On this episode of China Uncensored,
you know, they say, “money can’t buy you love.”
Which is why love should be forcibly seized by the state
and redistributed to the masses.
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored,
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
You know, the Chinese Communist Party
is a lot like a not very good dad.
Works long hours,
never comes home for dinner,
doesn't provide a social safety net,
beats up human rights defenders,
you know, the usual.
The thing about a dad like that,
is he tries to make up for never being there
by buying you cool stuff,
when all you really wanted
was for him to go to your little league game!
Just one game!
Yes...that’s...just what the Communist Party is like,
which is what I am talking about.
The Chinese Communist Party—
the CCP—wants you to love it.
The problem is, t
hey've done some...unloveable stuff.
But they figured out a way around that.
If they can’t get you to love the the Party,
they can get you to love China.
And what’s not to love!
A rich cultural legacy of 5,000 years of history,
give or take the last couple of decades.
Yeah, those last couple of decades
did leave kind of a mark.
Now, they say any publicity is good publicity,
but whoever “they” are,
I don't think they had
the Tiananmen Square Massacre in mind.
It was a PR nightmare!
So the Communist Party needed a way
to change China's image.
And the answer was soft power.
Soft power is the kind of cultural influence
that makes people like you
and want to be like you.
Like the popular kids at school.
But after the Tiananmen Square massacre,
no one wanted to sit next to China
at the lunch table.
Except for like, North Korea,
who was deeply uncool.
So, like in every teen movie,
China got a makeover.
A little less tanks,
and a little more...
whatever these are supposed to be.
So ignore that cyber espionage
and rapid military build up.
Here are five ways China
is trying to buy your love.
Number 5
Chinese National Day.
October 1st.
It’s kind of like Chinese Independence Day.
Except instead of celebrating liberation
from a foreign colonial power,
it celebrates the day the Communist Party rebels
“liberated” China from...
the Chinese government that was already there.
The Communist Party took over the nation
and quickly launched campaigns
to take money from the wealthy,
kill landowners,
imprison intellectuals,
and generally ensure “harmonious society.”
Cause for celebration!
Seriously, the CCP actually exports its National Day celebrations
all over the world
as part of its soft power push.
For example, in Vancouver,
Chinese officials somehow convinced the mayor
and another official to wear red scarves—
because they thought it was part
of traditional Chinese culture.
Yes, the same red scarves that the Communist Youth League
wore when the CCP made them destroy
Chinese traditional culture in the 1960s.
You know it was successful propaganda
because Chinese state media featured it.
Number 4
Rather than sending an army to invade your country,
China is sending an army to invade your heart—
an army of pandas!
Just look at their cute ferocity.
People love pandas.
They work hard everyday
to bring you uncensored news and information
about China and, oh no wait I’m sorry,
that’s me.
I don’t really know what pandas do.
But everyone still loves them,
for some reason.
Yes, pandas are adorable!
And most importantly,
any government represented by a panda
must be equally cute and cuddly.
Who’s a cute panda bear?
You’re a cute panda bear.
Yes you are.
Yes you are!
Number 3
Somewhere on the cuddle spectrum
between panda bears and Xi Jinping,
there’s Confucius.
The guy from 500 BC
who arguably had a bigger influence on Chinese culture
than anyone in history.
Mao Zedong called him a peddler
of feudal superstition.
But eventually the Communist Party
realized Mao’s mistake,
and transformed Confucius
into a peddler of propaganda!
Since 2004,
the Chinese regime has set up 500 Confucius Institutes
in 140 countries,
plus 1,000 Confucius classrooms.
This is a very tempting offer to schools around the world
short on cash—
the Chinese Communist Party
provides free Mandarin language classes,
as well as cultural programs
like Chinese dance and cooking.
Not at the same time.
Or maybe at the same time.
The point is,
the Party’s former propaganda chief Li Changchun said
that the Confucius Institute is “an important part
of China's overseas propaganda set-up.”
Students will learn how great China’s
economic development is,
but they won’t be learning about,
oh I don’t know,
certain massacres that totally never happened.
Or a certain country that’s actually not a country at all
and just a normal province of China.
Ever wonder how to say “Tibet” in Chinese?
You might not want to ask.
Number 2
You say you want to be in pictures?
Well, don’t say anything critical about China,
or else you might end up like Richard Gere.
China is the world’s second largest movie market,
but only allows 34 foreign titles a year.
That means movies critical of China,
or even overly positive towards to the US government,
won’t be shown in China.
So the Chinese Communist Party incentivizes Hollywood
to self-censor—
or lose a huge chunk
of potential box office money.
On top of that,
Chinese tycoons with shady Party ties
are buying up Hollywood.
Chinese co-productions
are becoming increasingly common, too.
It won’t be long before we start seeing movies like
Little Big Xi or Jerry Mao-guire.
And finally Number 1
From schools to movies to even the zoos,
it seems Chinese propaganda is everywhere.
What’s left?
Why, the media of course!
While many media organizations around the world
have struggled to survive,
the Chinese government has been pumping
huge sums of money into expanding
state-run media to a global platform.
In just a few years,
Party mouthpiece Xinhua opened
nearly fifty new foreign bureaus,
and doubled its number of overseas correspondents.
A few years ago,
China Central Television set up
its US headquarters just a few blocks
from the White House.
And last December,
they rebranded their international propaganda outlets
as the friendlier-sounding, China Global Television Network
so we wouldn’t know.
Xi Jinping told them to
“spread China’s voice well...
and showcase China’s role
as a builder of world peace.”
But why just stick to their own media?
State-run China Daily also pays struggling Western media
like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times
to put their content in their papers and on their websites.
And eventually,
without most of us realizing it,
the Chinese regime’s limitless spending
has wormed its way into our hearts.
The public relations firm Portland Communications
surveys the public on their opinion
of 30 different countries.
China used to be dead last.
And now they’re, well...
at least they beat out the Czech Republic.
And Argentina.
And that is money well spent.
It seems money can buy you love.
Sorry John, Paul, George, and What's-His-Face.
But here’s the thing:
No matter how much the Chinese Communist Party
spends to make people love China,
and by extension,
hopefully the Chinese Communist Party—
it’s not going to work as well
as good old-fashioned freedom of expression.
Look at South Korea.
It has one twentieth the population of China.
But Korean Dramas and Korean Pop music
are wildly popular all over the world.
In 2014, at a leadership meeting in Beijing,
Chinese officials lamented how China
can’t seem to make television
as popular as Korean dramas.
Some of the officials blamed it on the CCP’s
“examination and approval system”—
i.e. censorship system—
that encourages conformity
rather than creativity.
But somehow, I don’t think
pouring billions of dollars into propaganda
is the solution to that problem.
So what do you think about China’s efforts
to buy your love?
Has it bought your love?
Leave your comments below.
And be sure to show your love to China Uncensored.
Hit that like and subscribe button.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again, I’m your host Chris Chappell.
See you next time.