Author: David Bandurski

Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).

China’s Italian Job

Il Guardiano del Patrimonio, “The Guardian of Heritage,” was the grandiose title of a television series promoting President Xi Jinping’s cultural philosophy as it was broadcast last month across more than 30 Italian media outlets — one of the more ambitious and expansive examples of how China enlists apparent cultural cooperation to advance its political narratives and foreign policy objectives.

The grand launch ceremony in Rome last month was attended by key Chinese officials including Shen Haixiong (慎海雄), deputy head of China’s Propaganda Department and president of CMG, and Chinese Ambassador to Italy Jia Guide (贾桂德). Top Italian attendees included Giuseppe Valditara, the minister of education and merit in Giorgia Meloni’s current administration, former Deputy Prime Minister and Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli, and Italian Football Federation President Gabriele Gravina.

The festivities were a sufficiently grand display of Chinese foreign policy that they earned a segment on the nightly official newscast on China Central Television, “Xinwen Lianbo” (新闻联播). The series, which began airing on Italian networks on June 26, was timed to commemorate the 55th anniversary of China-Italy diplomatic relations. Networks airing the production included Alma TV, Dona TV, Tourism TV, and Lazio TV, as well as the website of the Milan Financial Daily.

Under what specific arrangements did Italian media agree to broadcast this CMG-produced series? CMP has reached out to several, but has received no responses to date.

Produced entirely by China Media Group (中国中央广播电视总台), the state media conglomerate formed in 2018 through the merger of key media groups including China Central Television, the program showcases what it calls Xi’s “profound thinking” on cultural development and his “deep affection” for preserving cultural heritage. The series visits locations where Xi has worked or inspected, including the ancient capital city of Hangzhou in China’s eastern Zhejiang province, and Dunhuang in Gansu, an outpost on the edge of the once Silk Road that is home to a network of grottoes adorned with Buddhist statuary and frescoes.

Giuseppe Valditara, Italy’s minister for education and merit, called Chinese and Italian cultures “brilliant galaxies” as he promoted a clear propaganda film. SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons.

While the program, originally produced by CCTV in 2023, ostensibly focusses on China’s cultural legacies, it clearly promotes Xi Jinping as an inspirational political figure leading an inspirational political party into an era of greatness. In line with China’s most recent remodeling of political discourse since the last CCP congress in October 2022, the country’s ancient civilization is portrayed as the root of the ruling party’s power and legitimacy. Shen Haixiong (慎海雄), deputy head of China’s Propaganda Department and president of China Media Group, said at the launch in Rome that Xi’s “broad-minded embrace” stems from his “confidence and cherishing of cultural roots.”

Apparently swallowing the hook, Valditara responded — awkwardly, it must be said, for an EU education minister touting a production overseen by the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department — that Italian audiences were “eagerly anticipating opportunities to understand more deeply the profound foundation of Chinese culture and contemporary China’s vigorous development.” He described Chinese and Italian civilizations, according to coverage in China’s state media, as “brilliant galaxies that complement each other” (意中文明如璀璨星河,交相辉映).

The festivities in Rome, and the program airing across Italian television, are not really about culture at all. They are efforts to push state-led narratives of political legitimacy and civilizational grandeur through geopolitical posturing dressed up as cultural exchange. Officials in Europe and elsewhere should engage with China — but they should know the difference between culture and state-sponsored theater.

China’s Go-Local Vision for Global Messaging

Since he came to power in late 2012, one of Xi Jinping’s core objectives internationally has been to stage a revolution in perceptions of China abroad — notching up victories in what he characterized early in his first term as a global “public opinion struggle” (舆论斗争).

This project, centering on the concept of “telling China’s story well” (讲好中国的故事), responds to what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership perceives as a detrimental gap with the West of what it terms “discourse power” (话语权). Mainstreaming a hardline notion that emerged in the late 2000s, Xi has set out to resolve China’s historical “third affliction” (三挨) — the contemporary experience of international criticism following earlier periods of military defeat (挨打) and economic poverty (挨饿).

Xi’s vision of returning China — for that is how the Party conceives of history — to its rightful place in global public opinion has evolved beyond traditional national-level state-led messaging to an international communication strategy more actively involving Party-state coordination of voices across locales and administrative levels. It involves leveraging local and regional media and coordinating the production of local multimedia stories through “convergence media centers” (融合媒体中心). It also envisions the participation of businesses, educational institutions and all other aspects of society.

ShanghaiEye, the chief external brand of the Shanghai Media Group International Communication Center.

The transformation is happening across the country — with hugely mixed results. In some local areas, the proliferation of the “international communication centers” (国际传播中心), or ICCs, that coordinate much of this work seems a superficial, ineffective and potentially wasteful response to dictates from on high. There are even now international branches of local ICCs. These are more likely to become window-dressing for provincial leaders than substantive acts of global communication. Take, for example, Hainan province’s launch this month of a Middle East Liaison Center in the United Arab Emirates.

In more developed media cultures in cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, the shift could represent a more substantive evolution. It is perhaps too early to say. In Shanghai, for example, the government’s push to remold its “international communication matrix” (国际传播矩阵) — to use a term often favored by state communication planners — resulted in the creation in November 2023 of ShanghaiEye, a multimedia brand under the Shanghai Media Group’s “SMG International Communication Center,” that now claims 3.1 million followers on overseas social media.

