC, is FT also using AI in podcast production?

Wang: Many of these are still experiments and have not yet been officially launched. For instance, people found it interesting that NotebookLM could create podcasts, but after a few days of using it, they realized it’s not possible to control how issues are discussed, so the final results aren’t good enough to present to readers as a news product. It’s more useful for internal brainstorming. Many AI tools are like that: fun to try, but we haven’t figured out exactly how to apply them yet.

Where FT Chinese has applied AI in its news products more systematically is in voice summaries. For example, turning a 2,000-word article into a 200-word summary, then using an AI voice to read it aloud, and sending it out daily to readers via WeChat. This is useful for drivers or commuters who can listen to articles with their earphones.

I think Chinese readers are very open to new things. They’ve responded very well to AI voice summaries. But I once tested an AI podcast on my personal WeChat account. As soon as readers were told it was just two AI voices talking to each other and was made by AI, their interest declined. So the key is still the added value of humans.

Tian Jian: Reporters and editors are responsible for their output. Has FT Chinese ever encountered problems with AI use?

Wang: We haven’t had any scandals or major factual errors. Our internal practice is that original editorial content passes through at least two pairs of eyes. Compared with traditional media, where three or four people review drafts, this may leave more room for error, but so far we haven’t encountered obvious problems.

Currently, FT Chinese uses AI tools mainly for peripheral tasks, especially on the content distribution side. When producing original content, we still abide by tradition: reporters conduct face-to-face or video interviews, record everything, then turn it into text, video, or audio — a very traditional content creation process.

Where does AI fit into this process? For instance, when interviewing an expert in a field we know little about, how can we come up with good questions? This is an area where we will use AI more often. The interview itself is still conducted face-to-face, and what the interviewee says must still be noted and written down by us.

If AI helps with transcription, we still need to verify the content afterward. This process already filters out most inaccuracies or hallucinations that AI might produce. So AI plays a supporting role.

Once we’ve produced the text or video, we can then use AI to further process it — turn it into a newsletter or a podcast. In other words, content is produced through a traditional, verifiable journalistic process, and then it’s further produced or distributed with the help of AI.

Tian Jian:  Does this show that journalism as a profession still has value? How do you view today’s flood of AIGC (AI-generated content) online?

Wang: Articles written by AI absolutely cannot be published directly. Even after multiple rounds of editing, we’re not necessarily confident that AI-generated drafts can have accurate journalistic judgment.

Our priority is to ensure as much as possible that in the core workflow of journalism – especially when it comes to originality, accuracy, objectivity, and newsworthiness – there is always human judgment. If we can ensure that, then the resulting content won’t differ much from what traditional processes produce. AI is only used for secondary or tertiary processing, improving efficiency in distribution. This way, we’re less worried about possible inaccuracies.

On YouTube and TikTok, you already see massive amounts of AIGC. Much of it is entertainment or leisure content, with low information value, not much different from the social media “clickbait” era before AIGC. Aside from wasting huge amounts of people’s time and causing “brainrot,” it’s not a major direct harm.

But content that lies between entertainment and news and information, large volumes of AI-generated content that is unverified, contains false or incomplete information, and is spread widely — that can cause serious harm. Political, commercial, or criminal actors can weaponize it for misinformation or disinformation campaigns. The risks are many times greater than in the social media era and are deserving of serious vigilance. Some countries, including China, have already created legislation requiring social and information platforms to label AI-generated or AI-assisted content. I think that helps mitigate the harms that come with AIGC.

Tian Jian: What AI skills should journalists develop? Which AI tools do you most recommend?

Wang: Personally, my favorite is Perplexity. It’s very powerful, and even the free version can already examine a lot of content. For handling large volumes of data, NotebookLM is quite useful, since it ensures no fabrications. At the moment, it’s capable of handling cases like dozens of presentation slides or a few hundred thousand-word manuscripts or academic papers.

Another is Google Pinpoint. I’m still learning it and haven’t found the right opportunity to apply it. My understanding is that it’s well-suited for combing out datasets on the scale of something like the Panama Papers, when you need to sort through and search for leads. But we haven’t had the chance to test this tool with such large datasets yet.

There’s also Manus, currently the only AI tool I personally pay for. It can handle very complex tasks. Recently, I wrote a journalism textbook based on my past two years of teaching part-time at Tsinghua University (in Beijing) and the University of Hong Kong. But I didn’t write it manually: I uploaded 600–700 pages of PowerPoint slides to the AI and used it to write.

I tried many tools, including ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and Manus. After months of trial and error, I worked out a process. First, I had Manus create a clear chapter structure according to the slides, essentially creating the framework of the book. Then I used ChatGPT’s Deep Research function to fact-check, supplement content, and connect the logic within the text. After researching this process, I could write the book much more efficiently.

Wang Feng’s Top 3 AI Tools

▼

Perplexity

Free Pro: $20/month

Try Free

Wang’s personal favorite for examining large volumes of content. Provides powerful research capabilities with citations from trusted sources. Even the free version can analyze substantial amounts of information effectively.

NotebookLM

Free Plus: $20/month

Try Free

Google’s AI research assistant that handles large volumes of data without fabrications. Can process hundreds of thousands of words from manuscripts, academic papers, and presentation slides. Excellent for internal brainstorming.

Manus

Beta Access From $39/month

Try Free

The only AI tool Wang personally pays for. Handles very complex tasks autonomously. He used it to write a journalism textbook by uploading 600-700 PowerPoint slides and having it create the complete framework and content structure.

Close Table

I give my students two basic principles. First, I encourage them, even require them, to use AI. Because if they don’t, by the time they graduate, everyone else will be using it, and they’ll lack competitiveness. Second, I tell them that they must take responsibility for all content, whether generated by AI or not. If AI produces hallucinations, bias, or inaccuracies, you must be able to detect and correct them.

And how do you detect and correct them? This is why we still need traditional journalism education. You still need to learn today about what journalism was 20 years ago, so you can know what AI gets wrong and what it gets right. Without that, you don’t have the ability to make judgments.

Tian Jian: For students using AI, do you set limits or quotas?

Wang: I don’t set any limits. Using a tool to determine whether 70 percent of an article was written by AI is a foolish task. So-called “AI-detection tools” are unreliable and always lag behind large language models.

Now, many students worry that, even if they wrote their papers themselves, tools may still say it’s “40 percent AI.” So they spend more time worrying about being mistaken for using AI to cheat. That’s completely counterintuitive. So I see no point in restrictions.

My view is: no matter what tools are used, if it’s well-written, that’s great. As long as you can ensure it’s accurate, I’ll give it a good grade.

Tian Jian: What advantages does the growing use of AI and social media among the next generation of journalists and journalism students bring to the profession?

Wang: At Tsinghua, I teach traditional journalism courses, English news writing, and business news writing. But every day I ask my students: where in the classroom could you use AI to be faster? Or, if you’re comparing financial reports from the same company across two years, which tool helps you be more accurate? I use AI tools in this way daily to reinterpret traditional journalism workflows.

AI is particularly helpful for journalists and students like us whose native language isn’t English; it’s particularly useful in helping us master writing style and correct grammar. Over the past two years, I’ve seen students’ writing improve a lot. The content they hand in is quite good. But I can’t be sure how much of that they learned themselves and how many shortcuts were made possible by AI. 

I can also be sure that I must teach them how traditional journalism is done, what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good. Even if you didn’t write it yourself, at the very least, you need the ability to make a judgment. Using AI to help with processing is fine — ideally, you would add your own insight and perspective during the process. Ultimately, the content must be accurate, meet traditional journalistic standards, be good, fresh, and sustainable. If you can do that, it’s enough.

Tian Jian: I’m curious, how do you think Western and Chinese-language media differ in their attitudes toward AI?

Wang: At least from what I’ve seen, journalists and readers in mainland China tend to be more open-minded. Of course, we must ensure everyone recognizes the risks, including the ethical, legal, privacy, and data security problems. But overall, compared with the West, China seems more accepting.

Within FT, I’m personally more cautious. Many of our senior journalists and editors are not so quick to embrace these tools. It’s still a challenge for the company to persuade them to adopt AI more fully.

Tian Jian: You seem curious, experimental, and enthusiastic about new technologies yourself. How about the rest of your FT Chinese team — what’s their general attitude toward AI?

Wang: I am indeed especially interested. I’ve been a journalist for 26 years across wire services, newspapers, and magazines, but for about 20 of those years, I’ve been an editor, mostly working on digital platforms. So I’ve always been something of an internet native, always relaunching websites, building new functions for the website, and adding social media features. Maybe that’s why I’m more open to AI.

To some extent, I influence my students more than my colleagues. For colleagues, all I can say is: “Here’s a process I figured out that will make your work simpler.” For example, when COVID started five years ago, the company carried out major layoffs. Suddenly, our staff had been reduced by a lot, but the workload was just as much as before, and everyone suddenly faced enormous pressure.

During that process, I helped them think through ways AI could speed up transcription. I drafted an initial workflow, then we discussed it together so they could see the practical benefits. Otherwise, they would be working 15-hour days. This way, they were more willing to buy in.

I never forced anyone, nor did I set KPIs or deadlines for AI adoption. I just showed them that sticking with the old ways was exhausting, while AI could boost efficiency; is this not a good thing?

Tian Jian: When reporting on China-related topics, how does FT Chinese strike a balance that maintains professionalism and depth, while also ensuring smooth publication? Have you encountered subjects that require extra caution?

Wang: FT Chinese’s mission is to serve China’s business and professional readers with economic, financial, and technology information. This positioning helps us resolve many potential legal, policy, and regulatory issues we may encounter in the Chinese market. At the same time, we emphasize showing the Chinese perspective, inviting many mainland and Greater China experts, scholars, and professionals to write original commentary and analysis. This helps us balance Chinese and Western discourse and provide readers with professional, neutral, and balanced in-depth information.

Tian Jian: On June 28, US financial weekly Barron’s partnered with Chinese financial-tech media TMTPost (鈦媒體 ) to launch Barron’s Chinese (巴倫中文網). How do you view Barron’s strategy to launch Chinese-language content at this moment?

Wang: Barron’s has a competitive relationship with FT, so naturally, Barron’s Chinese will also compete with FT Chinese in both the content and business aspects. Given that many international media platforms’ Mandarin-language sites have shut down or withdrawn from the mainland in recent years, we view other international outlets opening Chinese platforms to serve mainland readers as a positive development.

This interview was translated and edited by Jordyn Haime, with assistance from Claude AI.

The post Newsroom Standards in the AI Era appeared first on China Media Project.

The new generation of media outlets quickly distinguished themselves from their previous roles as propaganda outlets, serving growing, and increasingly affluent, audiences. Perhaps the most representative of these changes was the Nanfang Media Group (南方報業傳媒集團), which was known at the time for its suite of professional media outlets, including Southern Weekly (南方周末), was once praised by The New York Times as “China’s most influential liberal newspaper.” During this period, many liberal intellectuals used these media platforms to disseminate new ideas, and to speak more critically on social and political issues. 

Veteran journalist Li Sipan (李思磐) joined the Nanfang Media Group in 2002, working there in various roles for a decade. But even in the space afforded by this relatively free and open environment, she keenly felt frustration at the systematic neglect of women’s rights. Later, inspired by Sun Yat-sen University Professor Ai Xiaoming (艾晓明), a women’s rights activist and filmmaker, Li Sipan and a group of female media professionals established the feminist platform Women Awakening Network (新媒體女性). They conducted advocacy on women’s issues, organized training workshops for female journalists, and hosted exhibitions and lectures — all while actively producing critical reporting on gender-related topics.

The period of relative openness proved to be short-lived. Following a cascade of events — including the 2013 controversy over the censoring of the New Year special issue at Southern Weekly (南方周末), and the 2015 “Feminist Five” incident — China’s market-oriented media experienced a rapidly shrinking public discourse space. Feminist voices came under severe suppression, and the Women Awakening Network also faced mounting pressure. Li Sipan was forced to leave the NGO in 2018 to take a university teaching job. On May 21, 2021, the Women Awakening Network Weibo account suspended regular updates. Its final post was a repost about the Zhu Jun (朱軍) sexual harassment case.

Li Sipan sat down with Tian Jian (田間), the China Media Project’s Chinese-language outlet on journalism and media, and CMP researcher Dalia Parete to discuss the absence of feminist consciousness in China’s liberal media. Speaking as both a feminist activist and an investigative journalist, she offered her observations and insights on China’s feminist movement and women’s journalism since the 2000s.

Tian Jian/CMP: Chinese media institutions were historically male-dominated. Did you face any challenges as a woman?

Li Sipan:  I started working in the investigative department of Southern Metropolis Daily (南方都市報) in 2007. At that time, there were only two female reporters in the department — one in Guangzhou and another at a different bureau. The female reporter in Guangzhou was happy to have another woman join, noting that the constant presence of a large group of men in a smoke-filled room had made her feel very uncomfortable.

We didn’t have to work fixed office hours, and back then, every Monday, those of us who weren’t traveling for work would have dinner together. We were a really tight-knit group — everyone was good friends, and our work and personal lives overlapped quite a bit. But as a woman, I still felt a bit isolated. When we’d eat together, it was a male-dominated scene where the guys would drink heavily, competing to see who could drink more until they were making fools of themselves. Of course, the younger generation probably doesn’t do this anymore. But the way the men talked to each other often left us feeling awkward and quiet. They would casually toss around words like “beautiful” or “sexy” and other random, totally inappropriate words to refer to us.

This divide was also quite evident professionally. During the era of market-oriented journalism, social affairs and legal reporting were important beats that could easily enhance a journalist’s reputation. Since this type of reporting often involved cases of wrongful conviction and judicial injustice, it aligned with the traditional Chinese ideal that intellectuals shouldering moral responsibility and upholding justice, making it easier to capture readers’ attention and achieve notable results.

This type of reporting was typically easier for men to excel in. Public opinion supervision at that time was primarily conducted through cross-regional reporting, which required dealing with local officials. There was a common understanding that male reporters could drink with these officials until they became like sworn brothers — after some chest-thumping and shoulder-patting, they might receive news tips or key documents. I would also engage with officials, but honestly, many of these official drinking sessions were quite crude, with rampant sexual harassment, dirty jokes, and inappropriate physical contact. This made things really difficult for women, so I preferred to accept less-than-perfect results rather than drink with male officials.

The kinds of stories we covered back then were completely different from today’s. A large proportion of coverage focused on rural issues, whereas now approximately 90 percent of topics center on the urban middle class.

What’s particularly interesting is that many of the male reporters in the investigative department back then were quite legendary figures. Some had previously sold fruit for a living, others had never formally attended university, but they excelled at breaking through barriers and “getting the scoop.” However, the female reporters had somewhat different backgrounds—the women around us typically had stronger educational credentials. Most of the men held bachelor’s degrees, while quite a few of the women had master’s degrees. I originally joined the investigative department at Southern Metropolis Daily because the department head wanted someone who could cover intellectual affairs, civil society issues, and Greater China stories. They liked that I knew Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Singapore, so I even spent some time reporting on Taiwan. As the Global Media Monitoring Project has observed, although I also covered politics as a female reporter, my assignments were still relatively “soft” — culture and society oriented — compared to the hard-hitting stories assigned to male reporters.

