The international version of WeChat is less tightly controlled, but it is difficult for news organisations considered hostile by the party to set up public accounts on it to push their articles to users
China’s main spending on propaganda abroad has been on the foreign-language news services of its state-controlled media. In recent years it has lavished billions of dollars on building a global television network aimed at rivalling the, as well as on the overseas expansion of its newspapers. But it has also been working hard to boost its influence among media abroad that are not under the Communist Party’s direct command. Those that use the Chinese language are among its main targets.
The party was helped by dramatic changes within the global newspaper industry as a result of the spread of the internet and falling revenue from print advertising. Many cash-strapped Chinese-language outlets were delighted by offers of paid content from Chinese state media with which they could fill their pages.
China has also used heavier-handed methods. Journalists and editors who have family members in mainland China are sometimes warned either directly or through their relatives to write copy that pleases the party. Businesses are pressed not to place advertisements in Chinese-language outlets that criticise China. News organisations that try to remain independent struggle to recruit journalists because potential candidates fear retribution, says the founder of one such outlet.
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