WASHINGTON - In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, China sought to block news of the rapidly spreading virus, . But in the months that followed, as the pandemic ravaged families and economies worldwide, Beijing sought to reset its public image through foreign media, research published Wednesday by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) shows.
A survey of 54 journalist unions in 50 countries found a rise in the number of countries reporting a visible Chinese presence in their media, from 64% to 76% in a year. In countries where China has offered support and training to local media, a higher percentage said coverage of Beijing was more favorable, .
"The coronavirus story over the past 12 months has been successfully used by China to create a more positive image of China, in a number of countries," Jeremy Dear, the IFJ's deputy general secretary, told VOA.
Survey respondents were asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 coverage of China since the start of the pandemic, with 1 being the most negative and 10 being the most positive. The survey found that the continent whose China coverage saw the greatest positive change was Europe, scoring 6.3, while North America's saw the most negative change, scoring 3.5.
Beijing's influence was viewed most positively in Africa, where half of those surveyed described it as beneficial, and all reported China as a visible presence in their media.
Dear said China is "putting a lot more effort and resources into trying to shape the media narrative," including pressure from ambassadors and diplomats, offers of media training or more lucrative employment contracts, and free content to news outlets under economic hardship. A drop in advertising revenue during the pandemic further added to .
At the same time, Beijing sought to limit foreign media inside China, denying visas to journalists or expelling them. The measures came in response to the U.S. imposing visa caps on the staff of five Chinese-run outlets, including the , and the U.K. media regulator Ofcom (Office of Communications) removing China Global Television Network (CGTN), saying the license holder did not have . Ofcom regulates TV, radio and video-on-demand sectors
Despite these "sometimes contradictory attempts by China to influence global media," Dear said, "all of them have their purpose, trying to support a growing economic and political power of China and … (telling) one story, very centrally directed."
China's foreign ministry has defended its media outreach . Hua Chunying, the foreign ministry spokesperson, said that as the world's second-largest economy and biggest developing country, "of course we should have, and we deserve, a place in the international media landscape."
"The U.S. has launched a disinformation attack on China under the pretext of media freedom," Hua said, adding that China never targets other countries.
Hua noted that the U.S. "authorizes $300 million to be appropriated for each fiscal year to 'counter the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party globally'." Hua was referencing the proposed , a Senate bill "to address issues involving the People's Republic of China."
Media analysts, however, have pointed to differences between state-run media such as CGTN and media funded by governments but editorially independent, such as the U.K.'s BBC and Germany's Deutsche Welle. VOA and its sister networks, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), are funded by the U.S. Congress, but an editorial firewall protects them from political interference.
All countries to some extent "try to use soft power, of which media very often is, in order to improve their political and economic position in the world," Dear said. "That is what China is doing, and it's a reflection of its growing economic and political power."
The pandemic gave Beijing an opportunity "to promote the socialist system and the leadership of the Communist Party as superior to the Western system of democracy, universal values and freedom," Dan Garrett, a former intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, told VOA. "You definitely have an aspect of the current information campaign from Beijing that is oriented towards discrediting Western media as biased, as racist, as anti-China."
In all but three of the countries included in the IFJ research, China donated pandemic aid, medical supplies and personal protective equipment. The IFJ report found that often the supplies described in local media as donations by Beijing had been purchased from China by governments.
In Serbia, the government has aligned itself with China since Beijing supported it during the and the NATO bombing of Serbian positions in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo.