Formally introduced into the CCP lexicon at the 19th National Congress in October 2017, this verbose phrase is meant to be the distillation and assertion of Xi Jinping’s legacy and position as the Party’s top leader – what is often in Chinese called the leader’s “banner term,” or qizhiyu (旗帜语). The inclusion of the phrase in the amended CCP Charter at the congress marked Xi’s rise to a level of personal power not seen since his predecessors Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong, bo...| China Media Project
A historical look at the internal system of not-so-secret codes by which those in positions of power in China can make their views known through the official media system.| China Media Project
China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s principal civilian intelligence and counterintelligence agency, has found a fresh-faced recruit for its public messaging campaign: Agent 012339, an AI-generated anchor who appears in full MSS uniform to deliver cautionary tales about national security threats. The youthful digital spokesman, complete with badge number prominently displayed, is the agency’s effort to shift from faceless bureaucratic warnings to personable, social media-re...| China Media Project
China's Ministry of State Security deploys an AI anchor in full uniform to deliver national security warnings on social media. The post Agent 012339 Reports for Duty appeared first on China Media Project.| China Media Project
Continuing its push to portray Xi's "Four Great Global Initiatives" as a boon for a multipolar world, the CCP's flagship newspaper features a headline mention of the quartet by an African parliamentarian. The post Foreign Voices for Xi’s Global Vision appeared first on China Media Project.| China Media Project
With a crucial party plenum next week and the UN's 80th anniversary approaching, a Qiushi article positions Xi's four global initiatives as China's blueprint for reordering the world. The post Xi Jinping’s Global Quartet appeared first on China Media Project.| China Media Project
A forum held at a leading university in Beijing over the weekend shows how China's leadership keeps tight control over journalism — from the classroom to the newsroom. The post Molding the Message appeared first on China Media Project.| China Media Project
Eight days, eight articles, eight assurances that China's economy is thriving and everything is fine. When did confidence require this much convincing?| China Media Project
China’s foreign diplomacy often seems to rest on the ironclad premise that the world can never have enough of the country’s soft and cuddly pandas. For Sichuan, which the Giant Panda calls home, the fuzzy creature is at the heart of its latest media diplomacy push — in Portuguese.| China Media Project
A test of the Chinese tech giant’s trending language model reveals that in some cases, English-language answers are more guided by the leadership's priorities than Chinese ones. The post Alibaba’s AI Bias Problem appeared first on China Media Project.| China Media Project
China's latest internet special actions, a campaign against "negative emotions," lifts the lid on the country's obsessive and capricious control culture. The post The Malice Police appeared first on China Media Project.| China Media Project
FT Chinese editor-in-chief Wang Feng discusses how his newsroom integrates AI tools while maintaining journalistic standards, revealing the added value of humans — and why traditional journalistic skills remain essential.| China Media Project
In the late 1990s, the media landscape in China was overtaken by a wave of commercialization and marketization as the Chinese government sought new ways to support otherwise expensive newspaper and broadcasting operations — and to encourage a “media industry” (an entirely new concept at the time) that was more suited to the country’s rapidly developing economy. One after another, media companies launched market-oriented reforms. And while media groups, most linked to provincial and ci...| China Media Project
Veteran journalist Li Sipan reflects on feminism's struggle within China's liberal media, the rise and suppression of Women Awakening Network, and journalism's transformation under tightening censorship. The post China’s Liberal Press and its Feminism Gap appeared first on China Media Project.| China Media Project
While China invites criticism for AI values that prioritize political controls, it's hard to deny that Chinese-made chatbots outperform on suicide prevention safeguards.| China Media Project
“Positive energy” has been an important phrase in the Xi Jinping era to refer to information controls and official messaging, both domestically and internationally. The term generally refers to the need for uplifting messages as opposed to critical or negative ones – and particularly the need for content that puts the Party and government in a positive light. Although the term began appearing in various contexts in 2012, it was given a much larger profile at the Central Forum on Arts an...| China Media Project
While the word "mainstream" generally refers in a global context to ideas or attitudes that are regarded as normal or conventional in a given society, the word “mainstream,” or zhuliu (主流), refers in the PRC context not just to generally accepted views but to the consensus political view as determined by the CCP and by Party-state media. Forming the mainstream is a key objective for the leadership.| China Media Project
