Paper final presentado el en marco del Seminario Awakening China? Deconstructing Chinese Foreign Policy dictado por Federico Verly.

Esports Diplomacy in China.

Furrer, Micaela.

Cita: Furrer, Micaela (2020). Esports Diplomacy in China. Paper final presentado el en marco del Seminario Awakening China? Deconstructing Chinese Foreign Policy dictado por Federico Verly.

Dirección estable: https://www.aacademica.org/micaela.furrer/2

Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons. Para ver una copia de esta licencia, visite https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.es.

Acta Académica es un proyecto académico sin fines de lucro enmarcado en la iniciativa de acceso abierto. Acta Académica fue creado para facilitar a investigadores de todo el mundo el compartir su producción académica. Para crear un perfil gratuitamente o acceder a otros trabajos visite: https://www.aacademica.org. Micaela Furrer

Chinese Esports Diplomacy

Introduction The position of China in the world has undoubtedly shifted over the years. Today, talking about China means talking about a giant: the most populated country in the world and the second largest economy, a rival to the US, a key agent in international relations, and home to some of the best eSports teams in the world. The growth of Chinese economy in the last years has been so impressive that it is often referred to as the “Chinese Miracle” in foreign media. However, these changes in its economy and in its international role have also meant the need for China to transform its foreign policy approach.

Under Xi Jinping’s leadership since 2012, this transformation was christened ‘major country diplomacy’, which was aimed at re-claiming China’s title as a “great power” and achieving the “Chinese Dream” (Kang, 2017:122) described by Xi as “the Chinese people’s recognition and pursuit of values, the building of China into a well-off society in an all-round way and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” (Xinhua 2014). In turn, this has also led to further development of the country’s public diplomacy and its instruments.

Much like Chinese economy, the industry of competitive gaming, also known as eSports, has seen an exponential growth in the global market as of the last years. Coincidentally, one of the top consumers and developers of this industry is China: according to Niko Partners, a specialized website on research and analysis of the video games markets and consumers in Asia, there are approximately 720 million gamers in China today. There is evidence that suggests the connections between this industry and the Asian giant can be viewed through the lens of international relations and foreign policy, beyond the sphere of economy and business. In a more specific way, we will be assessing its role in Chinese public diplomacy.

Theoretical frameworks To begin with, we will first look into the theoretical frameworks that have been developed and will be taken into account for this analysis regarding Chinese approach to public diplomacy.

The definition of public diplomacy, as we will see, fluctuates constantly and it is deeply related to each country’s approach in specific. The general consensus is that it differs from traditional diplomacy in that it is aimed at non-governmental publics. Ingrid d’Hooghe suggests two ways of understanding the concept of public diplomacy; the first one refers to a traditional model, in which the state—often the foreign ministry— is the one that monitors the interactions between domestic and international policy environments, while people are seen as targets and instruments of foreign policy, and the effort is on targeting them more effectively. Meanwhile, the second one refers to a ‘new’ public diplomacy model that involves a wide variety of actors and promotes dialog and collaboration (d’Hooghe, 2015:18). According to Jan Melissen this means that, aside from the state, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other non-state actors are are involved in creating

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public diplomacy messages that will be considered more legitimate and credible than those developed by state actors, and will therefore more easily appeal to a broad audience (Melissen, 2015:5). d’Hooghe also adds that, in practice, most countries’ public diplomacy can be considered a combination of state-centered and network-based public diplomacy, a hybrid model in which state actors initiate public diplomacy actions but also later cooperate with non-state actors. These actions seek to achieve support for a policy or to promote an image, as well as to develop dialogs and build relationships in order to enhance understanding and co-create solutions to transnational problems (d’Hooghe, 2015:21).

Public diplomacy is also closely related to Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power, which is defined as the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payment, (Nye, 2004:X) or as Nye later elaborated, the ability to affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes (Nye, 2011:13). According to the author, public diplomacy is a tool that may wield or generate soft power, by linking soft power resources to preferred outcomes (Nye, 2011:100-109). Such resources include culture, values, legitimate policies, a positive domestic model, successful economy and a capable military, some of which can also be a source of hard power, as is the case of a strong economy and a capable military when used to impose sanctions or force. As noted by d’Hooghe, having hard power resources, can also help countries in wielding their soft power (d’Hooghe, 2015:24): we will later see how Chinese vast economic resources have helped the country develop public diplomacy instruments.