ShanghaiEye’s YouTube channel, which currently has more than 400,000 subscribers, runs daily videos covering news and culture. Many of these deal with innocuous issues like tourism, food and culture, but many too echo broader state narratives, about the “real China” (versus the prejudicial Western one, a constant CCP theme); echoing Russian propaganda on Ukraine (and here); and selectively mirroring foreign affairs ministry talking points without any additional reporting or context.

Even as accounts the hundreds of accounts, like ShanghaiEye, operated by China’s growing network of international communication centers (ICCs) seek to expand their presence on social media channels that are formally closed to Chinese users back home, they cloak or make ambiguous their association with the country’s broader external propaganda goals. On Facebook, ShanghaiEye mentions no affiliation to the Shanghai CCP leadership. The Facebook account for the government-run China Daily (中国日报), by contrast, clearly labels it as “state-controlled media.” Over at YouTube, ShanghaiEye is simply identified as “a multi-platform media brand focusing on high-quality videos.”

Xi Jinping’s new multi-stakeholder approach to what the CCP terms “external propaganda” (外宣) is described by communication scholars in China as a systematic evolution from traditional propaganda to coordinated “narrative innovation” (叙事话语创新) across government, media, business, and social sectors. The ICCs play a key role in this coordination. But ultimately, the approach requires the concerted effort of all.

Xi Jinping’s New Era International Communication System

习近平新时代国际传播系统

Multi-stakeholder
Collaboration
多主体协同
Government
政府
Media
媒体
Enterprises
企业
Social Forces
社会力量
Hover for detailed role descriptions

In an article published online this month, drawing on the insights of several academics, Fudan University doctoral students Liao Xiang (廖翔) and Chen Jingwei (陈经伟) conclude that China’s international communication has moved toward what they term “multi-stakeholder collaborative cross-cultural communication” (跨文化传播的多主体协同). They define three key strategic shifts: 1) coordinated messaging across administrative levels to avoid the “fragmented” approach of previous eras; 2) precision-targeted regional strategies that align local advantages with national objectives; and 3) systematic integration of youth culture and digital platforms to reach “new generation audiences” globally.

The scholars cited in Liao and Chen’s article argue that this represents a fundamental departure from traditional state-led messaging — which in the past relied primarily on large news wires and broadcasters like Xinhua and CGTN — toward what they describe as a comprehensive ecosystem designed to overcome “cultural discounts” (文化折扣). The odd term is another way of referring to the reduced appeal and effectiveness of foreign content due to what the leadership has typically assumed are cultural barriers. Chinese communication scholars are inclined to think that these “discounts” have historically limited China’s ability to project appealing narratives internationally, always overlooking the detrimental role of CCP political control, which maintains a stranglehold on the very notion of culture.

This promotional video in which local ICCs congratulate Guangxi in September 2024 on its ICC formation gives a visual sense of the breadth of the effort.

For scholars like Liao and Chen, it has become second nature in the past few years to argue that the changes introduced to global communication by Xi Jinping are inspirational and ground-breaking. But the claims of success often have a revealingly circular quality, citing victories claimed in the manner of self-promotion as empirical evidence of progress.

One of the scholars cited by the Fudan doctoral students, Chen Zhi (陈智), suggests in his input that the YouTube account of Discover Changsha, an account operated by the Hunan provincial capital’s official ICC, “achieved outstanding results on overseas platforms” with Harry Potter-themed short videos about local culture. This sounds at first like an intriguing possibility. Are local “convergence media centers” responding smartly with international cultural references, and has this been impactful?

The truth is underwhelming. Chen’s example is just more of wishful self-magnification too often found among the country’s communication planners, and it underscores the yawning gap between lofty ambition within China’s airtight political culture and genuine efforts to understand and engage global audiences. In the three months since it was posted to YouTube, Discover Changsha’s Harry Potter-themed video on the dramatic art of face-changing (变脸) has drawn just 327 views. Oh, and zero comments.

Hainan Opens Middle East Media Center

Earlier this month, the southern island province of Hainan put its international communication efforts on the global map with the launch of its international media center (ICC). The move follows a trend pushed actively by China’s leadership since 2021 with the idea that local and regional state media and propaganda offices can help energize the country’s “discourse power” globally.

Inaugurated on June 19 at a formal ceremony at Dubai’s Expo China Pavilion, the Middle East Liaison Center (海南国际传播中心中东联络中心) of the Hainan International Media Center (HIMC) represents what Chinese officials described as a “key step” for Hainan’s free trade port in expanding its international media presence and “injecting innovative momentum” into China-Arab media cooperation (video HERE).

More than 50 guests attended the inauguration, including Chinese Deputy Consul General Xian Yi (鲜忆), Dubai Tourism’s Asia-Pacific Director Shahab Shayan, Hainan Broadcasting Group (海南广播电视总台) Deputy Director Wang Lei (王雷), and Dubai Radio Director Salama Suwadi.