TJ/CMP: Why did you become so focused on women’s issues?

Li: It’s a long story. Feminism has appealed to me since middle school, probably. When I was in university and they held the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, I wrote to the organizing committee asking for materials. My writing and studies were related to women’s issues, too. But what pushed me to take action was dealing with this male-dominated newsroom culture.

Nanfang Media Group was considered the most progressive media organization at that time. What impressed me about them was this: when I was in Shanghai, local newspapers would refer to migrant workers as “blindly flowing outsiders” (外來盲流), which I found to be an extremely discriminatory term. But when I arrived in Guangzhou and began reading Southern Metropolis Daily, I noticed they didn’t treat migrant workers as a special or marginalized group. Their reporting would provide detailed portraits of individual migrant workers, including where they came from, what kind of work they did, which factory they worked at, and so on.

Later, I realized that even in Guangzhou’s press industry — which seemed to be the freest in China — there were many gender-related aspects that made me feel uncomfortable. For example, in 2005, one district implemented gender education where, during exercise breaks, girls were required to dance while boys practiced martial arts. Several reputable newspapers in Guangzhou reported this as a progressive development.

There was also the Peking University minority language program admissions controversy, where parents protested because female students needed admission scores dozens of points higher than male students. At the time, Southern Metropolis Daily‘s editorial department was extremely progressive — constantly discussing political reform — and yet they published a commentary arguing this wasn’t gender discrimination. Also in 2005, when China was amending the Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests (婦女權利保障法), women’s organizations worked tremendously hard to include anti-sexual harassment clauses. But Southern Metropolis Daily basically said it was ridiculous —“wu li tou”— like something out of a Stephen Chow (周星馳) martial arts comedy.

I sincerely believed in the Nanfang Media Group philosophy. It provided journalists with tremendous freedom. I had a lot of personal growth there, and I formed some of the most important friendships of my life. But regarding gender issues, it was problematic in so many ways. Southern Metropolis Daily had several female editorial board members, but the journalistic culture remained very male-centered. Even the female leaders lacked sensitivity to gender issues. Like leaders in many mainstream institutions, while these women may have demonstrated more empathetic leadership styles compared to men, professionally they felt compelled to perform after the pattern of their male counterparts  —perhaps even consciously or unconsciously distancing themselves from their female identities. In essence, everyone considered women’s rights unimportant, viewing gender equality as communist overreach — a failed ideological agenda.

Actually, I preferred being a reporter, but I started writing opinion pieces because of the Peking University minor languages program incident. I couldn’t sit still without writing about it, and that later became my standard response whenever I wrote commentaries. I wrote the piece, but Southern Metropolis Daily wouldn’t publish it, so I took it to Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post (東方早報) instead. The editor there said I wrote well, but he also said [giving his sense of why it couldn’t be published]: “What you have there isn’t liberalism — it’s anti-communist.” 

TJ/CMP: How did Women Awakening Network come about?

Li: The turning point was getting to know Professor Ai Xiaoming. Professor Ai was working tirelessly to transform the media reporting culture at the time. She once organized a seminar specifically about Southern Weekly’s misogynistic advertisements and invited the then editor-in-chief Xiangxi (向熹) to participate. But in reality, no one in the media industry would actually endorse that kind of approach.

Later, Professor Ai collaborated with the British Council to bring in BBC experts for training on media and gender. The establishment of Women Awakening Network (新媒體女性) was a direct result of this training initiative. I wasn’t the sole founder. We were a group consisting of 12 media professionals from Guangzhou who had participated in the training.

Actually, that training had some issues. Because we needed interpreters for everything, the two-day workshop couldn’t cover much ground. Additionally, the BBC has these ethical guidelines, the kind that are necessary from both a legal standpoint and for social responsibility in places where there is actually freedom of speech.

But matters of journalistic ethics are hard to push in China. Chinese journalists really hate the whole journalism ethics thing, mainly because China is a place where it’s tough to get public information out there in the first place. Journalists face all kinds of obstacles and risks. If you can manage to get a story published — that’s already something. 

So when we [at Women Awakening Network] advocated for gender mainstreaming, we didn’t position journalism ethics as our core training objective. We used the term “journalistic professionalism” (新聞專業主義) instead, focusing on providing journalists with more gender experts and activists as news sources — helping them develop their stories rather than telling them not to pursue certain types of coverage. We trained them on applying public service news values in their reporting, revealing truth, and promoting reform, based on the existing operating logic of market-oriented media.

Chinese women’s rights groups were unfamiliar with commercial media due to their operational methods. I noticed that the press avoided covering women’s issues because the two sides rarely interacted — in contrast to human rights lawyers and environmental groups at that time. So we wrote a few contact lists for women’s research and activism groups. We helped researchers, activists, and journalists connect. We provided organizations with lists of journalists they could contact, and journalists with lists of experts and groups they could call.

TJ/CMP: What was unique about Women Awakening Network‘s feminist activities?

Li: Before 2003, Guangzhou had no feminist organizations. In the wake of the World Conference on Women, a lot of feminist organizations were established in Beijing, as well as in Zhengzhou and Xi’an, building on the groundwork laid by previous generations of feminists in those places. So when international funding became available, they naturally prioritized investing in and developing these existing networks first.

At that time, feminists from northern China would often describe Guangzhou’s feminist activities as “very spirited.” Why did they say this? Because the leaders of women’s rights organizations in Beijing tended to come from official media outlets, or from the Women’s Federation (婦聯), or to be scholars from government think tanks. They were all people within the system. They not only needed to maintain good relationships with the government — they also had to consider the government’s operational logic, trying not to cause trouble. That is to say, rather than exposing social problems, they had to be helpful by promoting women’s rights concepts through publicizing the political achievements of local governments that were willing to support feminist projects.

But Guangzhou was different. We served as Women’s Federation experts for a period under Wang Yang’s (汪洋) governance of Guangdong, but our work wasn’t directly connected to the institutional Women’s Federation operations. Guangzhou is a media hub, so we used the media as our point of leverage. At that time, Guangzhou hosted all sorts of activities on remarkably progressive topics on a weekly basis. Public intellectuals were quite bold in the things they said, things that would be nearly impossible to hear publicly in other Chinese cities.

But there were hardly any female speakers back then. There were no talks about women’s issues — and definitely no feminist lectures. So we started organizing talks, exhibitions, seminars, and other events. We would invite journalists from the media to come. Commercial media journalists generally tend to resist being lectured to, or having ideas pushed on them. Instead, you need to let feminism exist in their city, and make feminist voices a real part of the conversation.

By the time the young feminist activists emerged in 2012, Guangzhou media already had a group of journalists who were interested in feminist issues and had a basic understanding of women’s rights organizations. This was the result of our decade of work. Therefore, Guangzhou media was the most supportive of young feminist activism. Of course, at that time feminism wasn’t the only movement flourishing. Guangzhou’s civil society was vibrant on many fronts. Young people were engaged in a range of causes, from environmental protection to budget transparency, cultural preservation, and so on. Our work in women’s rights also influenced a certain cohort of young people.

TJ/CMP: Women Awakening Network also worked with online platforms like NetEase (網易) and Phoenix.com (鳳凰網), putting out some of the in-depth stories. Why did you decide to partner with new media?

Li: In 2014, when the Wu Chunming (吳春明) sexual harassment case happened at Xiamen University, we launched an eight months-long campaign around it. We supported the victims, provided them with legal advocacy, and ensured their voices were heard in the media. We published a series of investigative pieces and detailed commentaries about the case. We collaborated with Chinese university teachers and scholars from around the world to translate anti-sexual harassment policies from various countries and universities. We also drafted policy recommendations for the Ministry of Education and Xiamen University, and secured the signatures of scholars around the world on joint letters to the Ministry of Education. We also put together sexual harassment prevention handbooks for college freshmen, organized film screenings about sexual harassment in academia for lawyers, social workers, and people from all walks of life — that sort of thing.

By that time, the advertising market for newspapers was already collapsing. After the 2013 Southern Weekend incident, investigative reporting departments were shuttered and many veteran journalists were leaving the profession. As experienced professionals left traditional outlets, many simply lost their voice. Most of the resources had shifted to online platforms. As competition between news apps heated up, online portal sites like Sohu, NetEase, Tencent, and Phoenix all started doing original news content for their apps. And they were poaching a lot of talent from traditional media, offering much higher salaries.

Internet companies had abundant resources, and they emphasized efficiency. They wanted to leverage their platforms to mobilize more resources. Therefore, they were very open and flexible. For example, when our grassroots advocacy group for legislation against domestic violence required media support, all the major portals provided us with resources to raise our public exposure — things like live streaming and expert interviews. During the Xiamen University incident, the departure of many veteran journalists left traditional media without the talent they needed to cover the story properly, leading to lots of mistakes. Internet companies were more flexible and could accommodate outside sources, such as people from NGOs, to collaborate on news content production. An outlet like Southern Weekly probably couldn’t publish an article by a women’s rights organization.

We worked with NetEase’s Plum News (真話頻道) to put out reports about the Xiamen University incident, which helped get the word out.

But relative to internet outlets, traditional news media still have a stronger watchdog role. This is because they are not purely commercial. In a way, they’re part of the propaganda system. Eventually, the Ministry of Education put out “Opinions on Establishing and Improving Long-term Mechanisms for University Teacher Ethics Construction.” This was the first Ministry of Education document that banned sexual harassment. At that point, Xiamen University was still dragging its feet on taking action against Wu Chunming (吳春明), the perpetrator in that case. So we arranged for two of the victims to appear on “Oriental Live Studio” (東方直播室), a program on Shanghai’s Dragon TV, where they could share their stories. The day after the program aired, Xiamen University finally announced they were stripping Wu Chunming of his Party membership and his teaching credentials. But the decline of traditional channels was about more than just money and changing technologies. Soon after that segment aired, “Oriental Live Studio” was shut down [for political reasons].

Internet platforms and traditional media each had their distinct roles. However, from 2015 to 2017, the traditional media space shrank rapidly, while social media also came under state control. For instance, in 2016, we organized a rather interesting campaign to resist March 7 — a feminist critique of the official “Girls Day” and its often sexist rituals. The “anti-March 7th” (反三七) opposed the official depoliticization of International Women’s Day, its detachment from women’s rights, and the support for or tolerance of “Girls’ Day” (女生节) — a campus tradition that reinforces gender stereotypes, discrimination, objectification, and the sexualization of women. In contrast, the call to “celebrate March 8th” (过三八) emphasized women’s civic identity and demanded gender equality, especially within the university context.

Still, by 2017, we could no longer do it because I personally experienced quite severe online harassment. Of course, today this type of [online harassment] is directed at activists and journalists across the board. Later on, due to the passage of China’s NGO law, NGO work became very high-risk. I was “advised” by [government agencies] and gently urged to exit the Women Awakening Network organization. That turned me toward teaching.

TJ/CMP: Given the current situation with such strict government control, how can feminist issues and movements be promoted and spread?

Li:I personally focus on women’s rights and journalism, and both areas have become extremely challenging since the pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic, many journalists were still actively doing reporting. Some were citizen journalists who weren’t affiliated with any news organization, but when they went to Wuhan, many of them were detained and arrested. Back then, we still felt journalists could still manage to do meaningful work through non-fiction platforms and other alternative institutional media (机构媒体). But today, journalists from established media outlets are facing the same fate as those citizen journalists back at that time. Everyone has become extremely cautious, and it has become very common for journalists to face both state violence and online violence.

And don’t even get me started on women’s rights. The feminist movement has actually been systematically suppressed step by step, from the 2015 “Feminist Five” incident right up to now. At this point, it’s basically impossible to have any registered women’s rights organizations or advocacy groups. New Media Women held out for a long time, but they were also forced to shut down between 2020 and 2022.

The [authorities] invest a lot of energy in controlling the spread of feminism. They will say to individuals and organizations: “Look, there are some things you can do, but don’t talk about them online.”

They control the dissemination of public and feminist-related information. What is meant here by “public”? It’s often connected to government authority, but it may also relate to the breadth of information transmission (傳播範圍擴大). Suppose you discuss domestic violence, bride prices, or marriage and family issues that generate significant controversy. In that case, they might say you’re inciting gender antagonism. This is what ordinary bloggers encounter. But you can still engage in these discussions. However, anything related to ideology or state institutions is strictly guarded against. For instance, the Liu Qiangdong (劉強東) sexual harassment case can still be discussed, but the Zhu Jun (朱軍) case [involving a prominent state media figure] cannot. 

I once made a social media post discussing how many women had been killed in the war in Ukraine, and then the police contacted me. Initially, I thought it was because of the Ukraine war, but it wasn’t. Their reasoning was that it involved women, because that article had garnered hundreds of thousands of views. Given how vigilant they are about the spread of feminism-related information, launching feminist advocacy campaigns as previously defined has become extremely difficult. For example, during the chained woman incident, some female netizens took personal action to visit that village. 

But the undeniable fact is that today, after years of advocacy and awareness-raising, feminism has become common knowledge. It no longer requires organized feminist groups to drive its influence. It’s more like individual water droplets converging into an ocean, with many different forces now working to spread feminist ideas. However, we no longer have the conditions for the kind of organized activism we had before, nor are we likely to see mainstream media rallying together to cover and support a centralized feminist movement.

Sina Weibo came under much greater scrutiny in 2012, and the citizen activism accelerated by Weibo, especially liberal citizen activism, became the primary target. Of course, the marginalization of public intellectuals that came with the crackdown brought the feminist movement two or three years of relative visibility on social media. But while feminist discourse still appears quite “mainstream” on social media today, the reality is that the current feminist discourse is a result of the feminist movement being systematically eliminated from the communication sphere. Therefore, I believe we can no longer rely on a digital space that is heavily subject to censorship and algorithmic control.

Feminism serves as a very important binding force. For building alternative cultural spaces and non-mainstream communities, the critical perspective of feminist theory is extremely valuable.

If we view only  these algorithm-influenced platforms, the feminist thought on them is extremely uniform. To use an academic term, it could be said to have very strong neoliberal characteristics. Due to the absence of face-to-face connections, feminism has become a popular catchword used by women of relatively higher social status to legitimize their self-worth and advantaged positions. It is no longer based on public participation and accountability as starting points. 

Algorithms and commercial interests might not eliminate your connection to the public. For example, when we organized our “Resist March 7, Celebrate March 8” campaign, the platform later gave me a “Weibo Big V Award.” But censorship breaks the connection. It systematically dismantles trust between people and undermines our capacity for collective action. So if the feminist movement wants to accomplish anything today, we need to step away from social media platforms and connect with real people again. Like in the early days, we should organize small in-person gatherings that foster genuine face-to-face human connections.

TJ/CMP: From your point of view, how does China’s current media environment differ from that of before? 

Li: It’s clear now that there are more female journalists doing in-depth reporting, around the same age as my students. But they haven’t experienced the hardcore news-reporting environment of the “golden age of journalism,” so I also feel that the way young journalists approach reporting has become quite different.

