Public Diplomacy Through Social Media: the Chinese Way

The Information and Communication Technology revolution has transformed the very nature of contemporary public diplomacy (PD), which M. Holmes defines as “the use of digital information communication technologies, such as the internet, to achieve diplomatic objectives.” While PD does carry the “label of diplomacy,” Efe Sevin argues that in reality it is an “intentional tool of foreign policy to achieve certain objectives.”¹

In recent times, social media platforms have become important tools for PD with more than 200 Ministry of Foreign Affairs and foreign ministers active on Twitter. The targets of PD have also undergone some fundamental changes. The target of influence and manipulation is no longer the foreign audience alone but now includes the domestic public as well. A “Returning Power” like China² – eager to rebrand itself through PD – regards social media tools like Twitter (now known as X), YouTube, and Weibo, along with the others, to be highly effective in this respect.

Having blocked Western social media platforms like Twitter, Google, Facebook (FB), and WhatsApp, China employs homegrown alternatives in its PD. Local networks like Sina Weibo, the most popular online platform in China that functions similar to Twitter, Baidu, a Chinese parallel to Google, WeChat, an app similar to WhatsApp, and Renren, a net equivalent to FB, are aggressively and extensively deployed to connect with the domestic audience. However, despite the preference for its homegrown platforms, a fascinating dimension of China’s social media landscape is the state’s willingness to embrace Western platforms like Twitter and YouTube wherever and whenever necessary, for reaching out to the digitized global community.

In addition to adopting Western social media platforms in an agenda-specific fashion, Beijing also consciously employs China-owned TV channels like the CGTN (formerly known as the CCTV-News and CCTV-9) with an eye toward influencing and manipulating the foreign English-speaking audience. Based in Washington, the CGTN is not only a 24/7 English language station, but is also active on Twitter with the purpose of shaping perceptions in the Western world and beyond. Although CGTN’s audience in the U.S. is still minimal, it is considered important for promoting China’s brand abroad. There are other similar Chinese news channels available on Western social media platforms like the Global Times and the China Daily, as well. These “glocal” (global and local) platforms provide the state an opportunity to get noticed and be heard – making international and domestic engagement imperative and on its own terms. The Chinese leadership skillfully controls and frames contents for communicating state narratives to the targeted audience, aligned to its “national security.”

The reach of digital technologies and its power to influence, monitor and manipulate global perceptions, has been significant in shaping China’s PD while helping to construct international and domestic public opinion (PO) on major global issues. This article examines Beijing’s contemporary PD employing both foreign and local social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube on the one hand, and Weibo on the other. It analyzes occasions when the Chinese state has preferred one platform over the other and attempts to identify the circumstances that influence the choice.

Twitter (now X)

Officially plugged into the virtual community since 1994, China’s new media landscape is unique in its attempt to alter the social and political fabric of the country and for transforming its conduct of PD. China’s general rejection of many widely used Western platforms, including FB and WhatsApp, for domestic use has been a part of its overall media strategy based on the conviction that the Western media has been unfair to China. Unfairness is characterized by playing up its weaknesses, exaggerating its potential as a regional threat, and ignoring its achievements. However, China’s embrace of Twitter for connecting with the international online public demonstrates a realist streak, for example during the COVID-19 pandemic. To present an alternate perspective and favorable stories on China to the outside world, Chinese diplomats used Twitter – which has been banned in China since 2009 – to communicate with foreign audiences without hesitation. The outbreak of the Coronavirus was an occasion when Beijing was heavily engaged in Twitter-driven PD, largely forced by the fact that the pandemic was proving heavily damaging to its global reputation and hurting its brand. Encountering sharp global criticism over claims that it intentionally misled the world by covering up the true extent of the damage caused by the virus first detected in Wuhan, China decided to use Twitter to rebut foreign criticism. Data from the official Twitter accounts of various Chinese embassies and spokespeople revealed that official Chinese Twitter activity had gone into overdrive during the pandemic and continued thereafter, indicating China’s desire to influence and shape the narrative on the virus via the platform.³

How exactly did China go about shaping the broader narrative in its support? Domestically, a major state priority emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Airwaves and chatrooms were inundated with government-friendly “positive” content, and at the same time stricter internet controls regarding sensitive issues were instituted.