Xian Yi called the center “another important milestone” in China-Arab relations that would serve as an “important bridge connecting China and Arab countries.” Dubai Tourism’s Shayan said the facility would become a “bridge for bilateral cultural dialogue, content co-creation and cultural exchanges.”

The language of bridge formation and cultural exchange is a common trope in China’s state led public diplomacy emphasizing that even professional activities such as media and the arts should serve the goals of bilateral harmony and “friendship.” Under this friendship formula, critical media practice has no place and is seen as undermining relations.

A reporter for China-Arab TV is given a privileged question opportunity at a press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2024. His softball question was a setup.

Nowhere was the intent and mechanics of “friendly” media relations more apparent than in the presence at the ceremony of China-Arab TV, an outlet that a previous CMP investigation has shown has extremely close ties to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

During the ceremony, Hainan Broadcasting Group (HBG), the provincial-level radio and television conglomerate that along with the Hainan International Media Center (HIMC) forms two of the province’s three primary external propaganda outlets, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Arab TV (中阿卫视). The partnership will focus on programming about Hainan’s free trade port “institutional innovation,” industry openness and trade facilitation, as well as cooperation between Hainan and the UAE.

Officials said the collaboration would target Arab audiences through “program exchanges, content co-creation and channel sharing” to increase understanding of Hainan’s free trade port development and add “new highlights” to China-Arab relations.

Though formally referred to as a “media center,” HIMC is Hainan province’s answer to Xi Jinping’s call for the nationwide creation of what are known as “international communication centers,” or ICCs. These centers have proliferated across China since 2018 as part of a broader program under Xi intended to modernize the Party-led global propaganda system. The initiative gained further momentum in the wake of Xi’s May 31, 2021 call at a Politburo study session to revolutionize Party-state communication with the goal of making China “credible, lovable and respected” (可信 | 可爱 | 可敬). At the Third Plenum in July last year, he again urged what state media described as “important deployments” to “construct a more effective international communication system” (构建更有效力的国际传播体系).

Is Xi’s Grip Holding?

Breaking in the headlines this week, the news that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, will not be attending the upcoming BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro has added fuel to speculation that changes are afoot at the top of China’s leadership. Naturally, as the clock counts down to the next congress of the Chinese Communist Party — we tipped over the halfway mark in April this year — questions of succession (or not) will only become increasingly salient.

Adding to this week’s speculation are reports that Xi Jinping has been less prominent in China’s state media. At the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief over the weekend, Willy Wo-Lap Lam (林和立), always a keen political observer, wrote that “citations of Xi’s name have become thinner and thinner in authoritative official media.” Are we witnessing cracks in the wall of commanding dominance of all things Xi? Is the country’s distant number two, Premier Li Qiang, edging up — or even, dare we say, closing the gap?

At risk of throwing a bucket of cold water on the flames of speculation, our analysis of official media coverage reveals no such decline in Xi’s prominence.

In order to test the top leader’s presence in the most central authoritative official media on this question, we studied Xi’s headline appearances on the front page of the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily (人民日报) for both the second quarter of 2024 and the second quarter of 2025. We included counts for other members of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) in order to determine whether, if indeed there was a decline in visibility, other PSC members were receiving increased attention.

The results, even with four days missing from our dataset for June 2025, suggests that Xi Jinping’s dominance remains largely intact. He appeared in headlines 177 times in the 2024 period versus 157 times this year — a modest decline that will likely be corrected by next Monday.

PSC Member Headlines Chart
PSC Member Headlines in the People’s Daily
April-June comparison: 2024 vs 2025 front-page headline appearances (2025 includes June 26)

Source: China Media Project analysis of People’s Daily front-page headlines

While these numbers cannot reflect on some of the more insider points Lam makes in his analysis, such as that Xi “failed to demonstrate strong leadership” during negotiations with the US in Geneva last month, they hardly suggest a power shift in the country’s most important paper, which the CCP relies upon chiefly to signal politics and policy.

More telling, however, is the fact that Premier Li Qiang (李强), Xi Jinping’s nearest competitor — though barely a spec on the horizon — shows virtually no change between this year and last. He appears 45 times in 2024 and 43 times in 2025. In all likelihood, Li will notch a few more appearances by Monday, making for a slight but statistically insignificant improvement.

All of this said, it is worth keeping a close eye on authoritative official media for any genuine shifts. In the coming months, we may see clearer indications of Xi’s trajectory — whether his power continues to consolidate, perhaps with the emergence of “Xi Jinping Thought” (习近平思想) as a shortened banner term, or whether others begin to edge toward the front.

But for now, at least in the headlines, China’s most powerful leader in generations looks just fine.

A Media Corruption Case in Shanghai

In the latest case underscoring the persistent challenge of media corruption in China’s tightly controlled information environment, local district authorities in Shanghai reported this week that they had dismantled a “news extortion” (新闻敲诈) operation using a WeChat public account to blackmail companies for exorbitant “service fees” in order to make negative exposure disappear.

The case, authorities said, involved the exploitation of “supervision by public opinion” (舆论监督) — a concept that has typically been used officially in China to refer to the media’s power to expose malfeasance through reporting, with the proviso that this work does not directly criticize the Party. In this case, authorities allege, the WeChat public account in question exploited critical reporting to press companies into what were labelled “market promotion contracts.”