This has to do with the influence of political censorship, business models, and other factors. You’ll also notice that rural topics have become less common. Many young journalists grew up reading in-depth reporting that was primarily in a creative nonfiction style, and the in-depth pieces they write also lean toward that creative nonfiction approach. Of course, creative nonfiction is itself a way of pushing back against the censorship environment. But for example, when someone asks me to look over a draft, I’ll say that back when we worked at newspapers, this article would have been 5,000 words at most  —how did you end up writing 12,000? They tend to focus on literary writing and include a lot of details that we used to think were unimportant in journalism. But sometimes, parts of the fundamental news elements — the 5Ws and 1H — are missing, creating this kind of suspended state where time and place feel disconnected.

As for what’s possible, even media outlets with editorial rights (採編權) — [meaning they are authorized to conduct reporting] — in many cases no longer do investigative reporting or engage in watchdog journalism. Some long-form nonfiction or feature-oriented media outlets are perhaps still trying to find ways to carry out such work, but they cannot provide journalists with the necessary conditions to do it properly, including, in some cases, even the legitimate press credentials required to report.

TJ/CMP: In your article News Media and the Feminist Movement in China: A Brief History, you wrote that female journalists have their own community, noting how they supported each other during the Zhuhai hit-and-run incident of 2024, for example. Can this compensate to some extent for the industry-wide issues you mentioned?

Li: I think journalists all grow up with the company and competition of their peers. Actually, there’s more cooperation than competition, so it’s very good for female journalists to have a network. In the past, there might have been more media reports, and everyone’s cooperation was like scattered flowers — different provinces all had media reporting and publishing reports. But now only a few individual media outlets can publish much of anything — even if everyone’s level of cooperation remains the same.

TJ/CMP: After 2017, you went into teaching. What advice would you give to students or young Chinese people who want to become journalists?

Li: I previously taught domestically at Shantou University in Guangdong. Shantou University’s Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communication was greatly influenced by its founding dean, Ying Chan [NOTE: Chan was also the founder of the China Media Project]. So it emphasized journalism practice and valued teachers’ newspaper industry backgrounds. But later it became much like other journalism schools in China, where teachers must have doctoral degrees [over practical experience]. I felt at the time that this was problematic.

On the other hand, some of my students were intimidated or interrogated by the police while still serving as interns. For all sorts of reasons, journalism has become extremely high-risk. The risks they face are completely different from what we faced back then. At that time, we had institutional protection. Now, even with institutional protection, it’s not really possible to do real journalism. 

But I still believe in journalism. The skills you develop as a journalist—learning to explore and understand the world on your own terms—will serve you no matter what path you take later. And for young people willing to pursue this work even in today’s harsh environment, driven by idealism and a desire for justice, that persistence will pay off. They will find ways to make a difference.

The post China’s Liberal Press and its Feminism Gap appeared first on China Media Project.

China has emerged as a sophisticated actor in this space, deploying influence campaigns that exploit India’s open media environment despite deteriorating bilateral relations following the 2020 Galwan Valley clash. Unlike countries with significant Chinese diaspora communities, India’s minimal Chinese-speaking population has forced Beijing to adapt its strategies, utilizing AI translation, English-language content farms, and academic infiltration to reach Indian audiences.

Dalia Parete: For those of us who are unfamiliar with the media landscape and journalism practice in India, could you get us situated just briefly with the essentials? How would you characterize India’s media landscape?

Sriparna Pathak: Indian media is boisterous and noisy, but it’s a symbol of how a democracy should work. The Indian media landscape is vast, diverse, and dynamic, shaped by the country’s massive population.

In terms of diversity and scale, India has one of the world’s largest media networks with over 100,000 registered publications, including newspapers and magazines in multiple languages such as Hindi, English, Tamil, and Bengali. We have roughly 900 television channels and millions of internet users consuming digital media, alongside a booming social media scene.

Traditional print media, especially regional language newspapers, are highly influential, particularly in rural areas. Major dailies like Times of India, Dainik Jagran, and Malayalam Manorama reach a big audience. Television dominates both entertainment and news through numerous channels, including NDTV, Republic TV, and various regional networks. Given that we’re living in the internet age, there’s been a huge digital explosion in India. Digital media is surging through platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and X for news and entertainment, as well as online news portals like The Wire and Scroll. Regional media holds significant sway due to our linguistic diversity. Content in languages like Telugu, Marathi, and Kannada often outperforms national media. 

DP: It’s been over a decade since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014. As a media expert who has closely observed this period, how would you characterize the transformation of India’s media landscape during the Modi era? What are the most significant changes you’ve witnessed?

SP: Indian media today is much more connected and inclusive than before. We still deal with trolling and online hate speech—that comes with digital anonymity. But overall, the transformation has been really remarkable. We’ve successfully leveraged technology to create a more accessible, diverse, and engaging media ecosystem that serves India’s complex, multilingual democracy. 

The most defining characteristic of India’s media landscape over the past decade has been its digital revolution. When Prime Minister Modi took office in 2014, India had roughly 250 million internet users. By 2025, we’re projected to reach 900 million—a transformation that fundamentally reshapes how Indians consume media. This transformation was pushed forward by government initiatives like Digital India, launched in 2015. 

The impact has been profound. Platforms like YouTube, Netflix, and homegrown OTT services became mainstream. Social media emerged as the primary source of news and information for millions. Media companies responded by creating content in multiple languages that focused on what users wanted, designed for India’s diverse and young population. The focus shifted to engaging people under 35, using regional languages and understanding local cultures across India’s 22 official languages.

DP: You mentioned the shift toward younger, multilingual audiences. Can you give me a specific example of how a major media company adapted its content strategy during this period?
SP: This focus on inclusive content was a big change from the more centralized, English-heavy media approach of previous decades.

The government itself embraced digital engagement in unprecedented ways. The Prime Minister’s monthly radio program “Mann Ki Baat,” launched in 2014, exemplifies this shift—reaching millions across rural and urban India through multiple platforms, creating more direct communication channels than traditional diplomatic approaches.

With this digital boom, India has to face several challenges like the rise of misinformation. This prompted significant investments in fact-checking journalism and verification systems. Initiatives like “Sach Ke Saathi” (Friends of Truth) prioritized credible reporting, while media houses adopted data-driven approaches and advanced tools for more accurate content production.

DP: Modi was one of the first politicians to really leverage X, the former Twitter, strategically. How did his approach to the platform change political communication in India?

SP: Absolutely, it was a game-changer. Politicians need direct audience connection to survive—if people don’t understand your policies, you’re at a disadvantage.

Modi’s Twitter strategy is brilliant because it is immediate. Instead of waiting for monthly radio addresses, citizens can track what he’s doing in real-time. Even I check Twitter first thing in the morning—it’s become our primary source for political updates.

This made him incredibly accessible compared to traditional political communication. When I lived in China, people asked why India uses Western platforms instead of creating our own. The reality is India embraced existing cost-effective tools like Twitter and Facebook as part of technological globalization.

Modi simply mastered these platforms better than anyone else. He created a template for direct political engagement that leaders worldwide now follow—proving that strategic social media use could transform political communication entirely.

DP: India has dropped from 140th to 151st in the World Press Freedom Index since Modi took office in 2014. As a media expert, what do you see as the key factors driving this decline? 

SP: The World Press Freedom Index has significant limitations. When the Press Council of India sought to understand Reporters Without Borders’ methodology, we received no response. This lack of transparency is concerning—credible rankings require clear, justifiable indicators.

Our investigation found the index relies heavily on perceptions rather than hard data, making it susceptible to bias. The specific weightage and data sources remain undisclosed. Consider India’s complexity: 23 official languages and media in hundreds of languages. How can any foreign organization comprehensively assess this without linguistic expertise or methodological transparency?

The index also doesn’t address media ownership concentration, which we acknowledge as a legitimate concern in India’s media landscape. There are now discussions about India developing its press freedom ranking to offer alternative global perspectives.

DP: Setting aside the international rankings, what’s your assessment as an Indian scholar of the current state of press freedom in the country? Are there specific developments that concern you?

SP: The Indian media landscape has become increasingly challenging to navigate, especially online media, where fact-checking and bias verification are questionable.

Let me share a personal example: during the latest India-Pakistan tensions, I was not in the country, and one morning I saw an online report claiming that New Delhi had been hit. Despite knowing this was unlikely, as someone with young children in New Delhi, I panicked. Even though I work on disinformation, I fell for it due to emotional vulnerability.

This fear-mongering is widespread in our media. Even after the India-Pakistan ceasefire, reports continued claiming that one or the other country did not respect it. News portals now resort to sensationalism as standard practice – I recently saw repeated stories about Macron allegedly being slapped by his wife. Why is this relevant to Indian audiences? Pure sensationalism for eyeball attraction.

Meta identified India as being at the highest risk for misinformation last year. Much originates from foreign content farms, particularly China. There is also concern about the lack of awareness among our journalists about foreign information manipulation. 

While the government has been proactive in leveraging the internet, there should be equal concern about tackling misinformation. The situation has become so problematic that I often wait for physical newspapers because they undergo more rigorous fact-checking. Civilians like me suffer from this information chaos, and protecting citizens from harmful misinformation should be a legitimate concern for the government.

DP: The term “Godi media” — meaning lapdog media, if I understand correctly — has become mainstream to describe outlets acting as government mouthpieces. Prominent journalists, such as Ravish Kumar, have used this term to criticize the media for no longer questioning authority. Could you explain this term?

SP: “Godi media” is indeed a pejorative term popularized by journalist Ravish Kumar to describe outlets perceived as lapdogs of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP since 2014. However, if you look back, there were always media houses that functioned as lap dogs for Congress or opposition parties, too. 

While there are pro-BJP outlets, there are equally pro-Congress ones. Take The Wire, an excellent but left-leaning portal. During India’s latest retaliation against Pakistan, the Information Ministry requested the media not disclose troop movements for security reasons – a reasonable directive lasting just two days. Most media complied, but The Wire invited Pakistani academics to discuss the unfolding conflict, inadvertently revealing coordinates and troop movements, and adding misinformation fueled by Pakistan.

Outlets commonly labeled “Godi media” include Republic World, Times Now, and Zee News, which amplify the BJP agendas and sometimes spread misinformation. This stems more from corporate ownership and revenue considerations than ideology. Educated Indians largely ignore Zee News, recognizing its sensationalism.

However, “Godi media” isn’t universally accepted. It dismisses outlets aligning with Indian ideology while failing to distinguish between party and country. BJP isn’t India, and India isn’t Congress.

DP: How does this phenomenon compare to state-media relationships you’ve observed in China? Is India adopting a Chinese model of control, or developing something distinctly different?

SP: India’s media landscape remains diverse, with over 100,000 registered publications and thousands of TV channels. Even if four outlets are pro-government, that’s negligible compared to the overall landscape.

The comparison with China is telling. Chinese media operates under direct CCP control through entities like Xinhua, with strict censorship via the Great Firewall. The content aligns with state priorities, downplaying issues such as Xinjiang or Hong Kong. During the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, Chinese media echoed Pakistan’s narrative, framing India’s counter-terrorism response as provocative while ignoring the terror attack that killed 26 Indians.

India operates differently. There’s no centralized censorship or Great Firewall. The term “Godi media” itself represents dissent—something impossible in China. India’s media landscape is pluralistic with independent outlets, social media, and citizen journalism challenging mainstream narratives. China’s media is monolithic, filtered through state approval.

India’s Constitution protects press freedom despite corporate pressures. China offers no such safeguards, with journalists facing imprisonment for dissent.

The real comparison should be between Western media and Chinese media, which are becoming increasingly similar. 

DP: How would you characterize the current state of media relations between China and India? 

SP: Media relations between India and China are significantly strained and heavily adversarial, primarily due to geopolitical tensions, particularly since the 2020 Galwan Valley clash, where China infiltrated Indian territory. Chinese state media like Xinhua and Global Times consistently frame India’s actions as provocative while hiding the fact that it was primarily the People’s Liberation Army that infiltrated. They seem to forget that satellite imagery is easily accessible on the internet — and unlike China, internet access is very cheap in India.

Both countries have severely restricted journalistic access. By 2023, India expelled nearly all Chinese journalists, but this was in response to China starting this trend. India cited unfair treatment of its journalists, and by mid-2020, there were no Indian journalists left in China. This tit-for-tat expulsion has made direct reporting very challenging, leading to a greater reliance on official sources and social media, which in turn increases the risks of disinformation.

DP: Has coverage become predominantly adversarial, or do meaningful journalistic exchanges still exist between the two countries?

SP: China’s influence operations architecture is extensive, encompassing state-controlled media and troll farms. During India’s recent elections, these operations actively pushed narratives aimed at influencing voter choices. While governments worldwide face such challenges, India’s problem is more acute due to our shared border and the fact that we host the Central Tibetan Administration.

The general question is: how long can India tolerate this when we have no practical way to push back? As a democracy, we won’t resort to unethical practices, but we also can’t ignore constant attacks. Consequently, India has blocked Chinese social media accounts and content that constantly push anti-India narratives. Even though India is currently the world’s fastest-growing major economy, China continues promoting orientalist stereotypes – “land of snakes and snake charmers.”  

After the most recent India-Pakistan tensions, Chinese outlets like CGTN and Global Times actually echoed Pakistan’s narrative, further demonstrating their adversarial stance.

Meaningful journalistic exchanges between India and China have essentially ceased, replaced by state-driven propaganda and influence operations.

DP: You already mentioned the 2020 Galwan Valley clash, which marked the deadliest border confrontation in 45 years. I am wondering how the Indian media coverage of this incident reflects broader changes in how China is portrayed. 

SP: The Galwan clash was a turning point. Indians had grown tired of constantly extending the hand of friendship, only to receive another slap from China. The perception truly tanked after COVID-19. Even those of us who speak Chinese and studied in China faced backlash. 

Chinese state media and online Chinese nationalists made things worse by targeting Indian audiences with doctored videos showing Chinese forces supposedly defeating Indian soldiers. But this backfired spectacularly—much like threats against Taiwan make Taiwanese more anti-China, these videos only increased hatred and animosity in India. Even after last year’s disengagement at Depsang and Demchok [in the Eastern Ladakh border region], Chinese narratives continued claiming “China has defeated India.” How can China hope for friendship while portraying India as inferior?

Through my work with Taiwan’s Doublethink Lab, I’ve found that academia and media are China’s biggest influence vectors in India. Despite being a democracy, our newspapers give space to Chinese ambassadors writing about how China’s actions in Hong Kong are justified. When journalists like me push back, we’re labeled “Godi media” or ultra-nationalists, in Hindi “Hindutva”—even when simply saying that normalizing occupation isn’t okay.

However, some journalists do the opposite: when some Indian journalists were invited to visit Tibet, upon their return, they started calling it “Xizang” in their articles—the CCP’s preferred term for the region. They wrote about how “Xizang has done well under the CCP.” 

When I critique China’s influence operations, the attacks are personal: “She’s upper caste,” “She’s patriarchal,” “She’s religiously brainwashed.” No sane person wants to be called brainwashed, so many step back from writing on China. It’s effective, tacit censorship.

DP: Given the absence of Chinese-language newspapers in India, the relatively small Chinese diaspora, and restrictions on major Chinese digital platforms like WeChat, how do Chinese-language media outlets attempt to reach and influence Indian audiences?

SP: You’re right about the diaspora being tiny. I met them in West Bengal’s Chinatown back in 2015. When a Chinese delegation, including Hu Xijin, visited, I had to translate because the diaspora couldn’t understand Chinese. They spoke Bengali better and told the visitors, “India is now our motherland – we’ve been here for decades and can’t even speak Chinese.”

But China has adapted cleverly to the Indian public. First, they use AI translation – Chinese content farms post on Twitter/X in Chinese, which automatically translates to English or Bengali depending on your settings. Second, they operate directly in English through accounts like Shanghai Panda, recognizing most Indians won’t learn Chinese. I’ve also noticed coordinated Facebook profiles—Chinese women dressed in saris as display pictures. I saw 12-13 identical ones in a single day, clearly orchestrated.

DP: Beyond these digital tactics, how are they building deeper institutional influence within India itself?

SP: China Radio International broadcasts in Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu. But their most effective method remains planting academics and targeting the media. Until recently, my university had an “India-China Study Centre” run by a Chinese professor, proudly funded by the Chinese embassy. I attended events where Chinese academics flew in specifically to push narratives – like claiming the US is responsible for dividing India and China, or portraying China as gender-sensitive when it’s just as problematic as anywhere else.

Ambassador Xu Feihong regularly invites media figures who advocate friendship “even at the cost of India’s sovereignty.” People like Indian scholar Sudheendra Kulkarni get multiple invitations and photo opportunities.

While we don’t have the level of United Front Work that China deploys in Taiwan, Europe, or the US, they’ve still found ways to influence through academia, English-language content, and the diplomatic cultivation of sympathetic voices in the media.

DP: Tibet remains a sensitive issue in India-China relations, yet India hosts the world’s largest Tibetan exile community, including the Dalai Lama. How does India balance its support for Tibetans with its relationship with China? And are there concerns about Chinese influence on how Tibet is portrayed in Indian media?

SP: Tibetans are treated equally here. I work closely with the Central Tibetan Administration and Tibetan journalists on a regular basis. They organize events almost weekly, discussing China, Tibet, and India. I’ve hosted several such events at my university.

We treat Tibetans like us because we understand oppression. There’s a religious connection too.  Buddhism originated in India, so we feel responsible for protecting a population persecuted simply for  being “un-Chinese.” 

We’ve even started the International Buddhist Confederation in 2023, inviting Tibetan monks from India and abroad. The Dalai Lama has graced these occasions, and our Prime Minister attends to showcase support for Tibetan Buddhism. 

Tibetans can choose citizenship or not; it’s up to them. They’re essentially like us now. They speak Hindi and English with heavy Indian accents, and they’ve become as chaotic and democratic as we are.But Tibetans do raise one serious concern: Indian journalists visit Tibet on Chinese-sponsored trips and return using Beijing’s terminology—calling Tibet “Xizang” as the pinyin rendering of Tibet (西藏) and praising CCP rule. This isn’t just offensive—it’s a security threat. By accepting the term “Xizang,”  we risk normalizing China’s claim on the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as “Zangnan” (藏南), a  term that literally means “South of Tibet,” implying that Arunachal Pradesh is merely an extension of Tibet, therefore under the CCP rule.

The post China’s Quiet Push in India appeared first on China Media Project.

For insights into the Cultural Revolution and how its ripples are felt today, we sat down with Tania Branigan, a leader writer at The Guardian and author of Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution, a gripping account of that tumultuous decade that in 2023 was winner of McGill University’s Cundill History Prize. In a recent article, Branigan, who previously served as The Guardian’s China correspondent for seven years, drew her own parallels between MAGA and the Cultural Revolution.

Alex Colville: How did your idea come about for a book exploring the Cultural Revolution as remembered in modern China? 

Tania Branigan: It just became increasingly apparent to me that all the things that I was looking at in modern day China linked back to that time. The key moment for me was going to lunch with Bill Bishop, who writes the excellent Sinocism newsletter. He started telling me about this trip he had made with his wife to try and find the body of his wife’s father, who was a victim of the Cultural Revolution. When they got to this village where he’d been held by Red Guards, the villagers were nice about it and remembered her father, but they were completely nonplussed by the idea that one might go looking for his body. They asked how they were supposed to know where it was, because there were so many of them. There was something about this story that I found hard to shake, showing how immediate and commonplace the Cultural Revolution still was. 

As a journalist you do a story, then move on. But although I was writing about different things, be it economics, culture, politics, I kept feeling that actually the key to all these things really lay in what happened in the 60s. 

AC: Can you elaborate? 

TB: Economically, the country’s turn towards reform and opening up was both necessary and possible because of the Cultural Revolution, because it so thoroughly discredited Maoism. Allowing individual entrepreneurialism was quite a pragmatic response to what to do with these millions of young people flooding back into cities [after being sent down to the countryside and forced to stay there during the Cultural Revolution]. They didn’t have the education to compete with the newer students coming out. 

If you want to understand the arts in China, and this extraordinary explosion of creativity that occurred [starting in the 1980s] it came from that destruction, and that vacuum, that hunger just for any kind of artistic or cultural expression beyond the dreaded 800 million people watching just eight model operas. 

Politically you could certainly argue for Xi Jinping’s tight control being a response to the Cultural Revolution. If you look back to his relatively early years in officialdom, around the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 he spoke about the Cultural Revolution as “big democracy” (大民主), and said it was a source of “major chaos” (大动乱). So given his experiences, I don’t think it’s a stretch to see that need for tight control as being intimately linked to his experiences of the Cultural Revolution.

AC: Do you think there’s anything in particular we in the West often fail to understand about the Cultural Revolution? 

TB: There’s still this idea that it was just young people running wild. What that fails to grasp is that they were able to do that because they’d had certain ideas inculcated by Mao. It wasn’t just his personality cult, it was also about creating paranoia, about Mao’s attempt to safeguard and strengthen his power and his legacy. Young people were only able to act really with his instigation, and for as long as he permitted them to do that. The reason why the Cultural Revolution had this stultifying, stagnated second half [1968-1976] was only because Mao eventually decided he’d had enough.

I think the other thing is that while the Cultural Revolution could only happen in that time and place, I think ultimately, it’s about what human nature is capable of under certain circumstances and with certain encouragement. Which is why it matters to all of us.

AC: Yes, we’ve been seeing a lot of people in the media comparing this political moment in the US to the Cultural Revolution. I don’t know what you think about that. 

TB: I think the comparison of Trump and Mao is a really powerful one. It’s obviously a point that people made even back in 2016, but it’s a point that has become more and more resonant as we see Trump move into a second term. He’s more revolutionary in his tactics, very much in the same way Mao moved into a stage of more disruptive and extreme power with the Cultural Revolution, no longer constrained by people around him in the way that he was earlier. 

While there are a lot of strongmen around the world, most of them have a fairly rigid form of discipline and control. What’s really Mao-esque about Trump is that he relishes disruption and chaos, and he sees opportunities in it in a way that Mao did. Trump’s able to tap into the public id and use emotion in politics, he has that ability to channel people’s emotions against institutions for his own political interests. 

A venomous mindset was, in a sense, key to the Cultural Revolution, it was all about the weaponization of division and hatred. When I was writing the book one thing that struck me was that Mao had to say, “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?” And reading Adam Serwer [Staff Writer at The Atlantic, who argues that demonizing parts of American society is a calculated power play by Trump], for example, talking about Trump and the fact that cruelty is the purpose, it struck me that the parallel for Trump is it’s always them and us, in or out, and he draws those lines so strictly. By drawing those lines, he strengthens his power. You can pick a whole host more comparisons, like Trump installing himself as chair of the Kennedy Center, attacks on culture through libraries and so forth.

What’s really Mao-esque about Trump is that he relishes 

disruption and chaos, and he sees opportunities 

in it in a way that Mao did.

It’s obviously not a repetition, nobody’s suggesting that two million people are going to be killed in the US. It’s a fundamentally different context, in a system where you have checks and balances. Trump was elected, Trump can be removed. But I suppose the lesson that we should take from it is that many people around Mao did not fully realize what he was planning until it was too late.

AC: I have concerns about comparing this moment to the Cultural Revolution because I don’t think you can disentangle that term from public displays of violence, and the ensuing generational trauma you unpack in your book. There are many different historical moments that have had similar strains of tribalism, nationalism and populism to it. Doesn’t it make people more scared if you point to the Cultural Revolution specifically? 

TB: I sometimes felt in China that the Cultural Revolution was the Chinese equivalent of Godwin’s law, that all the arguments on the internet [in the West] end up with somebody being compared to Hitler. So, you know, the Cultural Revolution can be very easily invoked on relatively flimsy grounds. So I completely understand why people are concerned or feel the comparisons are inappropriate. But I have to say quite a few intellectuals in China have now made the comparison themselves. I think it’s Trump’s ruthlessness, that disruptive chaotic quality [he has]. That the turmoil is not a byproduct of Trump’s ambition, but is actually intrinsic to it and something he draws power from. 

Again, it’s absolutely not about saying this is a repeat of the Cultural Revolution. It’s about how the Cultural Revolution can help us better understand the present moment. [This is possible] even in a system with elections, entrenched checks and balances. This is a really astonishing and disturbing political moment, with possibilities that I don’t think we fully understand yet. There is something about the parallels to the Cultural Revolution that are very striking. It’s interesting to me that so many people now have drawn this comparison, including scholars of the Cultural Revolution such as Michel Bonnin, Geremie Barmé drew it quite early on [in 2017]. 

AC: So how do you think the Cultural Revolution can help us understand the present moment? 

TB: By seeing the way that emotion is weaponized. By understanding that, particularly for Republicans, if you fail to challenge now, there comes a point where you cannot do so. I suspect quite a few Republicans have already concluded that that point has been reached. I would hope that more people on the right are alert to what we’re seeing now in terms of the administration’s conception of executive power, and the scope that it’s been given by the Supreme Court. It’s less about understanding as it is about responding.   

AC: I wonder if the Cultural Revolution has a place as a parallel for China today. I lived there all the way through the zero-Covid policy (2020-2022), and there were certain moments in that final year where I thought this political system which gave birth to the Cultural Revolution can still be taken to extremes in certain areas, especially when power is concentrated in one man and people are scared for themselves, that same paranoia you mentioned earlier. Obviously, this is not a level of violence whereby two million people ended up being killed. But at the same time, there was a sense in 2022 these policies were becoming as dangerous as the virus itself. There is also collective amnesia around the zero-Covid policy and the damage it wrought. 

TB: It’s interesting how many people in China made that comparison. And I think that’s partly because Covid was the ultimate expression that the Party has reasserted very tight control over the last ten years. There was this sense that the Party had partially retreated, from large areas of cultural life or private life or business life. Certainly [during Covid], people spoke to me about being quizzed by neighborhood committees about where they’d been, who they’d been with, all these things that, to young Chinese people would have been unthinkable under normal circumstances. At that point there was this mindset that we [the Party] can now determine what you do. The fact that you had people going into people’s homes and dragging them out, for some people clearly did evoke strong memories of the Cultural Revolution. 

But with regard to the amnesia around zero-COVID, I have to say one thing the pandemic here [in the UK] has shown me is that people don’t like remembering bad things, and this accounts for a lot of the silence around the Cultural Revolution. We’ve just had the fifth anniversary of the pandemic in the UK. It had this huge impact on people’s lives, but it’s barely mentioned.  

AC: Yes, usually the media publishes articles to commemorate anniversaries of major events, but I haven’t seen many for Covid. 

TB: Yeah, one thing that I did find when writing the book is that I thought it was going to be a book about political control of memory. It obviously is about that, but what surprised me was how important personal trauma was in silencing the Cultural Revolution. 

AC: So I think we could generalize this last question: what happens if a society tries to move on from a form of collective trauma, but does not try to remember it. 

TB: I think it can’t understand itself, and I think it’s much more vulnerable. Both to repetition, not an exact repetition because China today is clearly a very, very different nation from the China of 1966. As we’ve just discussed, you can’t see the Cultural Revolution transplanted outside China, or in time either. But I think the other thing is that people can’t understand the profound scars it leaves behind. And that was for me why it was really important to speak to psychotherapists [whose private conversations with individuals has probed the inherited trauma that often stems from events that happened in the Cultural Revolution]. But also just talking to people for the book, the level of the trauma was still evident. There are small things on a personal level, such as Wang Xilin [an interviewee in Branigan’s book who was forced to take part in multiple show trials where he was beaten so hard it left him deaf] talking about how when a friend calls out his name on the street he jumps. Because it takes him back to that experience of waiting at a struggle session for his name to be called as the next victim. 

But I think on a much deeper, more profound level, the way people are unable to trust. You’ve had a generation who were taught that you could not trust at all. It’s not that you couldn’t trust strangers, you can’t trust those around you. Again, it was a psychotherapist who said to me, you know, that afterwards you might talk about it to a stranger on the train, but you’d never talk about it to someone in your workplace, you might not even speak about it within your family. So I think that fracturing of the bonds of trust is something so profound that still hasn’t been addressed. The fear of speaking out. The idea that speech itself, being open with people, is fundamentally dangerous. One survivor of the Cultural Revolution told Arthur Kleinman he tried to be bland like rice in a meal, “taking on the flavor of its surroundings while giving off no flavor of its own,” that was the safest thing to be. One of the psychotherapists said to me they increasingly admired people just for surviving. 

The post From Mao to MAGA appeared first on China Media Project.

Also known as the “Internet Generation,” Generation Z also includes those born after 1995, who from birth have known only a world with the internet, which arrived in China in 1994. They are not just familiar with the internet, mobile technology, and smart applications, but have also grown up alongside the Great Firewall, which since 1996 has cut them off from the global internet.

Data shows that ByteDance, now firmly established as China’s leading internet company, employs more than 100,000 people, of which more than 20 percent work as content moderators. At Bilibili, a popular video-sharing platform that targets younger audiences, this proportion exceeds 27 percent.

China, with more than one billion internet users, represents 19 percent of global users of the internet. However, even as the number of content moderators has been on the rise, the number of Chinese web pages has fallen by 70 percent in the last ten years, and the number of Chinese websites has declined by 30 percent in the last five years. While hundreds of millions of Chinese internet users divide their time among dominant platforms like Baidu, Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin, strict content censorship has effectively confined them within an information firewall of “China-exclusive” (中国特供) internet content.

In creating this situation, online content moderators, who serve as the ultimate enforcers of state policy, have played an indispensable role.

Born in 1997, Chen Lijia in 2020 became a content moderator at a prominent mainland Chinese internet company that operates the country’s largest search engine. The company’s founder has publicly stated that its user base exceeds one billion. And all search queries and content published by these one billion users must pass through the massive moderation team that includes Chen. Among the various types of content moderation, politically sensitive material receives the highest priority.

Chen Lijia is candid about his reasons for becoming a content moderator. He simply wants to earn a living. But Chen and his colleagues have spent their entire lives within the confines of China’s Great Firewall. So how can they effectively judge which information should be censored?