Given that China’s PD system operates under the principle of democratic centralism, implying state control, its international communication has been distinct and conforms to propaganda tactics. Since Xi Jinping’s assumption of office in 2012, China has witnessed a rise in media policing while its control over its cyberspace has increased significantly. During the pandemic, Beijing’s assertive dominance of cyberspace, including online propaganda, was highly conspicuous. A seven-month investigation by the Associated Press and the Oxford Internet Institute revealed that China’s “rise on Twitter has been powered by an army of fake accounts” used “for amplifying propaganda that can reach hundreds of millions of people – often without disclosing the fact that the content is government-sponsored.”⁴

As part of its wider digital diplomacy strategy, senior Chinese diplomats were urged to amplify and spin messages regarding the origins of COVID-19⁵  with Twitter playing a major role. The platform was embraced as an effective “crisis messaging tool”⁶ for pushing out swift rebuttals targeting the global audience in real time. An assertive external information campaign was launched, including wolf warrior diplomacy,⁷ to not only influence global perceptions for deflecting blame from Beijing’s own failings, but also for highlighting missteps of other governments, which would thus portray China as both the model and partner of first resort for other countries. The campaign focused on promoting and amplifying positive narratives about the Communist Party of China (CCP) while suppressing information unfavorable to it.⁸

It is important to note though that the social media ecology makes its total control by the CCP almost impossible. Notwithstanding the tight internet control that China exercises, the “ephemeral, anonymous, and networked nature of internet communication”⁹ has also given rise to an active civil society which has resisted internet control and aggressively used local online platforms for expressing public discontent, opinions, and alternate views criticizing the government and its anti-COVID policies.¹⁰ Even the official press erupted in outrage over the government’s mishandling of the virus during the early days of the pandemic, a revealing indication of how fragile the Party’s control over information had become. This gives a sense of a disconcerted leadership uncomfortable with the online criticism resorting to employing the internet police to threaten the public posting about its failure to handle the pandemic.¹¹ The domestic frustration over COVID -19 – pervading social media at the same time when China was using Twitter to project a more positive account of managing the pandemic – underscores a dimension of frailty of social media that in certain situations might make digital tools risky alternatives for achieving specific strategic goals.

‘Glocal’ Platforms for Promoting a ‘Benign’ Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

China’s efforts to control information flow stems from authoritarian tendencies¹² that are connected to its history outside of contemporary ideology. In fact, the ban of the Western online platforms in China can also be viewed from a great power status perspective.

The First Opium War (1839 – 42) not only denied China its historical great power status, but also eroded China’s confidence and self-respect throughout an ensuing century of foreign humiliation. This directly contributed to the development of “post-imperial ideology”¹³ and had long-lasting implications for diplomatic strategy. Contemporary power politics and the polymedia landscape has further altered its internal and external communication approach. The reality of a hostile world order uncomfortable with China’s “rise” has been compelling enough to push Beijing to try to improve its global image while simultaneously attempting to shape a favorable domestic and international PO.

Beijing’s use of “glocal” platforms like Twitter and YouTube on the one hand, and Weibo on the other, for promoting its flagship BRI or the One Belt One Road (OBOR), is a classic example of a leadership trying to impress its “non-threatening character” upon the “glocal” public. In response to the international community growing increasingly wary of the geostrategic implications of the mega project, initially launched in 2013 to strengthen infrastructure, trade, and investment links between China and other parts of the world, Beijing eventually recast it as an ideological initiative to promote shifting the balance of geopolitical power in China’s favor.¹⁴ Emphasizing the project’s resolve to pursue “a better cross-cultural dialogue, broad shared interest,” and a “deeper understanding of different localities in a world map of civilizations,” the BRI was picked up as a key effort of China’s PD. Indeed, communicating right with the purpose of conveying China’s benign intent behind the BRI for influencing global PO has evolved as a critical goal for the leadership for implementing the new Silk Road. An example of the considerable effort to sustain this image in the South Asian region is the Chinese Ambassador’s highly visible activity in Maldives on both social and traditional media platforms to counter debt-trap diplomacy allegations.¹⁵ Similar tendencies are visible in Nepal as well, where digital outreach has helped Beijing counter negative reactions regarding its growing economic and military clout in the country.

The Chinese leadership has also used hashtags for creating collective conversations¹⁶ about the BRI’s controversial international perception. Beijing launched its first online Friends of #BRI forum in February 2021 for sharing knowledge, experience, opportunities and understanding of the OBOR to develop lasting collaborations with partners. It has also been pushing Belt and Road Bedtime Stories – a series of films produced by China Daily targeting overseas children through its YouTube channel, a platform inaccessible in China but accessible outside the mainland. This is yet another example underscoring the state’s flexibility and willingness to embrace domestically proscribed Western platforms like YouTube (blocked in China since 2009) for the purpose of demonstrating its arguably “benign” intentions to the global community.

