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The Strategies of China's Storytelling in the New

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The Strategies of China's Storytelling in the New THE STRATEGIES OF CHINA’S STORYTELLING IN THE NEW ERA How has the Chinese propaganda department propagated stories in and outside of China through its new-type mainstream media since the 18th Party Congress in 2012? An analysis of online video clips JULIA VOERMANS Master Thesis East Asian Studies Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Dr. S.R. Landsberger 15-12-2018 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 3 2. China’s international power debate .......................................................................................... 6 Perception, prejudice or paranoia: Sinophobia discourse .................................................................. 6 China’s ‘soft use of power’ .................................................................................................................. 8 The Beijing Consensus ....................................................................................................................... 11 3. China’s propaganda system .................................................................................................... 13 Propaganda, xuanchuan .................................................................................................................... 13 The CCP’s propaganda system .......................................................................................................... 14 Two Sessions 2018: what changed and why? ................................................................................... 16 New forms of media use and content ............................................................................................... 17 China’s international image .............................................................................................................. 19 4. Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 23 5. Case studies: audio-visual analysis of propaganda video clips .................................................. 26 5.1 Foreign audiences ....................................................................................................................... 26 5.1.1 Shisanwu ............................................................................................................................... 26 5.1.2 The Belt & Road is How ........................................................................................................ 28 5.1.3 Belt and Road Bedtime Stories ............................................................................................. 29 5.2 Chinese audiences ....................................................................................................................... 30 5.2.1 Xi Jinping describes a perspective of win-win cooperation for Asia-Pacific cooperation .... 30 5.2.2 Let’s go Belt and Road .......................................................................................................... 31 5.2.3 The world, what’s going on? ................................................................................................ 33 5.3 Chinese and foreign audiences ................................................................................................... 34 5.3.1 How leaders are made ......................................................................................................... 34 5.3.2 One Belt One Road: prosperous together ............................................................................ 35 6. Discussion .............................................................................................................................. 37 6.1 The Chinese Dream and Rejuvenation Narrative ........................................................................ 37 6.2 The Belt and Road Initiative ........................................................................................................ 39 6.3 Inclusivity and diversity ............................................................................................................... 40 6.4 Xi Jinping as a popular idol .......................................................................................................... 41 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 44 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 46 1 Appendix ................................................................................................................................... 56 Table 1: General information about the video clips.......................................................................... 56 Table 2: Main topics retrieved from the shot protocols ................................................................... 57 Shot protocol 1 .................................................................................................................................. 58 Figure shot protocol 1.2 ................................................................................................................ 65 Shot Protocol 2 .................................................................................................................................. 66 Shot Protocol 3 .................................................................................................................................. 70 Episode 1: What’s the Belt and Road Initiative? ........................................................................... 70 Episode 2: The Belt and Road belongs to the world ..................................................................... 72 Episode 3: The Belt and Road Initiative and Globalization ........................................................... 74 Episode 4: Who can join the Belt and Road Initiative? ................................................................. 75 Episode 5: Who will finance the Belt and Road Initiative?............................................................ 76 Shot Protocol 4 .................................................................................................................................. 79 Figure shot protocol 4.1 ................................................................................................................ 84 Shot protocol 5 .................................................................................................................................. 85 Shot protocol 6 .................................................................................................................................. 92 Shot protocol 7 .................................................................................................................................. 99 Shot protocol 8 ................................................................................................................................ 105 2 Introduction Since the 18th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China (CCP) in 2012, the CCP has improved its ‘modernised type of propaganda’1, by using new visual means to shape the mainstream political culture in China.2 This period, which is still going on, can be referred to as the ‘New Era’, or ‘Xi Era’, in which China’s president Xi Jinping and his propaganda team appear to have understood that they had to adapt to new audiences and new market trends.3 An example of this is the new media-management strategy that was launched on August 18, 2014, in which traditional media, such as printed media, and new media, such as the Internet were integrated.4 Xi said this would create a new-type mainstream media (xinxing zhuliu meiti 新型主流媒体) that is ‘powerful, influential and credible’.5 Recently, state- owned media companies have put this into practice and have started using new visual means, such as animated cartoons, online promotional video clips6, Graphics Interchange Formats (GIFs) exclusive to WeChat7, music videos and even online mobile games.8 Especially online promotional clips, animated video clips and music videos are extensively used by the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department (CPD; 中共中央宣传部 [The Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee]). These videos have received great attention online, for example on the blog WhatsonWeibo and the current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific, the Diplomat. 9 However, academic work on this topic is scarce and further examination on it is needed. The CPD’s shift to communication via online services is recent and still developing, which makes it interesting to examine these new media products and place it within related academic debates. 1 Landsberger, 2009, p.331 2 Chang & Ren, 2018, p.1 3 Ma & Thomas, 2018, ‘In Xi We Trust: How Propaganda Might Be Working in the New Era’ 4 Ng, 2014, ‘Xi Jinping calls for new style of media organisation’ 5 Brady, 2015, p.55. Original source: People’s Daily, 2014, ‘Xi Jinping: Constructing a Socialist Cultural Great Power and Improving Cultural Soft Power’ 6 Chang & Ren, 2018, pp.9-12 7 WeChat is a multi-purpose chatting, social media and payment app of the greatest content provider in China, Tencent. It was used by more than 1 billion people worldwide in 2018. Statista, 2018, ‘Number of monthly active WeChat users from 2nd quarter 2011 to 2nd quarter 2018 (in millions)’ 8 Koetse, 2017, ‘China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection’s New Online Campaign: “Anti-
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