A copy of a contract from Ding’s public account to an allegedly extorted client. The contract looks like an advertising and promotion arrangement, but authorities say it was used to extract profit in exchange for withholding negative exposure.

During the heyday of investigative reporting in China’s commercializing media in the early to mid 2000s, the phrase “supervision by public opinion” came to mean for some Chinese journalists something more akin to “watchdog journalism” in the West, with the idea of keeping power in check through reporting. Since 2012, Xi Jinping has moved to rein in these more professional and idealistic strains of “supervision,” emphasizing a more compliant and less oppositional approach in which “supervision by public opinion and positive propaganda are united” (舆论监督和正面宣传是统一的). Critical journalism has been radically restrained, even as the leadership has also stressed the need for internal supervision.

The Shanghai case follows patterns documented in previous alleged cases of news extortion across China.

On June 23, police in Qingpu announced the arrest of a suspect identified only as “Ding” (丁某), who operated a public account identified in official accounts as “X X Safety” (某某安全) — the name redacted, they said, for legal reasons. The account reportedly had 191,000 followers and daily views exceeding 8,000. After leaving his industry job in 2018, said an official release, Ding had leveraged his knowledge of the sector to establish the public account, which “initially focused on publishing industry-related company developments and analytical intelligence, accumulating a certain number of followers,” according to an official release.

Beginning in 2021, however, Ding was allegedly “no longer satisfied with objective reporting” (不再满足于客观报道), according to the police account. He deliberately sought “negative information” (负面信息) about target companies, then manipulated content, they said, through “clickbait headlines” (标题党), misattribution, and deceptive editing, colorfully referred to as “grafting flowers onto trees”( 移花接木). In one case this May, Ding published an article claiming a company had been shut down for illegal activities, then spliced in unrelated video footage from a separate criminal case in another province, creating false associations that damaged the company’s reputation.

Text messages exchanged between Ding and a company seem to show pressure to finalize “cooperation” on condition of dropping coverage.

As described by police, the alleged extortion scheme followed a clear pattern. Ding would first publish damaging content about a company. He would then approach the company offering to sign what he called a “market promotion contract,” which essentially came with a promise to cease coverage. These contracts generally were for between 20,000 and 100,000 yuan annually, or about 2,750 to 14,000 dollars. The fee structure was calibrated, said police, based on a company’s size and “tolerance capacity” (承受能力) — essentially referring to what Ding deemed companies would be able to pay.

Ding’s operation reportedly netted multiple companies, with one executive telling police he was forced to pay over 100,000 yuan annually to stop the attacks, only to face renewed pressure after the expiration of “market promotion” contracts.

This latest case in Shanghai reflects the broader phenomenon of news extortion that has plagued China’s commercialized media landscape since at least the mid-1990s. Despite periodic crackdowns and isolated cases like this one, the practice persists — in large part because it exploits fundamental vulnerabilities in China’s heavily controlled information ecosystem. In this environment, media can have extraordinary power through perceived connections to the state press system, turning this authority to profit, while the media control policies of the Chinese Communist Party normalize the practice of removing “negative” or “sensitive” reporting. At the same time, there are no independent professional associations to advance ethical conduct within the media.

The investigation in Shanghai continues, police say, and Ding likely faces criminal charges for extortion.

A Big Test for AI in China

Held over three grueling days every June, China’s high-stakes college entrance examinations rattle the nerves of students and parents across the country. Now, efforts by aspiring college students to harness artificial intelligence to ease the pressure and improve results are rattling the nerves of the authorities — perhaps an inevitable turn in the era of AI for a rite of passage with ancient roots.

Last Friday, three Chinese government agencies announced a coordinated crackdown on AI-generated misinformation and fraudulent schemes targeting the gaokao (高考), China’s make-or-break university entrance exam that every year determines the futures of more than 13.3 million students.

The enforcement action comes amid increasing signs, the authorities say, that AI tools have become central to how students prepare for the rite-of-passage exams, which were first introduced in 1952, three years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The exam was intended as a more meritocratic reincarnation of the centuries-old keju (科举), or imperial examination, that had qualified scholars in imperial China to serve in official bureaucratic roles — but was abolished in 1905 with the fall of the Qing dynasty.

Excerpt from the handscroll Viewing the Pass List, likely the work of a painter from the late Ming dynasty. SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons.

Over the past two years, as AI tools have become readily available and China has touted AI as an area of priority, including in education, AI has become integral to students’ test preparation strategies. Since 2023, Chinese students have increasingly turned to generative AI platforms to write practice essays. Users have also tested ChatGPT, DeepSeek and other models on actual exam prompts.

The tri-ministerial campaign targets several violations, including the use of artificial intelligence tools to fabricate exam leaks and generate fake answer keys. The campaign specifically mentions also the spread of disinformation designed to exploit desperate families — who are willing to pay sometimes exorbitant prices for any imagined advantage. Some social media accounts and private tutors have claimed in recent weeks to have access to “top secret” information sourced from teachers who help set the papers, according to Friday’s government announcement.

Authorities have reportedly been alarmed by a rising online market of so-called “AI-enhanced” mock exams. Sellers of these exams online have claimed they are able, using AI, to forecast up to 80 percent of the actual test questions that can be expected.

