China’s International PR Strategy, or the lack of it?

Many friends would disagree with me each time I criticised China’s country PR shows or behaviour. They would always say, “why should China bow to the West’s expectations?”

I loved to tell this story.

 

An old model of Nissan Diesel UG780

A HINO truck

I had a short stint at Malaysia’s Tan Chong Holdings, the assembler and distributor of Nissan vehicles in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, in the early 1980s – so short that I would not even mention in my biodata. But I would always credit a piece of my university-of-hard-knock “wisdom” to one man: the late Tan Sri Tan Yuet Foh, the founder of the group. (You can hardly learn anything about him in Google now; how forgetful search engines can be! The late Tan Sri Tan was the grandfather of Andrew Tan, the founder of Grab.)

I had the opportunity to see him in action when Tan Chong launched the Nisssan Dieseal range of trucks in Malaysia. The bread-and-butter line is its UG780 dump truck model. Nisaan Diesel was in fact one of the smallest truck makers in Japan, and UG780 was particularly “ancient” looking. (See the picture below.) Its bonnet stood out, a feature which we called Forward Control, versus the sleeker “Normal Control” look of its competitors like HINO and Isuzu.

Sales were slow; Tan Chong had some 400 prime movers of different models stuck in warehouse. The carrying cost was huge. Something had to be done fast.

The Advertising Department was duly asked to come up with an advertisement for UG780. They brought it to the newly completed North Port and took a stunning picture of the truck against the tall cranes as the backdrop. The sky even had gulls hovering above. All the who’s who in the group were gathered to hear the chairman’s opinion.

For a moment, the meeting froze; the chairman looked troubled. Something is not right; the chairman does not like it!

He finally demanded, “we are not selling this to people who wear neck-ties, are we?”

It had to be redone!

He sent the advertising people to do a shot of the truck at Ganeson Quarry, which was caught in an environmental uproar then. The truck, like an overworked elephant, was loaded to the brim with aggregates. Below this main picture was a row of pictures – one depicting the cabin, as if it was a Hilton suite; another one giving the impression that it could climb the Himalayas; yet another showing how rock-solid its gearbox was, etc. And the headline boldly screamed, “Carry Sand, Carry Mud, Carry Stone, Everything Can!”

And no Straits Times or Star or Sin Chew (the mainstream newspapers), he declared. The mosquito press would do, he insisted. (These papers were very popular with working class Chinese those days. Insertion cost was low, moreover, they often offered “Buy-one-get-one-free” bargains!)

He knew the people who bought dump trucks were usually owner-operators. During loading and unloading, they would pull out the pages of these tabloids from their trousers’ back pockets to pass time.

Soon, UG780 became the top seller of dump trucks in Malaysia!

I was dramatizing, of course. Indeed, there were several other measures that Tan Chong took on both the tactical and strategic fronts to contribute to this eventuality.

My point is simply this: the late Tan Sri Tan knew exactly who he was trying to sell his trucks to!

Coming back to my topic…

To the China’s country PR handlers, my message to them is also simply this: You must know your audiences – Who they are? What type of story they would buy? How do you package your story?

At the world stage and on the diplomatic front, the anxiousness of Joe Biden to suppress China clearly shows the US is helpless in dealing with the Chinese leadership. Antony Blinken and Wendy Sherman’s “talking from the position of strength” line has become a joke to Tom, Dick, and Harry in China. Everyone knows that Blinken and Sherman actually ended up in Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi’s pockets in the last two meetings. And nobody wants to see Llyod Austin! An insult? Obviously! On this front, China can stand tall.

You don’t have to target the western intellectuals. Eskimos do not need you to sell them ice. Intellectuals form conclusions that are premised on evidence or logic. Scholars and thinkers like Jeffrey Sachs, Martin Jacques, Richard Wolff and many others, and scientists and editors at Lancet editors know all the falsehoods about China and often speak out objectively. So is Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore. More effort should be made to identify them and provide platforms for them to air their views without conditions or constraints. Perhaps China should initiate the establishment of a multi-national “Truth, Nothing But Truth” think tank for this purpose?

They are also pseudo scholars and thinkers like Peter Navarro and Germany’s Adrian Zenz. They have long been exposed as frauds.

China’s biggest challenge in international public relations lies with the western news media.

Most western journalists are like mercenary soldiers in the Middle East wars. You pay and they kill; no questions asked. With few exceptions, they are anti-China or China-skeptic now. American audiences are equally divided into CNN and Fox News camps; the British rely on BBC and Australia, ABC. Beyond country-specific media, you have also “international” channels like Aljazeera. In broadsheet prints, you have The New York Times and The Washington Post, amongst many others. In the UK, you have The Guardian and The Times, and in Australia, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Australian. You also have magazines like Newsweek, Time, and The Economist. You also can be sure that all Indian channels and papers are negative about China, and even Singapore’s CNA and The Straits Times, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, and Japan’s The Nikkei are seldom positive when it comes to news and developments in China. You can always detect a negative undertone or unnecessary skepticism in their reports. Many are obliged to produce wholesale whatever Reuters, Associated Press, etc write, even though they have their own correspondents stationed in Beijing or Shanghai. And many of these presenters and writers are ethnic Chinese!

