Freedom House Report: “Beijing’s Global Media Influence 2022, Authoritarian Expansion and the Power of Democratic Resilience”

Free­dom House has issued a report titled “Bei­jing’s Glob­al Media Influ­ence 2022, Author­i­tar­i­an Expan­sion and the Pow­er of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Resilience,” argu­ing that the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment, under the lead­er­ship of Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping, is “accel­er­at­ing a mas­sive cam­paign to influ­ence media out­lets and news con­sumers around the world.  The report begins:

The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment, under the lead­er­ship of Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping, is accel­er­at­ing a mas­sive cam­paign to influ­ence media out­lets and news con­sumers around the world. While some aspects of this effort use the tools of tra­di­tion­al pub­lic diplo­ma­cy, many oth­ers are covert, coer­cive, and poten­tial­ly cor­rupt. A grow­ing num­ber of coun­tries have demon­strat­ed con­sid­er­able resis­tance in recent years, but Beijing’s tac­tics are simul­ta­ne­ous­ly becom­ing more sophis­ti­cat­ed, more aggres­sive, and hard­er to detect. The regime’s invest­ment has already achieved some results, estab­lish­ing new routes through which Chi­nese state media con­tent can reach vast audi­ences, incen­tiviz­ing self-cen­sor­ship on top­ics dis­fa­vored by the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty (CCP), and co-opt­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials and media own­ers in some coun­tries to assist in spread­ing pro­pa­gan­da nar­ra­tives or sup­press­ing crit­i­cal cov­er­age. Beijing’s actions also have long-term impli­ca­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it gains lever­age over key por­tions of the infor­ma­tion infra­struc­ture in many set­tings. The pos­si­ble future impact of these devel­op­ments should not be under­es­ti­mat­ed. More­over, the expe­ri­ence of coun­tries includ­ing Tai­wan, the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom, and Aus­tralia point toward a recent turn to more aggres­sive, con­fronta­tion­al, or sur­rep­ti­tious tac­tics as milder influ­ence efforts fail to achieve the desired results.

The key find­ings of the report are:

• The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment has expand­ed its glob­al media footprint.
• The Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty (CCP) and its prox­ies are using more sophis­ti­cat­ed and coer­cive tac­tics to shape media nar­ra­tives and sup­press crit­i­cal reporting.
• The suc­cess of Bei­jing’s efforts is often cur­tailed by inde­pen­dent media, civ­il soci­ety activ­i­ty, and local laws pro­tect­ing press freedom.
• Inad­e­quate gov­ern­ment respons­es leave coun­tries vul­ner­a­ble or exac­er­bate the problem.
• Democ­ra­cies’ abil­i­ty to counter CCP media influ­ence is alarm­ing­ly uneven.
• Long-term demo­c­ra­t­ic resilience will require a coor­di­nat­ed response.

Read the rest here.