With the help of AI, CCP propaganda is becoming more targeted, accessible, and quickly made than ever before. We found one state-backed AI website and took it for a test drive.| China Media Project
This term conveys the idea that China’s push for global dominance in generative artificial intelligence (AI) can be served by a diverse universe of competing foundation models — applications trained on broad data that can be fine-tuned for downstream tasks. For some, the reference to a hundred models is reminiscent of mythologized campaigns of China’s revolutionary and political past, such as the “Hundred Regiments Offensive” of the 1940s. This approach has been enthusiastically pro...| China Media Project
The safety test content for an AI-powered children's toy shows political safety figures heavily in even the most everyday applications of Chinese AI.| China Media Project
Earlier this month, residents of Jiangyou, a city in the mountains of China’s Sichuan province, were met with violence from local police as they massed to protest the inadequate official response to an unspeakable act of violence — a brutal case of teenage bullying filmed and posted online. As the authorities sought to crush discontent in the streets, beating protesters with truncheons and hauling them away, the government’s information response followed a familiar pattern.| China Media Project
Media outlets worldwide reported that China's official People's Daily newspaper slammed the chipmaker. But there are important complications to this oversimplified take.| China Media Project
Despite evidence China’s ideas about “AI safety” are converging with international ones, it remains fundamentally unsafe by the standards of freer societies.| China Media Project
After a company boss destroyed a journalist's camera earlier this month, state media rushed to the defense, sounding off about the "right to report." This moral signaling distracts from the systemic violence against journalism that is the real policy of the state.| China Media Project
Are Chinese media exaggerating the elevated state of the country's AI technology? A senior scientist says yes—and warns that hype is blinding China to looming challenges.| China Media Project
The country's leadership has launched another round of anti-corruption campaigning. But its use of classic cases, personal shaming and action posing is a reminder that it is more interested in political theater and loyalty tests than in real institutional reform.| China Media Project
A Gen Z content moderator working for a major Chinese internet platform reveals the moral contradictions of deleting sensitive political content while struggling to make ends meet. "We're just tools," he says in this candid interview from independent media outlet Mang Mang. Translation of this interview was done by CMP in cooperation with ChinaFile and China Digital Times.| China Media Project
A new regional media network for South Asia and Southeast Asia created by the government's China Daily and the provincial propaganda apparatus in Yunnan offers another glimpse into how Xi Jinping is seeking to remake the CCP's global communication.| China Media Project
China responded with fury and indignation to a report alleging that it has invested billions to build a “global information ecosystem” to spread propaganda and disinformation. A media analysis of the country’s response, which paints the US as an “empire of lies,” only substantiates the report’s main thesis.| China Media Project
Chinese developers are using mock civil service exams and Communist Party ideology to train artificial intelligence – and that could shape how these models talk to the world.| China Media Project
A sketch during this year’s Spring Festival Gala on China Central Television attacked "self-media," showing how social posts distort the truth. But the state-run network’s portrayal of independent content creators as purely harmful is itself an exaggeration and oversimplification.| China Media Project
Through on-the-ground reporting, the WeChat-based outlet Positive Connections offers rare insight into the cyber scam compounds along the Thailand-Myanmar border — questioning prevailing Chinese public opinion that scapegoats Southeast Asian countries.| China Media Project
A forum in Bangkok this month underscored China’s ambition to work with local partners in Southeast Asia to impact public opinion there. A closer look at one of the propaganda vehicles meant to accomplish this goal suggests carelessness reigns down below such high-level exchanges.| China Media Project
China and Russia are making inroads into African media, where their success often hinges on pre-existing anti-Western sentiments. How do they navigate local contexts to shape narratives across the continent?| China Media Project
This term, which remains a crucial phrase in the CCP’s vocabulary on press and information control in China today – in an era of rapidly developing digital communications – first appeared in official Party criticisms of former Party secretary Zhao Ziyang (赵紫阳) following the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing on June 4, 1989. The essential idea behind the term is that media control is essential to preserving regime stability, based on the leadership’s unde...| China Media Project
The choice to use either CCP or CPC for China's ruling Communist Party has become politically charged, but how did this distinction arise — and does it even matter?| China Media Project