Several deserve special mentions: In my opinion BBC’s Tim Sebastian and Stephen Sackur (HARDtalk) are my picks for the Oscar. I also like to single out John Garnaut of the Fairfax papers in Australia. His father is a very distinguished scholar who was at one time the country’s ambassador to China. Garnaut has spent many years in China. I just cannot believe his anti-China-ness, save to speculate he must have been jilted by a Chinese woman there!

Many are too lazy to write. Even if they do, they need to distort facts and information to suit their masters’ taste or dictates.

Does China know how to handle these black mambas?

First, Chinese should avoid using the word “Propaganda” to describe their “宣传” (literally: “announce-spread”) efforts. Whereas adherence to Communism is a national pride in China, many outside China, even among Chinese diasporas, still equate Communism as at best Stalinist and at worse Satanic. In their opinion, propaganda is a part and parcel of Communism!

China’s MoF (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) hold regular press conferences to keep these foreign correspondents informed. They have several spokesmen – Zhao Lijian, Hua Chunying and Wang Wenbin. They are very professional and authoritative. But perceptions are everything. Wang is no-nonsense and Hua combines wittiness with sarcasm. (Geng Shuang is another; he is now China’s deputy head at the UN.) Zhao is particularly popular with overseas Chinese viewers. He personifies the type of “say it to your face” hero that Chinese love to see. However, he does so with a “you not worthy” look. He appears harsh to many. This certainly does not go down well with the kurang-ajar (poor upbringing) prima-donnas from the western press and news agencies. Another thing that often irritates me: the spokesmen's tendency to say, "we strongly oppose this..." and "the American side should correct this and that..." It is not a debate and the question of opposition does not arise. They should just categorically rubbish all the fake accusations. No waste our time. Period. There is no need to speak like a teacher.

To gain empathy, they should have more spokespersons like Hua, Geng and Wang. There is also a need to manage information dissemination. Correspondents are too lazy to write; they would just do some cherry-picking and add some sour sauce on them to justify their pay cheque. At the end of each meeting, China should distribute facts and figures and, maybe, an accurate record of what was said. I remember Lee Kuan Yew’s style: Publish exactly what we have rebutted, or we only allow you to sell your magazine without the advertisements! This may not work, but it did represent an effective counter-offensive concept.

CGTN is China’s mouthpiece to the West. It needs a makeover. Its “About us” clip looks like a scene in “Crazy Rich Asians” movie. And what has “5000 years of history” to do with this introduction? How many people are keen followers of CGTN amongst non-Chinese outside China? You can poke fun at CNN or Aljajeera or BBC, but people tune in often. And again remember, aren’t you targeting non-Chinese audiences? Audiences will look to you if they find you can fill the gaps that they find missing in other channels. There is hardly anything CGTN can offer in this respect now. And to “sell” China, you need to focus more on the softer and gentler parts of China – its people, its architecture, its geographically diverse beauties, its agriculture, its flora and fauna, etc. CGTN loves to portray China’s culture, its scientific and technological achievements. These, per se, may not be the right cup of tea to offer at this politically charged juncture.

It should also not spare any effort to bring in the best and brightest – especially in their command of English – to host or act as discussants in its programmes. I feel presenters like Liu Xin and Zou Yue do fit the bill, but not Tian Wei, who appears to be too loud in her dress sense and the tonal habit her command of English.  

I had the opportunity of attending a fest organised to showcase the East’s past and present in a city in Europe. Live performances of China’s traditional opera and its Shaolin martial art were shown at a great cost, so were others like calligraphy, tea culture and even food. When guests were asked for their opinions, most were polite enough to credit the organiser for the effort. But I guess many of the things really looked outlandish to them. Why is the face painted black? Why are they fighting with half of their shoulder naked? So on and so forth.

Parents in the western world have no qualms in sending their children to learn Karate and Taekwondo. Maybe those who are keen to promote Chinese martial art should give a deeper thought. (There are many who would travel half-way around the globe to Henan or Fujian to seek lessons. But surely, they are not the market you are targeting at?)

Many have heard of Confucius, and those students of strategy, Tsun-tze. And those who love Philosophy, maybe Lao-tze. We also have the god of supreme ethics – Kuan Yi, who is worshipped by Chinese all over the world. China has many philosophers and sages. But few are known to the non-Chinese world. The west offers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and they are universally known. Why? China should introduce them to the world in simple and easy-to-relate languages, not the harsh and sometimes seemingly infantile translated versions we often see in bookshops.

You still see atrocious translations in the most visited museums and tourist sites in China today. Why are the curators not paying attention? I have always joked about the cure-all claims in Chinese medicines. No wonder people are skeptical of Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines! However, having been “saved” by some of these concoctions, I truly believe in Traditional Chinese Medicine.  