In order to analyse how eSports can be understood in relation to China’s public diplomacy we will also take into account d’Hooghe’s categorization of the public diplomacy instruments. First, we will look into the media, which consists of traditional media—news- papers, journals, television and radio—and social or new media such as the internet (websites, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook) and mobile phone technologies. Secondly, events, which can be small-scale and large- scale cultural and sporting events, like the Olympic Games and World Expositions. Thirdly, strategic communication projects, using a combination of tools including media, publications, seminars and branding activities. Fourthly, people and institutions: exchanges (student exchanges and visitor programs), network meetings (academic networks and epistemic communities), twinning relations and city- or provincial-level exchanges, as well as cultural exchanges and tourist). Finally, publications or promotional materials, such as books, brochures and video clips (d’Hooghe, 2015:38). In this way, we will see how a resource like a prominent place in competitive gaming has been promoted through different instruments, and helped Chinese public image abroad.

Chinese Esports

Government involvement Before analysing Chinese eSports in the media, we need to take into account that many of the instruments mentioned above are state-controlled by the Chinese Government. Therefore,

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promotion of local teams and players through these means suggests that the government itself, in this case, considers that esports are not harmful in any way or even beneficial to the country’s image abroad. Moreover, other official initiatives also support this argument, those related to the policies that affect the industry in China, government funding and the legal status of the sport.

The works of Boris Pun, Yiyi Yin, and Anthony Fung (2019), Esports Gamers in China; and Zhouxiang Lu (2017), From E-Heroin to E-Sports: The Development of Competitive Gaming in China both provide a detailed account of the historical development of competitive gaming in the country. Both suggest that the Chinese Government position towards this sport has been contradictory and changing throughout the years. Today Chinese gamers are known to excel mostly at PC multiplayer games, like the world-famous League of Legends and mobile games, like King of Glory, but they don’t consume as much console games. The reasons behind this lies, partly, on the fact that foreign consoles were simply unaffordable for the average Chinese when they first entered the country, and that instead many preferred pirated hardware and software; but also, on the restrictions put forth by the government ever since the 2000s due to the belief that these devices had negative effects on the mental and physical development of children.

As a consequence, the PC games became more popular, and several internet cafes, or wangba (网 吧) opened in cities around the country. According to Lu (2017:8) these places were “regarded as the fruit of modernization and industrialization and therefore were welcomed by the government.” They also gave birth not only in China but also in South Korea to a generation of highly skilled players of Starcraft and other games in the 90s that would later compete in local and international tournaments. Lu (2017:11) also suggests that “based on the example of South Korea, where the competitive gaming industry was officially backed by the government to facilitate the development of the IT industry and boost the economy, the Chinese Government showed a supportive stance towards e-sports.” An example of this mentioned by the author is the 2003 documentary about the WCG (World Cyber Games), broadcasted by China Central Television (CCTV). In it, they focused on the achievements of Chinese players at the tournament and introducing esports to the general public. The Sports Ministry, later listed esports as one of the 99 officially recognized sports.

Boris Pun, Yiyi Yin, and Anthony Fung (2019:186), also make mention of this active involvement of the Chinese Government in promoting competitive gaming: “(…) the Chinese government has begun to reconsider and even redefine gaming as an important cultural industry with economic potential, as evidenced in 2011 by the ‘12th Five- Year Plan for the Development of National Economy and Society,’ which names the cultural industries—including film, animation, comics and video games—as the most important sphere for further development.” Today, the government has shown a lot of interest in promoting, professionalizing and properly regulating esports. They have provided subsidies for local gaming tournaments, and have recently announced that the roles of “esports professionals” and “esports operators” would be officially recognized as official job titles in the country. The government often works with domestic tech giants like Tencent to fund the construction of new venues. In fact, this company has a lot of weight in the industry, since it

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currently owns Riot Games, the maker of League of Legends, and Penguin Esports - the livestream platform - as well as investments in Epic Games, Activision Blizzard, Supercell, Ubisoft and many others. Lastly, in order to professionalize, produce specialized teams and players, as well as game analysts and coaches, China has also added eSports-related majors to the roster at a number of national colleges.