“The company holds regular training sessions to tell us what kind of information we need to remove,” Chen says. “But they never explain why. We’re just treated as tools.”

It is precisely because he understands his position as a “tool” that Chen sees his work as unrelated to justice or morality — but merely about survival. Facing a deteriorating economy and an increasingly competitive society, this is how many Gen-Z content moderators genuinely feel as they routinely delete posts and suspend accounts containing politically incorrect content.

What Do Content Moderators Do?

Q: What kind of work do content moderators at your company mainly do?

A: Mainly image and text moderation (图文审核), the content dealing mostly with three areas —political security, violence, and pornography. Beyond these, we also need to moderate content here and there related to gambling, drugs, and illegal advertisements.

Q: What kind of content is considered illegal advertising?

A: We mainly remove advertisements from companies that don’t have partnerships with us. Advertising is one of the main sources of revenue for our company, and if we don’t control these unauthorized ads, the company can’t make money. That’s why content moderators receive a whitelist from the company, and any advertisements not on that list need to be removed.

Q: Among the content that needs moderation, which category has the highest priority?

A: Political security, definitely.

Q: What are the standards for reviewing political content? For example, what type of content passes review and what doesn’t?

A: The standards are actually similar to those used in domestic news reporting. Any content that can’t be reported in the news media is content that can’t pass our review. The most obvious examples are content related to high-ranking political officials and their families, or content about the Communist Party’s negative historical events. We absolutely must remove all of that stuff. Every year around June 4, people share information about the June Fourth Incident, and we have to remove all of it. As June 4 approaches, we even have to work overtime to manage everything.

Q: So during special time periods like June 4 and National Day on October 1, you moderators need to be extra vigilant, right?

A: Absolutely! Because during these time periods, there are always people who for whatever reason want to refresh public memory. As these dates approach, they like to post different things. From our perspective, June 4 has essentially become an unofficial folk holiday (民间节日). During these sensitive periods, the review rules and strategies temporarily change. Normally we use a “post first, review later” approach, but during sensitive periods, it switches to “review first, then post.”

Q: Besides changing from “post first, review later” to “review first, then post,” are there any other adjustments to strategies or rules?

A: No one has ever explicitly explained these things to us. Content moderators are just the implementation level. In my years at the company, they (the full-time employees) have never allowed me access to their moderation policies. We simply have to do whatever they tell us to do.

Q: Are there changes at the implementation level during those times?

A: Things just become stricter and more intense. Everyone has to work overtime then, and we also have to work in rotating shifts, including overnight shifts.

Q: Does the company explicitly tell you what content must be removed?

A: They don’t state it explicitly. They just give us vague examples. They tell us to be vigilant and ensure certain content doesn’t get through. But they never clearly explain to us exactly what these things are about.

Q: What sort of things did they test for when you interviewed for the political content moderator position?

A: They would introduce certain sensitive political information, and then ask me how I’d handle it. I’m pretty familiar with such things, and I even knew more about them than the examiner. On the June Fourth Incident, for example, after a little training, everyone knew what it was. But when there were terms like “Tiananmen bullet holes” (天安门子弹孔) — aside from me, no one else was aware of them. This is what sets apart those capable of doing this kind of work. It’s crucial to be familiar with the vocabularies that derive from such incidents — because many people use things like symbols and homophones to disguise what they’re saying. For example, the term “public square defender” (广场卫士) is an expression that comes from June Fourth. I’m able to discern it with just a glance. Any good content moderator must possess this degree of political sensitivity.

Q: Is the “People’s Liberation Army” something that can be mentioned?

A: Around sensitive dates, it’s totally forbidden. Even comments praising the government and the PLA for restoring order are off limits. The point of this censorship is not to drive public opinion in any certain direction. It’s beside the point whether something is positive or negative. The point is for censors to obliterate the event so that the public completely forgets about it.

Q: What other types of content do they bring up during training?

A: The Tiananmen bullet hole thing — they didn’t need to train me on that. I’ve known about that for quite some time. Even my bosses weren’t aware of it until I spread the word around. I’m really diligent about my job.

Q: So those who can get over the Great Firewall and have a better understanding of politics can perform political content moderation better than others.

A: Of course. So I could advance as a quality inspector faster than others.

Q: How many training sessions have you taken part in with your current employer?

A: Maybe seven or so. The one that made the deepest impression was on labor camps in Xinjiang. The sessions were totally shallow, and they really taught you nothing. The company’s point was just to make you aware — that was it. As for any of the specifics, we didn’t need to remember those. I think the company really preferred that we forget everything after the training.

Q: They don’t tell you why certain things are politically sensitive? Do you ever look into it yourself out of curiosity?

A: The company doesn’t need us to know anything in too much detail. In fact, AI will already have blocked out a lot of content through keyword filtering — and that content might have been much more detailed. But even we content moderators can’t see that stuff. I’m not someone who would look into it, because I’ve understood it for a long time. For things I don’t understand, I’ll scale the wall and check it out on the foreign internet. When you understand more, sometimes during the manual review process, I discover certain keywords, and then I report them to leadership. Afterward, these keywords get added to the computer program, and then the AI conducts automatic review and blocking.

Q: What keywords have you reported up the chain of command?

A: For example, “egg hole” (蛋孔) — that’s “egg” as in a chicken egg — and “dan fried rice” (旦炒饭), that’s the “dan” as in “Satan,”, and so on. Also combinations of the characters for “new” and “frontier” [as in the name of “Xinjiang”] with various homophones. There are many of them, but they’re all quite trivial. [NOTE: These are coded references mocking the death of Mao Zedong’s eldest son, Mao Anying, during the Korean War. According to internet lore, Mao’s son was killed by American bombing after revealing his position by cooking egg fried rice on the battlefield.]

Q: How did they conduct the training about the labor concentration camps in Xinjiang?

A: They just had us watch a documentary. After we finished watching, that was it — nothing else was said. The company’s goal wasn’t to teach us the truth but to make us delete content. Different intentions lead to different approaches. They just wanted reviewers like us, mere cogs in the machine, to recognize this issue as sensitive and simply delete relevant keywords whenever we encountered them. They didn’t care about our thoughts or feelings on the matter.

Q: So you guys just need to know that “Xinjiang” and “concentration camps” are sensitive terms, and then as long as you delete them immediately upon seeing them that’s enough.

A: No. The term “concentration camp” isn’t sensitive on its own. Only when it’s combined with “Xinjiang” does it become sensitive. That’s exactly why human review is necessary. Machines can only moderate obvious content, while humans can detect subtleties.

For example, my bosses and I once had a dispute about content asking, “Why didn’t Chiang Kai-shek assassinate Mao Zedong when he was in Chongqing?” I thought this sentence was normal, but our leaders demanded its deletion. I resisted but eventually deleted it without understanding why. Later I realized that Mao Zedong is considered a great person — so how could anyone suggest assassinating him? From the state’s perspective, that statement is clearly politically incorrect. So to be effective human reviewers rather than machines, we need to better understand such implied meanings.

Q: What kind of content have you all been trained on?

A: We’ve had training about evil cults, like Eastern Lightning. But it was just a PowerPoint presentation. No photos were permitted. As soon as it finished, the company quickly took everything away. All of the company’s training is secretive like that. My impression is that they need us to know about these things to do our job properly, but at the same time, they’re afraid of us knowing too much. They’d prefer we forget everything after executing their instructions. It’s really messed up.

Q: In terms of evil cults, what content had you already been aware of beforehand?

A: I really didn’t know about this before. And it was precisely because I wasn’t aware and didn’t understand that I didn’t feel any guilt about deleting posts. Even when deleting content about June Fourth, I felt no guilt. These things just seemed so remote to me.

Guilt and Morality

Q: Is there anything that gives rise to a feeling of guilt for you?

A: Yes. For example, content about the Covid epidemic, and about the floods in Zhengzhou. There was also this piece called “Ten Days in Chang’an” (长安十日), written by someone called Jiang Xue (江雪). Deleting those things made me feel guilty. But these were very obvious things [that demanded deletion]. If I didn’t delete them, someone else would have. They were too blatant. I couldn’t have let them pass even if I wanted to. [NOTE: Jiang Xue is a well-known non-fiction writer and former journalist from Xi’an.]

Q: How does your sense of guilt manifest?

A: It makes me want to quit. But people around me console me by saying that if I hadn’t censored it, someone else would have. My friends also ask what I would do instead. Everyone knows survival comes first. Morality only exists after survival is taken care of.

Even so, 2021 was an extremely difficult year for me. The Xi’an incident and the Zhengzhou floods happened that year. That’s when my guilt peaked. I really wanted to leave the company and never work as a political censor again, but I couldn’t find any good opportunities. So political censorship has become something quite contradictory for me. On the one hand, I’m skilled at it and it puts food on the table. On the other hand, it’s . . . really painful. My guilt becomes especially intense when I’ve personally experienced the events I’m censoring.

Q: Does guilt leave you politically depressed (政治性抑郁)?

A: I feel more like my conscience is condemning me. I really don’t like the term “politically depressed.” I’ve rarely heard it used before. I prefer to use the word “conscience” to express how I feel. This word better reveals my state of mind than “politically depressed.” [NOTE: “Political depression” refers to a form of depression triggered by political events or circumstances. It differs from typical clinical depression by manifesting when individuals feel powerless over societal or governmental situations.]

Q: After the condemnation of your conscience, what has your response been in real life?

A: I’ve started to really love chatting with my friends.

Q: Are you hoping for some external support from your friends’ words that might allow you to keep doing this job? Or is it that they’ll give a kind of “legitimacy” or approval to your work?

A: I can’t say there’s none of that, but I don’t think my intention is so clear.

Q: So what do you think your intention is in seeking out friends to talk to?

A: I just want to vent and find like-minded people. Of course I also want to ask them if there’s another path I can take. After all, this road [of being a content moderator] isn’t sustainable in the long run.

Q: In your eyes, what would make sense in the long run for you?

A: I have always wanted to use this job as a springboard that could help me jump to a civil service position in a staff role to an official. I chose to join a public opinion monitoring company because I wanted to build my skills in resolving public opinion risks — essentially crisis and threat management abilities — and then move on from there to a better platform. But such opportunities are rare and hard to come by. What I’ve always really wanted to do is to work at an organization like the State Council Development Research Center, where I could be an aide to a higher-ranking official, advising them on how to resolve crises. That’s the job I most want to do.

Q: But for this kind of job you need an excellent academic background and comprehensive skill sets.

A: The fact that I don’t have an excellent academic background is exactly why I wanted to enter a public opinion monitoring company, do political content moderation, and even excel at it. I thought that once I’ve developed certain capabilities, it might be easier for people to take notice of me. That’s been my personal aspiration.

Q: So now that you’ve achieved a level of technical skill in political content moderation, do you think your personal capabilities have improved?

A: There’s been no qualitative improvement, only some quantitative, or self-perceived improvement.

Q: What improvements have you noticed in yourself?

A: I think because I’ve seen so many bits of information, I’m now able to use alternative methods to resolve issues. But my perspective has always been that of an ordinary person. I’ve never considered problems from the viewpoint of a high-level official. That’s the biggest challenge for an aide. I think it’s also my biggest obstacle to becoming an aide, because the perspective is a completely different one.

Q: But have you never thought that, in doing content moderation, you also aren’t at the vantage point of a normal person or even of yourself? Aren’t you always having the vantage point of someone in control?

A: That’s right, but this vantage is just one aspect of what it means to put out fires — meaning that by putting out fires you can calm things down. But my position isn’t completely that of someone in control because beyond implementation, I really have no idea how their strategy is designed, or how those making the strategy communicate with the government news office.

These factors have severely limited my growth. I can’t even attend those meetings. I can only guess how they communicate with leadership. I used to believe that after doing a good job with content moderation, I would get opportunities to advance and increase my value personally. Eventually, though, I found I couldn’t even become a formal employee.

Q: Do you feel your situation is tragic? And if you could step back and view it objectively, how would you evaluate the profession of content moderator?

A: It really is tragic. Looking at content moderators as a group, I can only say these are people working to eat, to survive. It’s simply about putting food on the table, nothing more than that. As for questions about “righteousness” — nobody really examines that deeply. When you can’t even feed yourself, what righteousness is there to speak of? You could call it the helplessness or sorrow of people at the bottom, because for people at the bottom, there aren’t many choices.

So I’ve never accepted moral criticism of this job. Shouldn’t moral criticism be directed at the middle class? Why throw it at those at the bottom? What I want to ask now is: who designed the position of content moderator? We’re just doing labor. This definitely isn’t a problem with the job itself, but with the people who created it. So the criticism should be directed at the source of the problem, not at those of us who are just following orders. After all, there’s an endless supply of cogs. If not us, there would be others.

I think there’s a good saying — that the rights and position you have determine what responsibilities you should bear. You can’t transfer too much social responsibility to ordinary people. Ordinary people already struggle to survive. They can’t shoulder such heavy expectations.

Q: So do you believe that there is some way to address the source of this problem?

A: No. And there are so many people in society who need to eat. If you really don’t let people do this job anymore, how are they supposed to survive? People might say, “Oh, it’s just a job.” But if this job doesn’t exist, do you have another for me? Do you really? So not resolving the issue also has its benefits. Ultimately, you can only address moral problems after solving the problem of having enough to eat. If you can’t resolve even basic subsistence issues, we’re nothing more than beasts.

So I really dislike certain experts and scholars. They fundamentally don’t understand lower-class life. I’m genuinely from the lower class — though not the absolute bottom since I do have an office job. But I’m not middle class either. I’m somewhere in between. Not quite middle, not quite bottom. But according to my standard of living, I’m definitely lower class. Our existence is really difficult. I need to eat. That’s my primary goal. How can I have enough moral sense to consider all these other complicated things?

Q: What are your plans for the future?

A: Right now, I have the feeling that I’ll never get ahead. No matter how hard I work, nothing will come of it. I’m just a cog in the machine. I’ll never stand out in such an enormous system, and I have no influence on that system. I also don’t have any sense of personal accomplishment. My idol has always been the Founder of the Republic [Sun Yat-sen], but I fear that throughout my entire life I’ll never take even a single step toward becoming like him.

Q: What is it you admire about him?

A: He was bold and daring. He was the one who put an end to more than two millennia of China’s feudal imperial system. Actually, I really don’t like the CCP. My grandfather’s younger brother joined the Kuomintang in 1949. Our family ancestors were wealthy landowners, but because of my grandfather’s brother, our family was treated miserably after 1949. That’s why my grandfather would quietly curse the CCP at home, and it’s also the source of the hatred I’ve inherited.

Q: Why did you wish to take the civil service exam?

A: Only a general, I think, can give the order to raise gun barrels an inch higher. If I want to become a general, taking the civil service exam is the only path available. Actually, in high school I secretly vowed never to join the military, the Party, or the government. Back then I even hoped to go to Taiwan and join the National Army, but that was impossible to achieve. As I grew up, I realized how absurd those ideas were, which is why I started thinking about the civil service exam. I feel becoming a civil servant is the only way I can have any influence or change anything.

Q: Will you take the civil service exam again in the future?

