Pakistan China News: According to an official US study, China has established a network of worldwide activities to influence media narratives and seek major control over the Pakistani media. China has made an effort to enlist other close partners to fight unfavourable narratives in addition to cooperating closely with Russia in the media sphere, according to a report released here last week by the State Department. Pakistan stands out among them, it claimed.
China-Pakistan Collaboration
Report said, “With Pakistan, Beijing has sought to deepen cooperation on ‘combating disinformation’, including under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Media Forum.” Beijing and Islamabad have started projects like the “CPEC Rapid Response Information Network” and, most recently, promised to start the China-Pakistan Media Corridor (CPMC) to combat what they see as propaganda and “malicious disinformation” through the Media Forum, it claimed.
Beijing’s Bold Bid for Media Control in Pakistan
The State Department reported that as part of the China-Pakistan Media Corridor in 2021, China tried to negotiate extensive control over Pakistani media, including the establishment of a jointly run “nerve centre” to monitor and influence Pakistan’s information environment. The proposal’s scope and the fact that the mechanisms it described seemed to disproportionately benefit Beijing are noteworthy as an explicit example of Beijing’s ambition to assume direct control over a close partner’s domestic information environment, it said. However, it does not appear that Islamabad has given the proposal much thought.
China and Pakistan’s Ambitious Plan to Monitor Media and Information
According to China’s initial concept paper, the governments of China and Pakistan should construct a “nerve centre” to monitor Pakistan’s information environment by integrating input from media organisations, PRC firms, think tanks, opinion leaders, CPEC research centres, and even local Confucius Institutes.
China-Pakistan Media Plan’s Three Mechanisms and Two Platforms
“The proposed nerve centre would have relied on “three mechanisms” and “two platforms” to carry out this mission. The mechanisms would have provided means to convert important reports into Urdu products to sway popular opinion; provide PRC Embassy reports directly to Pakistan’s official press release system; and monitor and respond to public criticism about the PRC,” said the State Department.
Unveiling Plans for ‘Dispelling Rumours’ and Promoting Biased Narratives
It stated that the two platforms under consideration asked for the development of a combined PRC-Pakistan authority system for “dispelling rumours” and a news feed application to market authorised news to the local market. The State Department claimed in its report that China invests enormous sums of money each year in efforts to sway foreign public opinion. Beijing promotes favourable perceptions of China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by using inaccurate or biassed material.
Shaping Narratives and Suppressing Critical Information
At the same time, it claimed that China conceals important information that runs counter to its preferred narratives on topics like Taiwan, its human rights violations, the South China Sea, its domestic economy, and its participation in international trade. More generally, it said that China aims to develop and preserve a worldwide incentive system that motivates other governments, elites, media, and civil society to embrace its favoured narratives and refrain from condemning its actions.
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