Experts have dismissed these AI-based claims as deceptive. “It’s not that AI or tutors are accurately predicting questions, but rather that the gaokao follows certain patterns,” said Chen Zhiwen (陈志文), a member of the National Education Examination Steering Committee, in an interview with Shandong’s commercial Qilu Evening News (齐鲁晚报). He described the AI-driven prediction trend as a “marketing gimmick.”

The involvement of three government agencies in the latest crackdown — the Ministry of Education, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Public Security — points to the sensitive social and political nature of the annual exams. Those creating and spreading online rumors (编造, 故意传播虚假信息罪), disrupting public order (寻衅滋事罪) or circulating false exam content will face severe legal penalties, the authorities warned.

The legal framework makes clear that exam-related AI fraud now carries the same weight as traditional crimes against social stability.

These latest regulations speak to the leadership’s deep ambivalence toward AI as both an immense promise and a looming complication. The government has moved to integrate AI closely with the education system down to the primary level, and some universities, including Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan, are already moving to emphasize AI over traditional subjects in the humanities. But there is anxiety at the same time that AI could discourage critical thinking among new generations of students — and clearly that AI could undermine the integrity of the annual examinations that are promoted as the chief measure of merit in Chinese society.

Invasion of the Robots

For the Chinese Communist Party, achieving the objective of external propaganda is sometimes about spreading the word about the glories of Xi Jinping Thought, or the supposed benefits of the Belt and Road Initiative — and sometimes it’s about sensational robot boxing matches.

Last Sunday, the China Media Group (中央廣播電視總台), the state-run media conglomerate directly under the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department, staged what it claimed was the world’s first humanoid robot boxing competition, featuring G1 robots from Hangzhou-based tech firm Unitree throwing punches and executing kicks in one-on-one matches broadcast live by China Central Television.

The spectacle, the latest in a series of sporting robot events put on by state media, was about more than raw entertainment. Why robots? Because robots embody futuristic appeal. They are more visual and more marketable than the latest AI model grinding out text or video. They naturally generate viral content that travels across social media platforms and news outlets without appearing like overbearing state propaganda. The objective is simple tech showmanship, advertising China’s supposed technological prowess in newly attractive ways, both to Chinese and to audiences overseas.

While the impact of such campaigns is difficult to measure, their viral nature pegs them as natural candidates for reposting. Across the internet this week — shared by personal social media accounts and bona fide news outlets like the BBC, NBC and Al-Jazeera — the spectacle of battling robots titillated global audiences.

Media everywhere took the bait, paving the way for yet more soft state propaganda featuring robots doing incredible deeds.

Taking the Bait in Taiwan

The pattern of spectacle was repeated in the case of Taiwan, with one important difference. Coverage across the Taiwan Strait of the robot antics on CCTV fed immediately into state media propaganda about Chinese economic and tech prowess — and the inevitability of unification. Never mind that Taiwan is home to the world’s most advanced chips behind a whole range of industries, including robotics.

Several pan-blue Taiwanese media outlets provided enthusiastic coverage of the CMG robot tournament. CTi News (中天新聞台), the social media account run by the often blatantly pro-China Want Want Holdings-backed China Times (中國時報), TVBS News (TVBS新聞台), ETtoday and other largely pan-blue outlets — leaning, in other words, toward the opposition KMT and its more supportive stance toward China — all reported enthusiastically on what they characterized as a breakthrough moment. “Human fighting is very common, but this might be the first time we have robots in the ring,” said an over-excited report from Da Ai Television (大愛電視), a network founded by a Buddhist charity organization in Taiwan, which added that the event was “expected to become an important milestone in smart robot applications.”

Chinese state media then amplified this Taiwanese coverage as evidence of cross-strait admiration — not just for China’s advertised technological prowess, but also for its “leaping development.”

CTi News, an online account for the Taiwan-based television network that lost its license in 2020, covers the CMG robot boxing event as news on May 26.

In a May 26 report by CMG’s “Look at the Taiwan Strait” (看台海) program, the broadcaster highlighted how “Taiwan compatriots see the rapid development of the mainland motherland” through CMG’s media technology innovations. The report quoted Chen Wencheng (陈文成), described as a Beijing University Taiwan teacher, as saying that many young Taiwanese “yearn for mainland technology and products.” They hoped, he said, that CMG could hold similar competitions “on Taiwan island” so that “compatriots on the island can directly experience innovative achievements in robotics industry development.”

Chen, who in the past has said that “mainland democracy is democracy that truly serves the people,” is affiliated with the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots, a state-sponsored organization currently led by Zheng Jianmin (郑建闽), who serves as deputy director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee of the CCP, which operates under Beijing’s United Front Work Department.

The Pursuit of “Cuteness”

CMG’s robots may be battling for supremacy in the ring, but the broader goal beyond the ring is to attain the “cuteness” (可爱) Xi Jinping referenced in a May 2021 collective study session of the CCP Politburo. In that address on international communication capacity building, Xi called for China to project a “credible, lovable, and respectable” image to the world — a mild corrective departure from the aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomatic style that had dominated Chinese foreign relations for several years to that point.