A: The civil service exam is too competitive now, and I’m a poor test-taker. Given my abilities, the best I can hope for is to apply for positions in small towns and villages, but these places can’t even pay salaries now. So what would be the point of passing the exam for those positions? So I really wish I could find someone who is able to tell me what I should do next.

This is a translation in cooperation with ChinaFile and China Digital Times of an interview published by the exile outlet Mang Mang. The Chinese original can be found here.

The post Survival Comes First appeared first on China Media Project.

Despite having nearly 285,000 Chinese residents, Italy has few Chinese-language media outlets. Meanwhile, collaborations between Chinese state media and Italian news agencies have facilitated the spread of Beijing’s narratives into mainstream discourse. To better understand the complex interplay between Italian media and Chinese state narratives and media engagement, we spoke to Italian journalist Giulia Pompili. As one of the few journalists who has critically covered the on-and-off saga of Italy’s involvement in Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, Pompili offers a unique perspective on Beijing’s information strategy and its ongoing impact on the Italian media landscape.

Dalia Parete: When we look at media landscapes globally, each country has its unique characteristics and challenges. What are the most important things to understand about how media works in Italy today?

Giulia Pompili: The main challenge for Italian media is financial. Print media do not have the income or budgets they once had when they had large paid-for circulations. Television is still a strong presence in the media landscape. But over the past 40 years, it has increasingly shifted toward “infotainment” — a blend of information and entertainment. This means fewer programs are focused on delivering substantive information, and more segments are designed primarily to entertain viewers rather than inform them.

Regarding the “infotainment” trend in Italian media, [former Prime Minister] Berlusconi pioneered this transformation. He fundamentally changed how Italians consumed information with his three television channels under Mediaset Italia S.P.A. He was also the first in Italy to envision using media manipulation to cultivate public support. 

After Berlusconi, all Italian channels, including the national public broadcasting company Rai, considered the “Italian BBC,” transformed the way they presented information to follow the Mediaset path. So, there is now more “infotainment” and less information across the board. 

Newspapers lost many readers in the early 2000s, and printed information experienced a major crisis at that time. In the past decade, Italy has attempted to expand into digital media through websites and social media. But it has lagged behind countries like the United States. We’ve also seen the rise of influencers and information websites that often translate foreign articles. More recently, informational podcasts have gained some traction, but the business model remains unclear. No one has figured out how to monetize these platforms effectively. Nevertheless, this shift has once again changed the media landscape.

DP: What significant challenges and transformations do you see on the horizon for Italian media? For instance, how are developments like AI or changing consumption patterns affecting the industry?

GP: One of the biggest challenges is declining compensation for journalists. For example, if you are a freelancer, you cannot afford to pay rent for an apartment. And if you are a staff writer or a TV producer,  you likely have a very low monthly income. 

Italy remains quite conservative in the media sector. AI hasn’t been widely implemented in newsrooms, and significant fear surrounds it. Whenever I discuss this with colleagues, especially those from older generations, they express the concern that AI will take their jobs. 

From the consumption side, Italy has a significant information literacy gap because there is no education on media literacy. Most of the population is illiterate when it comes to media. They struggle to distinguish between information from influencers, reporters, staff writers, investigative journalists, and activists. This is especially problematic among younger generations, who often can’t differentiate between a TikTok influencer discussing Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region, for example, and a professional journalist who has thoroughly investigated the topic. Ideological perspectives create substantial barriers between activists, influencers, and traditional journalists — representing one of our biggest challenges.

DP: Despite Italy hosting nearly 285,000 Chinese nationals, few Chinese-language media outlets exist. What factors, in your view, have contributed to this limited media presence, and how does this affect information flow within the Chinese community?

GP: In Italy, it often seems that the large Chinese diaspora is already closely aligned with the Chinese Communist Party — though there is no specific research or data about this. They may not demand dedicated media because the Party already maintains a strong influence over diaspora groups, and pro-China content is known to dominate the media that are present. The main Chinese-language radio station, China FM Italia focuses primarily on entertainment rather than news. Another outlet, Cina in Italia (世界中国) began as a book publisher. They tried to publish educational books in Italian and Chinese. It was originally a cultural company, but it has now changed its business model, working directly with the official China News Service [under the United Front Work Department of the CCP].

Another unique character of the Chinese community in Italy is that you rarely hear any form of dissenting opinion. As the white-paper protests that began in Shanghai spread internationally in late 2022, there were attempts to organize demonstrations in major squares in Bologna and Rome — but these barely made an impact. Compared to similar protests in Germany, France, and the UK, which were much larger and more visible, the level of dissent in Italy was negligible. In Italy, such activities are notably absent.

DP: So, how would you characterize China’s approach to media or media engagement in Italy?

GP: The media engagement approach has been simple. Embassy personnel have built relationships with Italian editors, editors-in-chief, press agencies, and individual journalists. 

Before 2019, Chinese media had numerous bilateral contracts and cooperation programs between Chinese and Italian media. We engaged significantly with the official China Media Group [under the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department], which maintains the most prominent presence everywhere. In reality, they were paying for advertising in Italian newspapers. They would pitch original Chinese-language articles translated into Italian. Like everywhere in Europe, they tried to coordinate with Italian media outlets to publish Chinese dossiers written by the embassy or agencies working with the embassy. Generally, they attempted to use Italian media as a powerful tool to share their narratives. 

In 2019, something changed. Xi Jinping came to Italy for an official state visit. During that visit, Italy officially joined the Belt and Road Initiative, establishing numerous institutional cooperation agreements. One of the most notorious agreements for the media was between Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), our country’s leading news agency, and the Chinese government’s Xinhua News Agency. ANSA is a primary news source for Italian journalists, so this partnership allowed Chinese state narratives to directly enter Italy’s mainstream news ecosystem. 

DP: How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect China’s information strategy in Italy?

GP The COVID-19 pandemic was a turning point for Italy, revealing China’s information manipulation tactics more sharply. A key example was when the Chinese Red Cross sent masks to Italy. Our former Foreign Affairs Minister Luigi Di Maio, who had signed the Belt and Road MOU the previous year, was entirely absorbed by Chinese propaganda and disinformation to rehabilitate China’s image as the country where the virus originated. 

By late March 2020, China was building its image as Europe’s savior. This tactic worked quite well in Italy. They manipulated the situation by sending masks and supplies to the Italian Red Cross, creating a major political event. However, these weren’t donations but rather purchases made by Italy. We still have numerous legal proceedings regarding emergency funds spent on Chinese supplies. The critical point is that during this emergency, China used Italy as an experiment to see how effectively they could manipulate information to craft their image as a savior amid the pandemic. 

DP: How did Chinese officials typically engage with foreign journalists, like yourself, who were critical of their policies? 

GP: At the time, I was one of the journalists who extensively covered Chinese-Italian bilateral relations. I was also among the few who criticized Italy’s joining the Belt and Road Initiative. At the time, the appointed spokesperson of the Chinese embassy confronted me at the Quirinale Palace during Xi’s visit. He aggressively told me, “You must stop saying bad things about China.” The next day, we published the news headline, “We are not in Beijing.” In the article that chronicled this confrontation, we included the spokesperson’s full name, which made him very angry.

This incident also marked the first time that the Italian political establishment realized that the silencing of journalists was something that could not go unanswered. 

DP: Despite claims of a tougher stance toward China since Italy’s exit from the Belt and Road Initiative, how would you assess the reality of Italian-Chinese relations, notably regarding media partnerships and Meloni’s broader political agenda?

GP: We are saying that we are restricting Chinese influence, right? Italian printed media generally reduced Chinese content partnerships, but some outlets still publish Chinese state-sponsored content for financial compensation. While the “Chinese dossiers” appear less frequently, Italy remains an outlier in Europe by continuing to monetize the publication of Chinese government messaging in its media landscape.

The Chinese government’s official Xinhua News Agency changed cooperation partners from ANSA to Agenzia Nova, a popular online news source. So, it is still doing what it was doing with new partners.

From a political perspective, Meloni’s core focus as Italian president is immigration — she doesn’t think about much of anything else. She knows that China is the only country that can help her in Africa because China currently has the most significant political influence there.

She understands that she cannot effectively deal with Libya, Algeria, or Egypt without support from Chinese officials and institutions. For Meloni, the only priority is this very concrete issue, and she is ready to do whatever it takes to achieve her singular foreign policy goal: managing immigration. She knows that she needs China to stabilize the relationship with Africa.

The post Stop Saying Bad Things appeared first on China Media Project.

We spoke with Dani Madrid Morales, a media scholar at the University of Sheffield, about how China and Russia have been navigating the African media landscape — where their approaches converge, and where they sharply diverge. Our conversation covered how historical anti-colonial sentiments continue to shape the reception of foreign media, and how African journalists and audiences engage with these competing global narratives.

Dalia Parete: How do China and Russia make use of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist sentiments in Africa to push their narratives? 

Dani Madrid Morales: We were interested in how people talk about Chinese and Russian disinformation in Africa and how much focus there is on whether their stories are spreading and how effective they are. Everyone talks a lot about how compelling their narratives are — like blaming NATO for the war in Ukraine and saying it’s not Russia’s fault — but we wanted to dig into why some African countries don’t buy into that. The key thing we found is the prevalence of anti-US sentiment, which has deep roots in the Soviet Union and China pushing anti-colonial ideas in the 60s and 70s. 

Back then, China was seen as a victim of colonialism, so that message resonated. Now, China is sometimes accused of being the colonizer itself in Africa, but the reality is a lot of African countries still feel exploited by the West. China and Russia know how to use that. Like when George Floyd was killed, and all the racial tension kicked off in the US, China jumped on that, using it to describe America as a racist country. And while it’s not all false, it has some truth. So, the thing is, China’s not doing straight-up disinformation in Africa — they just pick and choose facts and frame them in ways that connect with people’s lived experiences, which makes it hard just to call it all lies.

DP: How else do China and Russia’s approaches differ in Africa?

DMM: China and Russia use very different methods in Africa. Russia tends to use more aggressive, hostile tactics, like fabricating attacks or spreading false accusations, especially in places like the Sahel region covering Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. They treat information like a weapon in a war, similar to how the US or France have used these tools in the region.

China doesn’t typically go that route. It has a softer approach. While it does spread misinformation on issues like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Xinjiang, it is more about protecting its interests and image globally, not specifically in Africa. China does not only directly accuse the West of wrongdoing but also highlights the differences between itself and Western countries — for example, how China isn’t a colonial power. It frames things like low-interest loans and medical aid as positive. Still, it often hides the negative side, like how Chinese companies exploit Africa’s mining sector with poor conditions for workers.

While Russia is more about information warfare, China is about shaping its image through PR. Both countries use these tactics based on their different goals. China’s approach shifts if it feels threatened, like during the COVID pandemic, when it adopted more aggressive tactics to defend its image.

DP: What have African residents themselves been doing to counter these efforts?

DMM: Some people in Africa, like journalists or influencers, get exposed to China and end up repeating China’s narratives. For example, a journalist from Ghana might go to China, spend some time there, and then return to Ghana, appearing on Chinese media like CGTN or Xinhua, repeating what China wants them to say. Some genuinely believe in China’s progress, such as the claim that China has lifted 100 million people out of poverty.

However, the average African person might not care much about Xinjiang or Tibet. What they do care more about is anything that paints the West negatively, which is a strong sentiment across the continent. So, they’re more likely to engage when they hear Chinese or Russian narratives criticizing the West.

DP: Based on your findings, to what extent do citizens actively engage with or resist these narratives, and what factors influence their responses? 

DMM: There are people like the Swiss-Cameroonian Nathalie Yamb who spread Russian narratives, but not many influencers push Chinese narratives. However, some political groups in Africa, especially those on the extreme left, are using these anti-US and anti-colonial ideas alongside Chinese and Russian examples.

Most Africans aren’t concerned with issues like Xinjiang but care about the more significant global power struggle. They might have sided with the US in the past, but now they’re more ambivalent. That’s where China has succeeded — it’s created space for people to feel neutral or even lean toward China rather than the West. It’s not that they’re super pro-China but they’re not anti-China either.

DP: How do local media outlets fit into this strategy?

DMM: Some African media outlets help spread messages from China in various ways. One significant method is through Chinese diplomats publishing opinion pieces in local media. These pieces are often presented as equally valid as other voices, giving them a platform to influence public opinion. For example, after an editor in Burundi visited China, his newspaper became almost entirely pro-China. When the Chinese foreign minister visited, the paper ran several editorials praising China. The content in these pieces often blurs the line between fact and propaganda—it’s more opinion than hard news. China is very strategic about this and even tracks how successful these efforts are, measuring how many opinion pieces written by ambassadors are published in foreign media.

DP: How do China and Russia distribute their content through African media, and why do local outlets participate in these arrangements?

DMM: Another method is content-sharing agreements, where China and Russia provide media outlets with free content. Chinese news agency Xinhua and Russian outlets like Ruptly supply articles and video content, which local media may republish. Often, the source isn’t disclosed, making the content appear as though the local outlet created it. This practice is referred to as “information laundering.” For example, in South Africa, the African News Agency (ANA), which has close ties with China, often distributes Xinhua’s content as if it were its own.

As for why local media outlets do this, the motivation isn’t always clear-cut. Many editors don’t have a specific agenda and simply publish content as part of their regular duties, treating foreign content, whether from Xinhua or Agence France Presse, like any other. In some cases, though, like with Independent Media in South Africa, there is a clear financial or political interest in promoting China’s viewpoint. The owner of that media group has close connections with China’s Communist Party and supports China’s global initiatives. Generally, while European people might be more skeptical of content from outlets like Xinhua, many people in other parts of the world don’t see it that way. To them, content from Xinhua is just another news source, just as trustworthy as anything from outlets like the BBC.

DP: What informs African journalists’ views on foreign media and foreign influence?

DMM: How journalists in Africa view media from different countries, especially China, Russia, and the West, differs significantly from the mindset many of us might have in places like Europe or the U.S.

For example, when I worked at Spain’s national broadcaster covering international news, my colleagues and I would always see the BBC’s reports as trustworthy — though we’d still stay skeptical, like any other journalists — and see Russia’s or China’s CGTN’s news through a very suspicious lens. We were trained to believe that the BBC was pretty independent, while anything from authoritarian regimes like Russia or China was viewed with serious doubt. But when I’ve been in African newsrooms, I’ve noticed that many journalists don’t share that same mindset. To some, the BBC also has an agenda, and they don’t automatically trust it just because it’s from the West. The BBC might align with some of their values, but they’re not blindly following it like we might.

I remember interviewing journalists in Lesotho, a small country in Southern Africa, and I asked them about these concerns with Chinese media. One journalist stopped me mid-interview and asked, “Why are you questioning me about China and not CNN or BBC? Why do you assume that Chinese media is bad?” That threw me off because, from my perspective as someone who cares deeply about media freedom, I could never see China as a good partner for journalists. But to him, it wasn’t about that — his issue was that I was treating China differently from Western media outlets. I think this comes back to a deeper historical context of anti-colonial feelings. 

DP: Do they see Western media organizations like the BBC as more or less reliable than Chinese or Russian state media?