Media Promotion of esports in the media is now more visible than ever due to the massive audience the different games have. International esports tournaments getting exposure in the media, means that the Chinese teams and players that participate in them are noticed worldwide. This exposure is the main reason why China is known as one of the countries with the best professional players in the world. Korean and Chinese teams are highly respected in the esports scene, and many players in training look at their performances to learn from them.

On the one hand, domestic media targeted at foreign audiences like the China Daily, the Global Times, Xinhua News, CCTV and CGTN publish news on their international sites about China’s achievements at different eSport world tournaments. Recently, they have mostly covered the League of Legends 2020 World Championship that is currently taking place in Shanghai. However, nowadays, in addition to its own media, China’s public diplomacy makes more and more use of international media (d’Hooghe, 2005:96). When dealing with eSports the audience that watches the matches and trainings is, overall, younger people, and therefore, although what today is known as traditional “mainstream” media usually covers news related to this scene, most of the consumers will likely be found in the new media: social networks and streaming and video websites. As Chinese social media is not accessible (due to region restrictions and language barriers) to the foreign audience, many teams and players also stream their games in platforms like Twitch, or Youtube, and upload highlights to Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, and Facebook. According to Business Insider1, more than 1000 million people watched the 2019 League of Legends World Championship, which FunPlus Phoenix, a Chinese team ended up taking the first place, USD 834,375 in prize money and a massive trophy. The fourth place was also taken by another Chinese team, Invictus Gaming.

This is only one example, of one game (the most popular in terms of viewership at the moment) in particular. Chinese professional players of many different disciplines have achieved massive recognition through their exposure in the media. These young celebrities are interviewed for local and foreign newspapers and sites, which makes them even more known worldwide. For Chinese, even those who do not play or watch eSports, they are regarded as their national pride, just like athletes of other sports.

1 https://www.businessinsider.com/league-of-legends-world-championship-100-million-viewers-2019- 12#:~:text=More%20than%20100%20million%20people,as%20the%20most%20popular%20esport&text=The%20 %22League%20of%20Legends%22%20World,final%20round%20on%20November%2010.

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Events The small local gaming competitions once organized by internet cafes now have grown enough to require entire stadiums to hold its audience. Much like the Olympic Games, international and regional tournaments require infrastructure and involve a great amount of people (athletes and fans) entering and leaving the country. China has hosted several of these events and pushes to host more in the future. Today, for example, we are only a few days away from the League of Legends World finals that will take place at the Pudong Football Stadium in Shanghai. Although the capacity of this stadium is of over 33.000 people, due to COVID-19 restrictions the Shanghai government alongside the company of the game, Riot Games have decided to allow only a limited amount of live audience this year. Originally, the whole tournament was meant to take place in different cities around China, but the circumstances have made it necessary to stick to one place: the Shanghai Media Tech Studio, where all the matches up to the semi-finals were held without a live audience. China has also hosted a number of eSports events in the past: the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) Grand Final took place in 2019 at the Chongqing Olympic Sports Center, the game Dota 2, held its 2019 International Championships in Shanghai at the Mercedes-Benz Arena, the 2017 LoL World Championship series also took place in different cities around china.

These events both generate a lot of income through tourism and serve to promote the country’s image and fame abroad. People that travel to watch the tournaments will have a chance to experience the country’s culture and see the kind of modernization Chinese cities have gone through. The government alongside domestic companies like Tencent and Alibaba are currently putting a lot of effort into building advanced facilities dedicated exclusively to hold these events. An example of this is the inauguration of the first esports town in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, which required USD 280 millions of investment and covers more than 365,000 square meters. Chinese media, People's Daily2, announced that Hangzhou's esports town would be the first of 14 planned venues in the city.