Notwithstanding the Beijing leadership’s attempts to reboot the BRI, China’s overt influence operations to generate support for such projects have unsettled many. This is specifically visible in countries like Kazakhstan where Beijing’s PD seems to have “succeeded in shoring up the support of Kazakhstan’s political elites,” but “has fallen short of its aspirations to strengthen ties with the average Kazakh.”¹⁷ Responding to anti-China online campaigns by domestic nationalist groups over the project, Kazakh authorities set up an information ministry to control the spread of such disinformation, particularly those related to Beijing. This was partly motivated by the rapid increase in China’s investments in Kazakhstan’s key strategic sectors, which now exceed those of Russia.

BRI-focused PD targets both the foreign and domestic audiences alike. Beijing has been mindful of engaging its domestic constituencies, including the youth on the subject as well, showing how critical the domestic audience is in shaping Chinese diplomacy and foreign policy-making. A promotion video titled Belt and Road is How on official Chinese social media channels demonstrates the leadership’s equal focus on the local audience on the issue.¹⁸ In fact, the wide sharing of the We Make it Happen promo on Weibo specifically targeted the Chinese youth. The People’s Daily deployed another video, The Belt and Road-We Make it Happen, to communicate China’s international efforts to the local viewers. This is in line with Robert D. Putnam’s explanation that foreign policy decision-making is influenced by a two-level interaction between diplomacy and domestic policy, which functionally pushes leaderships, at least occasionally, to communicate with the domestic public on foreign policy and PD matters.

While employing local online platforms is deemed critical for shaping and building domestic support for the government’s policies, they are also useful for communicating strength and confidence abroad. The latter holds traction for connecting with the Chinese youth as well. In fact, the splash created on social media around the CCP’s centenary celebration in 2021 targeted both. While conveying strength to the foreign audience, it was also an attempt to reconnect with domestic youth – many of whom favor an aggressive foreign policy on certain foreign policy matters.¹⁹ The #China Communist Party Founding 100 Anniversary not only appeared over 11.7 billion times on Weibo but also on other platforms such as WeChat and Baidu, all of which revised their websites to mark the Party’s centenary. As foreign embassies in China embraced local platforms like Weibo to connect and communicate with the local online public, several hashtags were also used to push China’s powerful brand abroad.

Digital Tools and Winter Olympics 2022

Beijing’s major PD goals include national identity building and promotion, and it actively engages in these through vigorous employment of tech platforms. The CCP centenary celebrations were designed and orchestrated online in part for whipping up emotions of the Chinese youth, many of whom prefer not to be aligned with the “red gene.” The government’s priority has thus been to promote a China brand that all can relate to and take pride in. The Winter Olympics organized in 2022 was one of the many occasions in recent history manifesting “glocal” promotion of the China brand. Such megasport events provide contemporary states the opportunity to showcase their abilities and promote their brands at home and abroad.

The Winter Games was aggressively marketed using digital media to communicate China’s benign and confident image both domestically and internationally. On Twitter, the state media outlets, journalists, as well as diplomats, tried to promote the image of the Games, raving about venues and glorifying the Olympic mascot. The state media, including China Daily, even claimed that the mascot, Bing Dwen Dwen, a giant panda wearing a suit of ice, had not only dominated all discussions on Weibo but was enormously popular with the foreign public as well. However, these assertions ran into credibility problems when The New York Times and ProPublica identified more than 3,000 inauthentic-looking Twitter accounts that appeared to be coordinating to promote the Olympics by sharing state media posts with identical comments amplifying official Chinese voices.²⁰

On the Outcomes

The Chinese leadership has been mindful of the information and communication revolution which has placed the public at the center of diplomatic efforts. With online platforms making the “glocal” audience equal partners and participants in diplomacy, Beijing has demonstrated its efforts to adopt social media platforms for increased communication and diplomacy. However, given its political system, its efforts to change how it is perceived by others through online platforms ring of propaganda. In fact, such assertiveness when communicated through the use of new tools and technology indicates a synergy of censorship and propaganda to manage unfavorable opinions on China.

China’s digitalization process has been amplifying the state’s capacity to monitor others and has also been formidable in manipulating and controlling narratives that fit their national agendas. Utilizing such PD and political communication, Chinese state behavior has muddied the “glocal” perception of China, despite the promise that new technology would strengthen and perpetuate democracy. Beijing has not hesitated to exploit online search engines to disseminate state-backed media information that amplifies the CCP’s agenda in pursuit of influencing and manipulating audiences around the world. Fake accounts, fake stories, and vigorous promotion of “wolf warriors” have complicated the online media landscape and led tech giants like Twitter to increase their scrutiny of the Chinese media. The dominant perception of China remains that of a “surveillance state” trying to reassert its dominance “glocally,” while manipulating the social media tools for influence-building and control of the domestic and foreign POs.