DMM: The BBC has a different legacy for older African journalists — especially those who lived through colonial rule. They remember it as a tool of British colonialism, even though the UK and its foreign policy have changed. In their view, whether it’s China, Russia, or the UK, all these foreign powers come into their countries with their interests. And none of them are genuinely looking out for the local people. So, for many African journalists, it’s not about trusting or distrusting one foreign power more than the other. They tend to be equally cautious of all foreign media, viewing them through a lens shaped by their history with colonialism.

While journalists who studied in the West might still give more respect to French or British media, that’s not the case across the continent. The general sentiment is much more skeptical of foreign press, even if they treat Western media like the BBC differently from Chinese or Russian outlets. And that’s where the real difference lies. Western journalists might see China or Russia as dictatorships that control information, which requires caution when handling their news. However, for many African journalists, that same level of skepticism should also be applied to French or British outlets, given that they, too, have agendas. 

DP: How has China become involved in Africa’s media landscape? 

DMM: China has been in Africa’s media game since the late 1950s when Radio Peking [now China Radio International] began broadcasts in Arabic for North African countries and Xinhua set up a bureau in Cairo. Despite going through tough times like the Cultural Revolution in the 70s and 80s, China never left the African media space. In the late 90s and early 2000s, China began a push to change how it was seen globally. They used Africa as a testing ground, and by 2004 China had opened a local radio station in Nairobi — the first time they broadcasted locally via FM radio instead of long-wave.

DP:  How has their presence changed since then?

DM: The digital era brought a complete transformation in China’s strategy. They established CGTN’s office in Nairobi, produced documentaries showcasing China’s positive impact on Africa, and highlighted significant projects like the Tanzania-Zambia Railway. They were smart about hiring local journalists and investing substantial resources to strengthen their digital presence.

By the 2010s, China shifted its approach. This led to more strategic moves: embedding content in local African media, forming partnerships with media outlets, and having Chinese diplomats take a more active role in public discourse. The real turning point was 2018-19 when their approach became more assertive. Instead of promoting China’s achievements, they actively challenged Western narratives, especially around issues like Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Covid-19.

DP: What are some trends in China’s messaging that you’re now noticing?

DMM: In recent years, CGTN Africa has focused heavily on Africa, producing two hours of news daily. But there’s been a noticeable shift. While CGTN used to be somewhat more neutral and pragmatic in the early days, there’s now much more ideological content, especially around Xi Jinping and China’s global influence. They cover the US much more, but it’s usually pretty negative — highlighting flaws in American democracy and social issues. It’s not all global politics, though — CGTN Africa mostly sticks to regional matters, like the Sahel region or events in places like Niger and Mali.

However, China takes a unique approach to covering Africa: it almost always sides with the ruling party. For example, when elections took place in Mozambique, China’s media congratulated the incumbent before the results were announced. There’s relatively little focus on opposition parties. And just like with other Chinese media, if the government wants a specific topic covered, it will push it.

DP: Can you assess the impact of Chinese media in Africa? 

DMM: The impact of China’s media on Africa is complicated. In most African countries, China isn’t a topic in the daily press. It only becomes a focus when a significant event, like a controversy or a state visit. Before Covid-19, Chinese media barely had any presence in local news. After the pandemic hit, coverage exploded, but China’s day-to-day media impact is still minimal. People’s opinions on China tend to come from their personal interactions with Chinese workers or products — not from the media.

For example, during a trip to Kenya, I visited rural areas and asked locals about their views on China. The people had positive views, but it wasn’t because they were watching CGTN or Chinese films but primarily because of their experiences with Chinese workers building infrastructure or running small businesses. It’s the same with Chinese products — people recognize they are often low quality, influencing their opinion of China.

Also, the media landscape makes a difference. There are no permanent African correspondents in China. So, most news comes from agencies like Xinhua or Reuters, not local reporters. This lack of local coverage means China isn’t a daily topic in the news. You might hear about the US or Europe, but China rarely makes the front page unless there’s something big going on.

DP: What about the impact of social media?

DMM: Social media does have an impact, but it’s mostly just for a small group of people — like young, urban folks who are somewhat educated. In places like South Sudan, only 10 percent of the population is online, so social media isn’t significant for most people. But it’s a different story in countries like Ghana or Kenya, where more people have smartphones. Social media, especially TikTok and YouTube, is more important for the younger crowd.

It’s hard to say how much social media directly changes people’s opinions. The big difference is that online spaces have more room for debate and controversy than traditional media, which tends to be controlled by those in power. Like, remember when Chinese businesspeople were accused of mistreating Zimbabweans? That went viral on social media, which wouldn’t have made the news otherwise. China’s getting better at handling these situations, though. 

But, honestly, there’s not a massive wave of anti-China sentiment in Africa. Sure, there are small pockets, but it’s pretty marginal. People aren’t talking about China in politics or elections. It just doesn’t come up much. Even if there’s some criticism online, it’s not a big deal. Most of the time, China’s pretty popular.

China is also good at subtly influencing things. CGTN, for example, will back up the government more than the opposition, but it’s not like they’re openly pressuring the media to shut down critical stories. It’s not like in Europe, where Chinese diplomats will put pressure on journalists to kill damaging stories. China’s influence in Africa is much more low-key, and public opinion stays positive.

The post Global Powers, African Stories appeared first on China Media Project.

Dalia Parete: What is the “sentinel state,” and how does it differ from the more familiar concept of the surveillance state?

Minxin Pei: In my book, I introduce the concept of distributed surveillance, highlighting how China conducts its surveillance distinctly. While all dictatorships employ repression, the most sophisticated ones, like China, lean heavily on preventive rather than reactive measures — essentially ex-ante repression versus ex-post repression. The real challenge lies in designing an effective system for this preventive repression. Should all surveillance responsibilities be concentrated within a single agency or distributed across multiple entities? Each approach has its trade-offs. For instance, if you go the route of a centralized agency like the Stasi [East German secret police], you invest heavily in a large bureaucracy that could ultimately threaten the ruling party itself.

On the other hand, China’s strategy involves decentralizing tasks horizontally across various security agencies, and vertically by incorporating civilian involvement. These civilians, while formally part of the security apparatus, take on key surveillance functions. This creates a unique system where surveillance is distributed and multifaceted, allowing the government to maintain control without the vulnerabilities that come with a single, centralized authority.

DP: Which is more important for this sentinel state — the technologies of repression or the human resources of state control? 

MP: There’s often too much focus on technology itself. While it can be a useful tool, it is used by people. And let’s not forget that technology has lots of blind spots. It can accomplish many tasks, but if people implement countermeasures, technology becomes ineffective. For example, if someone wears a mask or a hood, facial recognition systems struggle to identify them. Similarly, if you hide your phone in a Faraday bag, the government loses track of your movements. There are lots of limitations to technology. This is why I believe the most effective approach combines human intelligence and technological resources. China has both advanced technology and a highly organized structure. 

DP: What did the Covid-19 pandemic reveal about China’s surveillance capabilities? 

MP: During the pandemic, China’s approach to enforcing lockdowns was truly remarkable, particularly in how it used cell phone monitoring. The most crucial part was the actual collaboration projects with private companies like Alibaba and Tencent, as they developed health tracking systems. 

Another significant aspect was the use of so-called “grid management” (网格化管理), which is much more labor-intensive and human-focused than technology-driven. This approach proved to be quite effective during the pandemic. China implemented a system where communities are divided into several grids, typically comprising around 1,000 people or 300 families. Each grid is closely watched by an individual who not only monitors these families but also provides various community services.

To effectively lock down a community, you need active participants. So, those two elements — phone monitoring and grid management — played vital roles. Interestingly, traditional tools like facial recognition and video surveillance were not very useful during the lockdown since people were confined indoors.

DP:  Would you say the pandemic was a trial run for China’s technological capabilities? 

MP: Because of the uniqueness of the pandemic, it was a limited test. There was a lot of self-enforcement because people also did not want to get sick. So, during the pandemic, the government didn’t need to resort to heavy-handed coercion. About half of the population probably complied with regulations simply out of self-interest and a desire to stay safe.

DP: What role does the Chinese media, including state-run outlets, play? Are they part of the sentinel state? 

MP: In this case, official Chinese media don’t play a significant role. Their primary function is to disseminate government-sanctioned messaging. I think that social media is the main target for surveillance because the government has a very sophisticated and effective way of monitoring what’s happening on social media. If a particular topic starts trending, they swiftly intervene to suppress it. There is a very good system in place in that sense. 

In my book, I don’t focus on the output side of this — essentially, how the government employs censorship. One lesser-known aspect of China’s internet surveillance is how they monitor who is accessing the internet. They’ve created effective technology to ensure that anyone using the internet has their identity recorded by the authorities. This way, they maintain tight control over online activity.

DP: What lies behind the Chinese state’s paranoia and need for control?

MP: This system was developed in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square. This taught the Chinese Communist Party a very important lesson: they needed to be aware of what was happening in society. Like other dictatorships, the Chinese Communist Party is very fearful of dissenting voices, especially activists, because they need to deter the population from engaging in protests, in anti-regime activities. Most of the time, these activities can be led by a small number of activists. Because they set an example, they show the rest of the population that they are not afraid. To make sure this does not happen, the government relies heavily on surveillance. If somebody dares to challenge the Party’s authority openly, that person will be discovered and punished. 

In my book, I discuss what I call “key individuals.” These are people who are subject to close monitoring by human assets and technological means. There are even “internet key individuals” whose online activities are closely tracked. Some of these individuals are restricted from accessing certain websites or services to further limit their influence.

DP: What do you make of China’s plans to introduce a national cyberspace ID scheme?

MP: From the Party’s perspective, the more control they can exert, the better. That’s their mindset. However, we also have to consider the law of diminishing returns. In this context, the additional benefits the Communist Party might gain from implementing a cyber ID are likely quite limited. Given how effectively they control the internet, I’d estimate they oversee about 95 to 97 percent of online activity. To capture that remaining two to three percent would require a substantial investment of resources, leading to high marginal costs that probably don’t yield significant benefits. You have to hire people to monitor. You have to actually harass people if you catch them. Then what if they keep posting? It will probably cost them a lot of manpower. 

This feels excessive, especially considering that the party can quickly identify who is online. When you use home internet from state-owned providers, your IP address is already known. The same applies to your phone. Even in public places like cafes they have surveillance systems to track IP addresses. So why introduce a cyber ID? It seems largely unnecessary. Additionally, many people in China are already quite cautious about their online behavior, leading to considerable self-censorship.

DP: So why do you think these plans are being rolled out right now?

MP: Xi Jinping has been emphasizing a comprehensive approach to security. National security is not just about defense against external enemies but also maintaining social stability and cybersecurity. So, under that guideline, Chinese censorship agencies and domestic security agencies will ask, “How can we carry out the top leadership’s instruction?” So, they propose all kinds of measures, such as cyber IDs. From a bureaucratic perspective, this is a clear response to new directions from the central authority, prompting the bureaucracy to take action. When we look at the current circumstances, like the slowing economy, there’s probably more social unrest. There will be a lot more public dissatisfaction. The government aims to suppress expressions of this dissatisfaction and potential social unrest. 

By introducing something like a cyber ID, the Party hopes to enhance self-censorship, as people will be afraid to express their dissatisfaction online. However, this approach might backfire. If individuals feel they can’t voice their frustrations online without repercussions, they may resort to more destructive means of expression. That’s why I believe this strategy may not be beneficial. Over time, this will also depend largely on the economy, as the Chinese security apparatus is primarily funded by local governments. If these local governments do not have the resources, both the human and technological components could suffer. They won’t be able to recruit more informants or maintain and upgrade their technology, which, as we know, can be quite costly.

DP: Finally, what are the scenarios in which the sentinel state might break down?

MP: If the economy breaks down, it will be the first sign of trouble. You’ll likely see a degradation of the security system and a rise in public discontent.  Another concern is the potential for corruption within the system itself. Those in charge of security wield significant power and have access to resources. Instead of using funds for informants or upgrading the system, they might enrich themselves, leading to better facilities and higher salaries rather than enhancing security.

Additionally, there’s the issue of overreach. The demand for security can seem insatiable, like a beast that can never be fully satisfied. This could result in unnecessary spending on resources — like an excessive number of surveillance cameras using the latest technology — when it may not even be needed.

The post China’s Sentinel State appeared first on China Media Project.

Alex Colville: What is the current discussion on AI safety among PRC elites? 

Matt Sheehan: There’s been a huge change in the last 18 months or so. If you’d asked me two years ago “How salient is AI safety in China’s AI industry and policy?” I would have said that it’s something you’ll hear people talk about in private sometimes, but it’s very much not in mainstream policy discussion and it’s not even very well represented in the mainstream scientific technical discussion. From, say, 2021 through mid-2023, AI regulation was a public opinion management issue, implemented at the department or ministry level, particularly the Cyberspace Administration of China. Before the rise of ChatGPT, the only part of the government making reference to safety issues was the Ministry of Science and Technology, which had made explicit references to the loss of human control over AI systems. But then over the course of 2023 we started to see AI safety rise to prominence, especially in the elite scientific community.

We’ve seen a number of public statements from China’s most prominent computer scientists saying they share a lot of the international concerns about catastrophic risks from loss of control of unaligned AI systems. The question has been if that elite scientific conversation has been making its way into the elite levels of the CCP. Beginning with the Interim Measures for Generative AI [regulations issued by the CAC to monitor AI-generation service, in effect since August 2023], AI governance has become something the Politburo and the Central Committee want to be more directly involved in. They’ve shifted away from viewing AI governance as primarily a public opinion management issue that can be left to the CAC, and now view it as an issue of national power, and geopolitical positioning. 

I think this past couple of months we’re starting to see some of the strongest indications AI safety is getting a hearing at this level. In the recent Third Plenum Decision, a section on public security and public safety included the call for creating an “AI safety supervision and regulation system.” This is the first time we saw a direct reference to AI safety  —  used in reference to public safety rather than content safety  — appear in this high level of a policy document. It’s up for debate what exactly that supervision and regulation system might look like.

AC: How have China’s views on AI safety evolved compared to the views of the US and EU?  

MS: In the past when the CCP has talked about “safety” (安全) as it relates to AI, they mostly have been talking about ideological security, political stability, content security, and content safety. What’s happening now in the last year is that we’re starting to see them use the term “AI safety” (人工智能安全) in a way that does seem more aligned with Western usage of the term, more tied to potential catastrophic risks. In both the Third Plenum Decision and some of the explainer documents released afterward, they tend to include AI safety in a category of large-scale industrial safety or use terms that in the past used to refer to large-scale industrial accidents. So whereas for a while I’d say China and the West were talking about fundamentally different things even when we appeared to be using the same language of “safety,” there’s now this emerging area where our scientific communities might be talking about the same thing. 

AC: When we say elite levels of the CCP, we’re talking about a group of socially conservative men in their mid-60s, only a few of whom have been educated abroad or have STEM-related educations. What do you think is their understanding of AI and its capabilities?

MS: The answer is we don’t really know. You can learn a little bit by who they are talking and listening to. For example, Andrew Yao is probably the most respected computer scientist in China. He personally received a letter from Xi Jinping congratulating him on his 20 years working in China. He won the Turing Award in the United States and returned to China around 2000. He has this class called the “Yao Class” (姚班), which a lot of the major AI scientists or entrepreneurs in China went through. 