People and institutions We have briefly mentioned the importance of professional players to China. Much like renowned football players, some young players are becoming role models and idols to the international esports community, and some of them are even considered the “Messi” of their disciplines. The industry has already generated its own “Messi’s”, like Korean player Faker, who has undisputedly become one of the most famous League of Legends players in history. But China also has world- known players like UZI (Jian Zi-Hao’s) and highly competitive teams such as Top Esports and Invictus Gaming.

2 https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514f3251544d31457a6333566d54/index.html

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These young players are a source of national pride because they have taken China to the top ranks in several eSports. Since they become personalities, many news outlets and companies interview3 them regularly and sponsors (tech, sports, energy drink companies among others) use their faces in publicities. The games also widely promote them as representatives and historical figures of the tournaments. The massive popularity of Chinese professionals has also made foreign teams more interested in recruiting these players.

However, the country also has a major involvement in international esports organizations, sending representatives to the Asian Electronic Sports Federation, the International Electronic Sports Federation, and the World Esports Consortium. These organizations have the objective of overall promoting, and improving electronic sports globally and developing regulations, as well as fighting for the recognition of eSports as official sports.

Publications or promotional materials Many videogame companies also include China in their promotional materials. As we mentioned, professional players become icons that represent the game; they are included or referred to in promotional videos every year, especially those pertaining to international championships. China’s cities, their stadiums and all of the infrastructures dedicated to the tournaments, as well as urban aspects that are characteristic are often mentioned or shown in these videos.

However, it is also important to note that cultural references are even included into the games themselves. For example, in the game League of Legends we can find one character named Xin Zhao, that is based on a Chinese general (there are speculations to the exact reference, some believe it could refer to a famous Three Kingdoms Era general), and a character named Wukong4, a clear reference to The Monkey King, Sun Wukong, from the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West (西遊記/西游记). The game Overwatch also has a character named Mei-Ling Zhou, originate from Xi'an, China.

Conclusions As we have seen the rapidly growing industry of competitive gaming has posed an opportunity for China to build his image as the number one esports hub, slowly taking this title from South Korea. Openly supporting eSports, promoting and financing them, as well as developing an entire infrastructure dedicated to them portrays the image of an innovative, highly technological and developed country, and also a country that understands new trends supported by a younger population. It also shows the massive economic power it holds today, which helps attract foreign investment to the country. The massive sporting events move millions of dollars but also many

3 In most cases when they are interviewed, they communicate in Chinese and are later translated into English for the foreign public.

4 Dota 2 and several other games also have a character that pays tribute to this character.

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fans from all over the world, they promote tourism and spread awareness about China and its cosmopolitan cities. Esports have also allowed Chinese companies to negotiate with other visa regulations that complicated the entry of Chinese players in foreign countries where tournaments were held. As we can see, electronic sports now have a very important place in China, they are a source of national pride, and largely make up for the lacks of Chinese teams and athletes in other traditional sports. However, as d’Hooghe (2005:102) suggests, Chinese public diplomacy has its limitations;

“no matter how well China is doing in transforming its traditional diplomacy and developing public diplomacy, sometimes things still go utterly wrong. This is when China gets into the old Communist cramp of maintaining full control of society and concealing unfavourable information from the public, thus not only hampering the growth of China’s soft power but also damaging cautious international impressions that China is moving towards a more open society,”.

This is precisely what took place after the 2019 HearthStone Grandmasters tournament, in which Hong Kong player “Blitzchung” (Ng Wai Chung), was banned and disqualified after wearing a mask and yelling “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!” during an interview that was being streamed by Blizzard (the company of the game). This response was immediately perceived by the public as a kind of Chinese censorship, due to the relations of Blizzard Entertainment with Chinese company Tencent. Although representatives denied this having to do with China, the incident most definitely had unfavourable repercussions on China’s public image. This is perhaps one of the main intrinsic problems of Chinese public diplomacy because, as d’Hooghe suggested, it is an unresolved contradiction. Regardless, it will be interesting to see the direction in which China will move regarding eSports, and if it will be able to hold its title as number one much longer in such a rapidly growing industry. There still remains to see the consequences that loss of prestige in this field can have in terms of Chinese financial involvement in the industry, which as we have seen, cannot be understated.

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