The timing was no coincidence. China’s international image had suffered significant damage amid rising tensions with Western nations over Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and the COVID-19 pandemic response. Xi’s call for “cuteness” represented a strategic pivot toward what Chinese officials describe as a more “humble and modest” approach to international engagement, while maintaining firm positions on core issues.

Culture and technology are regarded as key areas in which to engage foreign audiences. While China’s official messaging may at times, as necessary, be firm on key positions, those positions can often be better conveyed through soft content that achieves a sharp purpose.

As one Chinese government document on building China’s international image notes, the goal is to “construct multi-channel, three-dimensional international communication patterns” that showcase China’s technological achievements while demonstrating the superiority of its political system. Robot competitions serve this dual purpose perfectly — they appear apolitical while subtly reinforcing narratives about Chinese innovation and government effectiveness.

Taiwan’s elementary school team that won 2025 Robofest in the US. Not enough drama for you?

In an interesting contrast to the sensationalism of CMG, several other Taiwanese media, including the government-run Central News Agency and the pan-green Liberty Times, featured their own robot competition story this week. But the focus in this case was far more down to earth as they reported on elementary school students from Chiayi County’s Chailin Elementary School who won the world championship at the 2025 Robofest World Robotics Competition in Michigan.

No robot battles. Just inquisitive kids preparing their minds for the future, with battery packs, wheels and basic components.

Whatever the case in terms of China’s real preparedness and leadership when it comes to technology, the CMG propaganda formula appears set for expansion. The network plans additional robot competitions, including football and basketball tournaments. Robots are invading China’s media across the board, as evidenced in regular features like this one in yesterday’s Southern Metropolis Daily — an entire page, with a robot right at center, about investments by Chinese internet giants in embodied intelligence companies.

The enthusiastic coverage of CMG’s latest spectacle by global media outlets as well as pan-blue media in Taiwan suggests that this “cute” approach to sharp power could be effective in ways that are difficult to measure — particularly as related clips and memes fire across social media platforms.

A Taiwan Slip on Chinese Television

It was meant to be a stiff and routine recitation of the official news — just like every other newscast China Central Television anchor Hu Die had delivered in her 17-year career. But a simple slip of the tongue brought a landslide of repercussions for Hu, who joined the state broadcaster in 2008 after winning its prestigious host competition the year before.

The slip occurred on Tuesday this week during a CCTV-13 newscast on the “Focus On” (共同关注) program, which occupies a prime evening time slot, as Hu recited harshly-worded criticism from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s (賴清德) May 20 anniversary speech — which in fact avoided clear provocation and offered a measured view of “a Taiwan of the world.” TAO spokesperson Chen Binhua (陳斌華) had responded to Lai’s speech by stressing the leadership’s standard formulation that unification cannot be obstructed, regardless of the position of Taiwan’s government and people.

Relaying Beijing’s position that unification is inevitable, Hu Die said first that “the two countries cannot be obstructed” before stumbling through a correction and concluding that “the motherland will eventually be unified.” Captured in screenshots and video shorts, the momentary lapse spread like wildfire on social media platforms inside and outside China.

Searches for “Hu Die” on Weibo immediately suggest “Hu Die’s verbal gaffe” as a keyword. But search results cannot be found.

Within hours of the broadcast, video clips of Hu Die’s remarks disappeared from CCTV’s website. The authorities also moved swiftly to expunge all versions of the broadcast online and across social media platforms. The swiftness of the effort to restrain all mention of the incident online reflects the extreme sensitivity of the Taiwan issue, which is one of several hard red lines for China’s heavily controlled media.

Users on Weibo entering “Hu Die” in the search field today will immediately see the search option “Hu Die’s verbal gaffe” (胡蝶口误), suggesting this has been a popular search term over the past 72 hours. Results, however, are not available.

Hu Die has not updated her personal account on Weibo since the incident, her last available post dating back to May 9.

Cross-strait messaging is a huge priority for China’s leadership and has its own sprawling apparatus beyond CCP-run central state media. China Taiwan Online (中国台湾网), for example, is a full-fledged website dedicated to Taiwan news, culture and exchange. The site’s ICP registration links it to Beijing Cross-Strait Cultural Exchange Co., Ltd. (北京海峡文化交流有限公司), a company held by another enterprise, Jiuzhou Cultural Communication Center (九州文化传播中心). This entity is in fact a state-run institution (事业单位) under the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Central Committee of the CCP (中共中央台湾工作办公室).

The ICP license for Tiawan.cn traced through to the CCP’s Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office.

All media in China are bound by the political principle of “correct guidance of public opinion” (正確輿論導向), dating back to June 1989 and the aftermath of political protests that year and their brutal crackdown in Beijing. Central state media, such as China Central Television (CCTV) and the government’s Xinhua News Agency, serve as the vanguards of this policy and are held to the strictest standards.

The timing of Hu’s monumental error — for that is how CCTV’s management and the authorities are sure to regard it — proves especially sensitive given escalating tensions between China and Taiwan under Lai’s presidency. The CCP leadership in Beijing views Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its leader as dangerous forces of separatism, and it has

intensified military pressure around Taiwan since Lai’s inauguration. China conducted major military exercises following Lai’s inauguration speech in May 2024, and has since maintained elevated levels of military activity in the Taiwan Strait.