The killing last week of a Japanese schoolboy in south China is the latest in a pattern of anti-Japanese hate — but the hard lessons of the tragedy are lost on the country’s media.| China Media Project
This criminal charge, as provided in Article 293 of the PRC Criminal Code, has historical roots in the notorious Mao-era crime of 'hooliganism' (流氓罪). It is now broadly and arbitrarily applied in China to suppress speech and behaviors perceived by the authorities as threats to the political and social order. Since Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012, this charge has been applied expansively. It is not limited to targeting rights defense actions like petitioning and organized protests;...| China Media Project
An important phrase used actively by the Chinese Communist Party since 2022 and leading through to Xi Jinping’s unprecedented third term, “era-ization” serves to reinforce Xi’s power by defining him as a crucial modernizer of Marxism for the current era.| China Media Project
In Xi’s “New Era” signs now point to the untimely end of the Weibo Era. Is it possible any longer to build a platform strategy around recognized public intellectuals?| China Media Project
At a recent event for China-Indonesia media cooperation, part of China’s larger push for influence in Southeast Asia, “responsibility” was on the agenda — emphasizing for participants that the role of journalism is to promote good feeling and a smooth bilateral relationship.| China Media Project
AI hallucinations are impossible to eradicate — but a recent, embarrassing malfunction from one of China’s biggest tech firms shows how they can be much more damaging there than in other countries.| China Media Project
US vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, a former Cantonese learner who was popular with his Chinese students, is affectionate toward China — but he is no "dove" on human rights, Hong Kong, and Tibet issues.| China Media Project
Tours organized for foreign journalists in China by propaganda officials and organizations like the All-China Journalists Association may be deployed with slightly more subtlety than those for domestic "news workers." But the goal is the same — to guide coverage in ways favorable to the leadership.| China Media Project
It was a terrible answer to a naive question. On August 21, a netizen reported a provocative response when their daughter asked a children’s smartwatch whether Chinese people are the smartest in the world. | China Media Project
Chinese AI is moving at a fast pace, but it’s important not to give in to hype about exactly what the technology can do — a point state media are now making themselves.| China Media Project
Chinese media coverage of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's recent visit to China has been characterized by a blend of criticism and optimism, strategic framing, and an emphasis on historical ties.| China Media Project
In a fitting illustration last week of the Chinese leadership’s unrelenting efforts to manipulate collective memory, an online essay with a shocking revelation about the wholesale disappearance of Chinese internet content spanning the 2000s was deleted by content monitors. But the post, quickly archived and shared, reverberated in platforms beyond PRC-managed cyberspace.| China Media Project
Outside China, the idea of “media convergence,” the joining together of communication technologies on handheld devices, is now so much a way of life that few even talk about it. But for China’s leadership it means something more — with far-reaching consequences for the exercise of power.| China Media Project
Exchanges this week between Guyanese media and a provincial-level communication center in Shandong offer a glimpse of China’s broad push for influence abroad. The secret: convince journalists in the Global South that using Western media sources on China means unfair bias.| China Media Project
As the Wall Street Journal fires the head of Hong Kong’s biggest press union, sources tell us this is only the tip of the iceberg — across the board, international media are pressuring their Hong Kong employees to keep away from the group, or risk losing their jobs.| China Media Project
CCTV, or CGTN, is often called the BBC of China. But just how much do these publicly broadcasters differ, and what do those differences tell us?| China Media Project
In a post to China’s popular WeChat platform last week, one writer bemoaned the shocking loss of nearly a full decade of information from the early days of the country’s domestic internet. Within hours the writer's reflections had vanished too.| China Media Project
China’s leadership is actively pushing culture throughout the country’s vast rural hinterland, including through hundreds of thousands of "rural bookrooms." But the overriding goal is to push the Party’s continued dominance at China’s grassroots — to the detriment of real cultural development.| China Media Project
During political meetings in Beijing earlier this month, China made a show of its openness to foreign journalists. A closer look at its efforts to cultivate invited guests, particularly from the Global South, suggests what the government really wants is to have less experienced China reporters who arrive as tabula rasa — ready to be imprinted with the government’s message.| China Media Project
With a US Senate debate on TikTok and its national security implications on the horizon, some media have asked what signs there are that the app's parent company, ByteDance, is under the thumb of China's leadership. An abject politically-laden apology six years ago by the company's CEO cuts right through the questions.| China Media Project
The latest collaboration between the Discovery Channel and state-run media in China has been accused of whitewashing genocide in Xinjiang. Why is this American network so keen to “tell China’s story well?”| China Media Project
Four years after the national security law upended Hong Kong's media landscape, journalists in the city have reached a new equilibrium to move forward — but with more security legislation on the horizon, that could all be about to change again.| China Media Project
Originally meant as a platform for dialogue, the “Understanding China” international conference has become a mere stage for China’s ruling party. It stands as yet another example of how the notion of dialogue has become twisted by China's media statecraft in the Xi era — and how cities and provinces are now being roped into the business of external propaganda.| China Media Project
Beijing says it has created "a new form of human civilization" for other countries to emulate, built around Xi Jinping's theories. But what exactly is China talking about when it talks about civilization, and what will it mean for the world to be Xivilized?| China Media Project
When the Meloni government announced in July that Italy intended to exit Xi Jinping's signature trade and infrastructure program, Chinese state media made their voices heard. But Italy's formal step to withdraw last week has met with uncharacteristic quiet.| China Media Project
In The Currency of Truth, anthropologist Emily Chua draws on long-term fieldwork among newspaper journalists in Guangzhou and Beijing to argue that contemporary news articles should be thought of less as truth-claims written for a public and more as a currency that industry players use to create agreements, build connections, and protect and advance their positions against one another.| China Media Project
Internet control authorities in China routinely portray "online rumors" as a threat to public well-being. But the real concern, which has nothing to do with factualness or accuracy, is that they might be harmful to the Party's well-being — a fact that inflates the value of rumors, including truly false information.| China Media Project
This term, first emerging under Mao Zedong in the 1950s, is frequently used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to pay tribute to foreigners seen as having been amiable to China, and beneficial to the interests of the Party.| China Media Project
The latest targets in China’s ongoing — and seemingly never-ending — internet rectification campaign include content that “incites class antagonism.” How did a Communist Party that lived and breathed class struggle for decades get to this point?| China Media Project
The latest outpost for China’s nascent International Communication Centers has been unveiled in Lanzhou New Area, a satellite city on the edge of the Gobi that has been dismissed as a ghost town. What does this tell us about China’s external propaganda efforts directed westward to Belt and Road partners?| China Media Project
Since former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang passed away last week, his legacy has been quietly boxed up and filed away. The current leadership under Xi Jinping hopes that the nation can move quickly past his pragmatism and the questions it raises about the present.| China Media Project
Four and a half decades after Deng Xiaoping called for Marxism to adapt to China's "material conditions," Xi has added that it must also match "China's outstanding traditional culture." But the "Two Combines," as this formula has been christened, is aimed squarely at legitimizing and justifying his own uncontested power.| China Media Project
The phrase "telling China's story well" ((讲好中国故事)), introduced by Xi Jinping within the first year of his administration, in August 2013, encapsulates the notion that Party-state media and even quasi-private actors must work internationally to strengthen and innovate external propaganda, thereby enhancing China's "international discourse power" (国际话语权) as a key aspect of its "comprehensive national power" (综合国力).| China Media Project
With the addition of a grandiose new buzzword in China for culture and civilization, it may seem that a towering future is on the horizon. We take a hard look at the foundations of "Xi Jinping Thought on Culture."| China Media Project
The phrase “community of common destiny for mankind,” or renlei mingyun gongtongti (人类命运共同体), is central to the notion of “Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy” (习近平外交思想), the phrase encompassing Chinese foreign policy in the so-called “New Era.” While the term seems to appeal to a set of shared values and goals as the core of international relations – and resembles, for example, ideas at the heart of the formation of the European Union – it is important...| China Media Project
The "core socialist values" suddenly appearing on a wall in London might have sounded familiar to locals. But the line drawn by China's leadership is clear: "universal values" are Western and "core socialist values" are Chinese — and never the twain shall meet.| China Media Project