I’d say he’s one of the most important and listened to computer scientists within the halls of government. He’s become a very vocal proponent of AI safety being a serious issue that needs to be acted on. I haven’t seen his name in one of the Study Sessions of the Politburo, but I would not be at all surprised if he presents at those kinds of levels. We have to infer whether or not those messages are getting from him into the higher levels of the Chinese government, but at least circumstantially we can see some evidence of that.

MS: The only full study session of the Politburo dedicated just to AI, back in 2018, was done by Gao Wen (高文), who’s another relatively elite scientist who has also been talking more about AI safety and alignment recently. Peking and Tsinghua University professors have definitely been consulted on the regulations. There are also the heads of state-sponsored AI labs: Zhang Hongjiang of the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (张宏江) and Zhou Bowen of the Shanghai AI Lab. 

AC: Watching Chinese reactions to the EU’s new AI Act has been interesting. An article from China’s AI Industry Alliance (AIIA) has one consultant talking about how Chinese laws will be “small incisions” (小切口法) versus the “horizontal legislation” (横向立法) in the EU’s Act. How do the EU and China differ in the way they create AI legislation? 

MS: I think how the regulatory architecture is built out is one of the biggest differences between China and the EU. From the start, the EU went for one large horizontal regulation that’s supposed to cover the vast majority of AI systems all in one go, and within that you just tier them by risk. The Chinese approach has been not to have a comprehensive law, but to try to attack it quickly at the departmental level with targeted application-specific regulations, specifically for recommendation algorithms [in effect since March 2022], deep synthesis [in effect since January 2023], and the generative AI interim measures. They didn’t start from the technology, they started from a problem as they saw it. They thought recommendation algorithms were threatening the ability to dictate the news agenda, while deep fakes and generative AI would threaten social stability. So they worked backwards from the problem to create regulations specifically targeted toward it. 

AC: China’s own AI Law has been in unofficial draft form since August 2023. Do you think this is something the leadership is still pursuing?

MS: A move towards a national AI law would be more aligned with the EU, but it’s unclear if they’re going to end up pursuing that. Policymakers often say their approach to AI should be “small, fast, flexible,” (小快灵). They’re worried about some long process that ends up being immediately out of date. The EU did a lot of work on their AI Act, but then in the final stages ChatGPT came out, and they needed to do some significant rethinking of how to deal with foundation models. China released its deep synthesis regulation five days before ChatGPT came out, and ChatGPT totally shook up what was in that regulation. So they just went right back to the drawing board and a few months later, had their generative AI regulation. 

It’s very up in the air how specific, binding, and constraining the AI law would be if it came out. I think for a little while there was a lot of momentum and the thought was we have a push for this law very quickly. But it seems like the government has pumped the brakes a bit. They’ve got three different AI regulations already and currently want to be more pro-innovation — maybe they think they don’t need to roll out an entirely new national law on this right away. That makes sense from a number of perspectives: do you want to codify things in a law when the technology changes quickly? I think it’s most likely we won’t see the AI law text itself for another two years, maybe more, but they could surprise us on this. 

Meanwhile, they’re also going to apply targeted standards to different industries, helping compliance with current regulations or to quickly integrate AI into different industrial processes. There are compliance standards about how to implement the generative AI regulation, exactly how to test your generative AI systems, and what performance criteria they need to meet in order to be compliant. 

AC: We’ve been finding a lot of variance on how closely current regulations are followed, for example on putting digital watermarks on AI-generated videos and whether models can create deepfakes of politicians. How standardized is the field at the moment, and is there going to be any pushback for not following standards and regulations?

MS: It seems like classic Chinese regulation, where they throw a lot down on paper, but then selectively enforce it to achieve their ends, and maybe one day have a big crackdown on non-watermarked content. [Note: Since this interview, the CAC has released a draft standard fleshing out the Interim Measures for Generative AI, listing in detail where and how watermarks should be used.] I don’t think a national AI law necessarily solves that. In a lot of ways, I think their management of AI-generated content is going to be like the broader never-ending game of whack-a-mole that governs the CAC’s relationship with big internet platforms, where they constantly go to companies and tell them how to cover an event they’re worried about. The rules require conspicuous watermarks on content that might “mislead the public,” and the point of the watermarks is to make sure that you’re not having people deceived in ways that are criminal or harmful to the party’s interests. There’s going to be a lot of AI-generated content that is not really that harmful, so you don’t actually need visible watermarks on every piece of AI-generated content. Maybe the CAC will choose to selectively enforce this, where if a company allows a misinformation or disinformation video to go viral on the platform, that company will be punished in line with the generated AI regulation requirements for not having a watermark. But if you just have online influencers choosing to replicate themselves so they don’t have to record new videos every day, that might not be something the CAC sees as a problem. 

Deepfakes would not fall under the AI safety (人工智能安全) concept we’re seeing in policy documents or discussed at the International Dialogues on AI Safety, which is quite specifically referring to AI escaping human control or very large-scale catastrophic risks from the most powerful AI models. So that’s a much more forward-looking and speculative set of concerns the elite level of politicians are worried about, which is pretty different from complying with the generative AI regulations. To them, being able to generate deepfakes from one diffusion model but not another sounds like a compliance issue for the CAC. Maybe one company is either not as good at detecting unacceptable content, or they’re not putting much effort into it.

AC: We noticed you spoke at a panel for this year’s World AI Conference in Shanghai. What was that like?

MS: WAIC was a massive event. It’s always a big production, but this year was really the return to pre-Covid form, and you could see there was a concerted effort by organizers to use the event as a way of saying “we’re back.” They wanted foreigners to be there. They really wanted to tell the outside world that China is open, China is responsible with AI, and China is leading in some areas.

AC: Were there any moments that stood out for you?

MS: I was talking to some of the entrepreneurs who were impacted by the Interim Measures for Generative AI and how intensively it is still enforced. Prior to going to WAIC, it looked to me like the CAC had decided to be much more accommodating for AI companies. They really watered down the text of the generative AI regulation, between the drafting and finals, to make it more favorable to businesses. That was because they got pushback from other parts of the bureaucracy, who have an eye on the economy and competing with the US, saying “we cannot sacrifice our AI industry entirely at the altar of censoring what comes out of language models.” 

In general, I think the CAC’s in a bit of an awkward position because the zeitgeist has shifted so much from the time of the tech crackdown [late 2020 – late 2023] to a focus on economic development, getting AI companies to thrive. So prior to the WAIC, I expected them to be a little bit more hands-off with AI companies when it comes to implementing the regulation. But being there and talking to folks I realized that this is all relative. Yes, they’ve eased up a bit from early 2023, but they’re still very, very hands-on with constantly testing the models, and re-adjusting every day, every week, what is unacceptable content.

AC: How much hype do you think there is in China’s presentation of its home-grown AI? 

MS: Hype is not China-specific, and every AI company in the world has been overhyping their products for the most part. Maybe in China there’s a little bit of an extra layer of showmanship just because it’s their tendency when it comes to these types of business products. I think in some ways, 2023 was all about catching up with Large Language Models once ChatGPT came out. Everyone was just competing on these performance metrics, making money wasn’t hugely necessary. Now there’s an increasing sense of needing to find a way to sell this service, to create applications that can make money. That’s probably going to be a little bit less grandiose in some ways, but it might actually put the industry on more stable footing going forward. I think the industry in China faces tons of problems with financing. There’s a very good chance we’re in the midst of a big AI bubble (or at least a large model bubble) that’s going to pop, with a lot of the biggest and best AI startups today going bankrupt in a few years. But that’s not unique to China, it might just be more acute in China than in other places.

The post How China Thinks About AI Safety appeared first on China Media Project.

Is this a true marriage of two ideologies traditionally considered at odds with one another, or just a way for digital feminists to get their voices heard without incurring the government’s wrath? Might “pink feminism” also contain some valuable kernels of truth about the origins of feminism in China? CMP researcher Dalia Parete spoke with Eva Liu to discuss these and other important questions.

Dalia Parete: I know it’s a bit ask, but could you briefly tell us about the history of feminism in China? 

Eva Liu: I don’t want to oversimplify the complex history of Chinese feminism. Drawing from Chinese feminist historians, the first wave of Chinese feminism emerged at the turn of the 20th century, primarily led by male intellectuals and nationalists. This wave viewed the vulnerability of Chinese women as the root cause of the nation’s weakness and aimed to strengthen the nation by liberating its women. 

In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established a socialist regime, and I’m sure everybody is familiar with Mao Zedong’s famous slogan, “Women hold up half the sky.” During this historical period, public gender discourse emphasized the “sameness” between women and men, encouraging women to enter the public sphere of waged labor. Although this paternalistic discourse of women’s liberation never explicitly used the label of “feminism,” the educational level and workforce participation of Chinese women significantly improved then.

After the “Reform and Opening Up” in 1978, Western feminist theories began to enter China, and some Chinese universities started offering Women’s Studies courses. In 1995, China hosted the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which not only facilitated more cultural exchange between Chinese and international feminist scholars and activists but also introduced the concept of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to China. After that, feminist NGOs began to spring up across the country.

In the 21^st century, the Chinese government withdrew its support for local feminist NGOs, and the Foreign NGO Law, coming into effect in 2017, also prohibited local NGOs from receiving overseas funding. Since then, Chinese feminism has rarely mobilized through formal organizations, but individual expressions on social media become the primary force of feminist voices in China today, just like in many other countries.

DP: How would you define the relationship between feminism and nationalism in the context of Chinese digital feminism? Does this complicate traditional feminist movements?

EL: It is quite complex. In a recent article, I wrote how many Chinese anti-feminist influencers now stigmatize Chinese feminists as “Western hostile forces,” even if there is a clear lack of substantial evidence. At the same time, many gender-related discussions on social media are intersecting with nationalist sentiments. For example, during the Paris Olympics, numerous Weibo posts were celebrating the achievements of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. 

Many women have demonstrated their patriotism to the authorities by actively participating in nationalist campaigns such as the 2021 Xinjiang cotton controversy. These show that female citizens can be more “patriotic” than their male counterparts, who continue to watch NBA games after its executives showed support for the 2019 Hong Kong protests. This somewhat challenges the male-dominated nationalist narrative.

It is important to avoid making hasty conclusions about whether these posters genuinely embrace both feminism and patriotism or if they are merely using nationalist discourse to “legitimize” feminist expressions in an increasingly restrictive online environment. The focus should be on emphasizing this “complexity,” both within digital feminist movements and in a broader context, including the Chinese setting.

DP: How do you think online censorship influences the strategies and discourse of Chinese feminists? Are there specific examples where censorship has hindered or inadvertently promoted feminist activism?

EL: Unfortunately, even some “moderate” feminists who do not directly criticize the state may still have their accounts deleted, be temporarily silenced, or be shadow-banned, meaning that fewer followers can see their posts in their feeds. It’s clear that there are double standards in how these platforms are managed, as online harassment against feminists often gets overlooked and online harassment against feminists is often tolerated.

In these circumstances, some feminists seek alternative platforms to express their opinions, which is not easy but worth trying. Others stay on mainstream platforms and confine themselves to a few “safe topics,” such as celebrating Chinese sportswomen.

Interestingly, when male users express dissatisfaction with certain content, feminists sometimes respond with nationalist rhetoric. Eileen Gu is a prominent example. Gu is viewed as a feminist for her empowering messages and also as a “nationalist” for renouncing her US citizenship and representing China, as reflected in the CCP’s official rhetoric. When male netizens criticize Gu — often over her dual citizenship — her female supporters frequently defend her by referencing official media coverage. These responses are particularly significant in today’s landscape, where alternative platforms are increasingly scarce.

DP: You recently co-authored a paper with Professor Han Ling on the phenomenon of “pink feminism” on Chinese social media. What do you mean by “pink feminism?”

EL: The term “pink feminism” has been circulating online for some time, and our work in this paper was to theorize it. It’s important to note that we do not define it as a feminist camp or identity, as very few people would call themselves pink feminists. Rather, the term is often used by those who are critical of it. We understand “pink feminism” as a practice, or more specifically a way of doing feminism in a highly restricted environment.

DP: How does this form of activism differ from more confrontational feminist approaches, and what are its potential strengths and weaknesses?

EL: I want to stress that pink feminism encourages young feminists to reexamine our indigenous history and corpus. In recent years, early Chinese feminists like Qiu Jin and He-Yin Zhen, along with socialist feminists, have been rediscovered by feminist communities.

This not only acknowledges the contributions of local feminist predecessors but also resists Western hegemonic interpretations of feminism. It is also an important step in countering the popular misconception that feminism is from the West.  Young Chinese feminists aren’t just passively studying Western feminist theories without thinking about local differences. Instead, they’re actively continuing the fight for gender equality, a goal that generations of Chinese feminists have worked towards.

The limitations are quite clear: regardless of whether participants fully embrace nationalism, they are forced to avoid overt criticism of state policies. In other words, they end up compromising the critical edge of feminism just to increase their chances of staying safe.

DP: You suggest that pink feminism may reinforce existing power structures that feminists aim to dismantle. Can you provide examples of this?

EL: Yes, some pink feminist practices might indeed end up reinforcing neoliberal consumerism and state authoritarianism. When young feminists come across sexist ads, they usually take one of two approaches. One is through economic action — they’ll boycott the product, rally others to join in and look for alternatives. The other is more political — they’ll report the issue to the authorities. These actions show that women are using their power both as consumers and citizens. However, it’s important to remember that being a gender-conscious consumer often requires some level of class privilege.”

Participants need to stay reflective and not just accept government decisions without question. If the government doesn’t take action, it doesn’t automatically mean that feminists’ concerns are unreasonable. And if the government does take action, it’s crucial not to overlook the issue of procedural justice. Take Kris Wu’s sexual assault scandal in 2021 as an example. His social media account was deleted while he was under arrest, even though he hadn’t been convicted yet.

DP: How do you suggest Chinese feminists navigate the challenges of nationalism and engage with pink feminism without compromising their principles?

EL: In this paper, we want to highlight the internal diversity within Chinese feminism. We cannot label them as simply pro- or anti-state, and nor can we assume the superiority of feminisms that openly criticize the CCP.

For example, during the Olympics, we saw a lot of social media posts celebrating the achievements of Chinese female athletes. Even though female athletes have been winning more medals since China started competing, the sports fandom is still pretty patriarchal, and mainstream media often focuses more on male athletes. These social media discussions not only help boost the visibility of female athletes but also offer role models for young girls, encouraging them to be active and pursue fitness rather than aiming for unrealistic body ideals.

However, this “happy feminism” shouldn’t overshadow the need for feminist critiques of deeper structural issues, and it definitely shouldn’t be co-opted by state propaganda. While some critiques might struggle to get through on mainstream platforms because of censorship, we can look for alternative platforms that offer more freedom, even if that means losing some media visibility. Most importantly, even if the state or the neoliberal market seems to promote a certain type of feminism, feminists mustn’t let this biased form become the only version that’s seen as legitimate.

The post A New Shade of Chinese Feminism appeared first on China Media Project.