It remains to be seen what the snafu will mean for Hu Die, a 42-year-old anchor from Shaanxi province who has built a reputation as one of China Central Television’s most trusted faces, hosting such flagship programs as “Morning News” and serving as a chief on-camera reporter.

Respect for the Hero

Earlier this month, state media across China went into overdrive to share the heart-stopping story of how Bupatam Abdukader, a 24-year-old female police officer in Xinjiang, had descended 40 meters into a narrow well to rescue a toddler, after attempts with conventional rescue equipment had reportedly failed. Dramatic video footage from the scene showed the officer stepping forward toward the perilous shaft, barely 40 centimeters wide, as she removed her jacket and said: “I’m thin, let me go down!” 

Cue the tales of heroism and self-sacrifice, standard fare for official rescue reports in China’s tightly controlled media environment, which tend to play down questions of readiness and responsibility. State media related how Bupatam, who is from Luopu County in the region’s Hotan Prefecture, had battled oxygen and tight confines — maintaining consciousness through deep breathing techniques — to bring the small girl up from the muddy bottom of an abandoned well. “When I touched the child in the well, she grabbed my finger. Her hand was so cold, yet so strong,” she recalled emotionally to the reporters waiting above ground. “I had only one thought, to get the child up first.”

As the dramatic rescue footage captured attention across the country, including video footage showing Bupatam as she finally emerged, covered head-to-toe in mud, local officials made the most of the opportunity. They presented the officer with a reward of 10,000 yuan and nominated her for the county’s “Model of Bravery” (见义勇为模范) honor. 

But as admiration for her heroism spread across Chinese social media, the conversation shifted rather suddenly to questions about Bupatam Abdukader’s employment status. In media reports, she was referred to generally as a “female auxiliary officer” (女辅警), making clear to the news-reading audience that she was a member of the “auxiliary police” (辅助警察) — meaning that rather than being under formal hire, she was support personnel for the regular police force, receiving inferior pay and benefits. 

A screenshot from a video posted by Jimu News shows the moment Bupatam Abdukader removed her uniform to prepare to descend into the abandoned well.

Why, netizens wondered, should someone who had displayed such immense courage receive fewer benefits and less compensation than her formally employed counterparts?

Typically, unlike formal police officers with what are known as “established positions,” or bianzhi (编制), auxiliary officers receive lower salaries, reduced benefits, less job security, and fewer promotion opportunities despite the fact that they do the same work and face the same risks. 

China’s two-tier system for police and rescue work has frequently become a point of social debate. One of the most egregious examples came to the fore nearly 10 years ago as a fire at a chemical storage facility in the city of Tianjin erupted as a massive explosion that killed 173 people. Many of the dead were firefighters later found to have been auxiliaries under part-time contracts

As the officer’s heroic act in Xinjiang made the headlines, netizens pounced on the opportunity to reopen the longstanding debate about the gap between “official” and “auxiliary” status. “She should be given a formal position!” wrote one user. Another asked directly: “Why not give her a permanent position?”

On April 24, just over a week after the rescue, local authorities announced she would be “exceptionally promoted” from seventh to fifth rank within the auxiliary system. The announcement seemed only to throw the gap into sharper relief. While significant, the promotion maintained the officer’s auxiliary status rather than granting her formal employment.

As public pressure mounted, the Xinjiang government made an announcement through its official “Xinjiang Release” (新疆发布) account on social media channels in which it sought to rationalize the process of converting auxiliary hires to formal positions. Such a transition, it said, needed to follow strict procedures, including civil service examinations, merit-based special recruitment, and targeted recruitment programs.

“Bupatam is undoubtedly a hero,” the statement read, “but compared to the beautiful wish for ‘special handling,’ strictly following legal regulations for ‘conversion to permanent status’ requirements and serious, prudent merit recognition is what represents fairness and justice to all formal police officers and auxiliary police like her who fight on the public security front in various fields, selflessly protecting people’s lives and property.” In other words, the decision to keep Bupatam and others like her in “auxiliary” status, according to the statement, was about “system design.” And ultimately, the procedural approach prevented “favoritism and corruption to the greatest extent.” 

In many respects, the statement was a distraction from the obvious. As state media are well aware, the highly discriminatory nature of China’s two-tiered employment system has been repeatedly and conclusively documented — and even, despite the country’s highly controlled media environment, talked about. 

Six years ago, a report in China Comment (半月谈), an official journal under the government’s Xinhua News Agency, found significant pay disparities between auxiliary and formal hires. The latter were generally paid three times more for a marginally larger workload. And despite the fact that they remained essential, China Comment found that auxiliary officers experienced a profound lack of belonging (归属感) and social recognition, ultimately undermining the stability of the workforce and the effectiveness of the public security system.

This time around, mindful perhaps of the potential volatility of growing public calls to improve the status of an ethnic Uighur auxiliary officer, China Comment got behind authorities in Xinjiang. The journal praised the official response as exemplary crisis management that balanced institutional constraints with public sentiment, noting how it demonstrated that officials could find “the greatest common denominator” when navigating the tension between emotional appeals and regulatory frameworks. Echoing this sentiment, the state-run China Central Television commended the way officials, as it said, “did not avoid public expectations” but “explained facts and reasoning” while maintaining “respect for the hero.” 

The mini storm of discussion prompted this month by the heroics of Bupatam Abdukader reveals how a story of dramatic rescue — or any story, in fact — can quickly transform into a platform for broader social debates about equality and fairness. But it equally reveals how rapidly and effectively such debates can be managed by the state, using the means of restraint and amplification at its disposal.

At its core, Bupatam’s story is about a gap in visions of what heroism means, and how it should be rewarded. While public sentiment called for the officer’s brave human acts to be rewarded with real and tangible benefits, and the dignity that comes with truly equal status, the authorities managed to contain her within the Party’s limited vision of heroism. In that vision, the hero’s extraordinary sacrifice works only to serve and preserve the system — even if that system is premised on the most ordinary perpetuation of inequalities.

AI Moves to Page One

Sitting back in early January with the latest edition of Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily, one of the country’s leading metro newspapers, daily news readers were treated to a splashy page-one story about how China’s national plans for artificial intelligence development — known as “AI+” — were being unleashed in every sector of the economy and society. But the cover, importantly, was itself proof of how AI is transforming another crucial sector: the media.

The cover featured a striking figure 8 — or infinity symbol — in gradient colors of teal, orange, and yellow, floating above a miniature cityscape. Around this mathematical representation of limitless potential were arrayed digital icons depicting various sectors transformed by AI: doctors consulting computer screens, autonomous vehicles, smart classrooms, and connected urban infrastructure. At the bottom of the bright page, down below its characteristic masthead — and its motto, “Making China’s Best Newspaper” — were the words “created with JimengAI.”

The cover signaled an important departure for a newspaper that for decades had been known for its bold front-page graphics and striking photojournalism. It is certainly just the beginning of a trend that will reverberate through China’s media sector. The country’s newspaper industry in particular has faced major challenges in recent years, with sharp declines in print circulation and the closure of 55 newspaper titles in 2023, pushing outlets to cut costs and accelerate digital transformation. 

Talk of AI-led transformation in the media sector goes back at least six years to 2019, when surveys showed that 73 percent of Chinese journalists expected significant impacts on their profession due to AI technology. Meanwhile, state-run research institutes advocated strategically integrating AI across “news collection, production, distribution, reception and feedback” to comprehensively enhance “public opinion guidance capabilities” — in other words, to improve the party-state’s capacity to control information.

The cover signaled an important departure for a newspaper that for decades had been known for its bold front-page graphics and striking photojournalism.

In recent months, as developments in AI have accelerated, there have been rising concerns about the future of the journalism profession in China — which has already been jeopardized, something far less talked about, by stringent political controls under Xi Jinping. When AI can ask questions, correct grammar, find information, and even write articles, many wonder if journalists will become obsolete. Writing earlier this year in China Youth Daily (中国青年报), a paper under the Chinese Communist Youth League that from the 1980s through the 2000s was known for its sometimes breakout reporting, journalist Zhang Tiankan (張田勘) voiced the hope and the anxiety: “Machine and robots free people from heavy physical labor and boring work, to do more important work, or let people become supervisors — and this beautiful prospect has today been partly realized,” he said. “But other worries have also arisen.”

Et tu, Graphic Designers?

It remains to be seen what the changes at Southern Metropolis Daily will mean for its visual designers and photojournalists. But the paper, which has been known through the years for its sometimes stunning page ones, has clearly not given up on its visual team entirely. 

Since January the newspaper has continued to feature strong news photography on the front page, such as its vivid full-page images during the Myanmar earthquake last month, or its stark cover back on April 5 showing then just-removed South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol in profile. 

Still, one wonders if the writing is on the wall. 

Since the start of the year, a total of 36 front pages at the Southern Metropolis Daily have been generated with the help of AI, accounting for 35 percent of total covers. The vast majority of these have been produced by staff with the help of Jimeng AI, an AI image generation tool developed by Faceu Technology, a subsidiary of ByteDance — meaning these visuals were brought to you by the same company that gave the world TikTok. 

Other images are produced using YuanBao AI (元宝AI), an AI assistant developed by the technology giant Tencent. A few were also made using Doubao AI (豆包AI), another Bytedance creation that until the DeepSeek burst onto the scene was regarded by some as the country’s number-one chatbot, with more than 60 million active monthly users by November 2024.

On average, Southern Metropolis Daily is producing two to three AI-generated front pages per week. One perhaps revealing gap occurred from March 5-11, corresponding with the “two meetings” of China’s parliament and political advisory body. During that period, none of the covers in the newspaper dealing with the political meetings in Beijing were generated using AI. In fact, they retreated into conservatism, using all-red backgrounds and stiff images from the Great Hall of the People. Even as the paper strained at its chains to provide visual interest, it was clear that the aesthetic from on high was all about sticking to the austere.

The transition to AI is certainly the order of the day, and media across the country will continue to harness the technology to save time, cut costs, and remain on the cutting edge. But for media whose role is focused through the lens of Chinese Communist Party control, certain optics will remain impervious to change. 

Don’t expect AI-generated images of Xi Jinping — authorized ones, at least — any time soon.