In the early 1990s, I accompanied Genting’s founder, the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, to visit China several times. In the process, we got acquainted with their leaders at the various levels. One of them was none other than the governor of the Fujian province, who later went on to become the mayor of Beijing and after that, the 4^th ranking member of its all-powerful politburo. I had the opportunity to accompany this VVIP around when he visited Genting Highlands. I thought I knew him enough to write him a personal letter. I suggested that maybe we could work together to improve China in this translation gap. Perhaps an all-purpose national Chinese-to-English translation clearing house? Nothing was heard from him. Obviously, I didn’t know my station!

Marketing Class 101: To penetrate markets, you simply need to have the right packaging, even though you have a good product.

But China has also to be aware that there are millions of western-educated Chinese all over the world who are devoid of any knowledge about the history and cultural strengths of China or who are ashamed of their heritage. They become China’s worst enemies – people like the US’s Catherine Tai and Yu Maochun (Miles), Hong Kong’s Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong, Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen, etc. I am not concerned about these diehards, but rather the young and vulnerable that are being brought up in countries like the US, the UK and Australia. (My Melbourne grandchildren included!) China needs to devices ways to instill cultural pride in these diasporas. However, I strongly believe that once China become strong and is “accepted” more kindly by the world, as they would grow older, they would shake off their complex and start to be interested in their roots. Keep our fingers crossed!

Hi Antony and Wendy, why so ill at ease?

Friends may remember this picture. It is Collin Powell telling the UN Security Council in March 2002 that America has found Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Many believe him. Powell has the prestige to sway even non-believers. But it was a big lie. How could someone of Powell’s standing do that, many would ask.

Look at how confident Powell was.

 

 

Fast forward to March 19^th, 2021, Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan played “hosts” to China’s Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi in Alaska. Blinken obviously looked very ill at ease at the meeting. Only Sullivan was more composed.

And ditto Wendy Sherman in the July 25^th and 26^th meetings with Xie Feng and Wang Yi.

 

  
  

On the other hand, Yang, Wang and Xie looked so confident.

Why?

I do not propose to talk about the substance, or the lack of it, of their allegations against China. Everyone who reads knows about them.

I will try to explore from the commonsense angle.

First, in the case of Powell’s assertion. Many in the world were indeed convinced that Iraq had WMDs. Hussein gave the impression he had them. Even though the UN inspectors were not able to find them, the US was keen to invade Iraq, thinking it was an easy cake. Powell was prepared to sacrifice his prestige to do that for George Bush.

As for Blinken and Sherman, if you read their CVs, you know that are intellectual very formidable. They know from their PhD pursuits, everything must be evidence-based. What have been said about the genocides and force labour concerns in Xinjiang and the democracy issues in Hong Kong can never hold water in them. They went to these meetings without any conviction, hence their discomfort. Period.

In Yang, Wang and Xie’s case, they know what they are talking. They knew they owe to the Chinese people to unmask America’s hypocrisy in all these issues. Lies are easy to take down. And they are well-read, well-travelled, seasoned diplomats. Hence their confidence.

I remember I had to help IMC Pan Asia Alliance’s Fred Tsao sell Family Business Network (FBN) to some of the rich men in Singapore, Bangkok, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur. FBN is a Lausanne-based billionaires’ fraternity, which Fred was trying to introduce to the Asia Pacific region. I am a man of modest means and personally do not feel at ease with rich men and rich kids. But it was a task that I had to perform as Fred’s employee. But I could feel my own discomfort each time I spoke to guests on FBN’s mission. I was not convinced of the mission myself!

What does Tokyo Olympics 2020 say about America?

July 24^th, 2021 is the first day of Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Naturally I was enthused over the roll-out of the events and anxiously kept tabs on the medal count for the day. At the end of the day, I noticed that the US had failed to win even a single medal. I didn’t think much of it then, since it was the first day, until I saw the following headline in CNN: US fails to win medal on first day of Summer Olympics for the first time in nearly 50 Years.

     

Then I woke up on the 26^th morning to read “USA Basketball defeated in first Olympic loss since 2004”.

Sure, the US will certainly emerge as the top dog in Tokyo 2020 Olympics. But these two pictures also speak volumes of the state of America today!

Donald Trump and Joe Biden can scream until their throats explode that America is No 1, or is going to be back as No 1, but I for one am totally convinced these are not coincidental incidents but a precursor of what is already on the way – America’s decline, albeit a long-drawn one.

My wife and I were fortunate enough to be able to tour the entire breadth of the United States just months before the outbreak of Covid-19. We used to like America. There was so much to learn from them. But the America we saw during our trip was no longer the America we thought we knew. Its country towns and national parks are still very breath-taking, but its cities are a far cry of their former selves. Not only we didn’t seem to see the whoa factor in its people, but we were also totally saddened by the degree of homelessness we saw in downtown San Francisco.

Much of this downward trend is self-inflicted.

Sure, the world was shocked by the September 11^th terror attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001. But the sympathy America received from the world soon faded. First you have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, followed by interventions in Syria, Libya and sabotages in Venezuela and what-have-you, America has been too consumed by its self-righteousness and the interests of its military-industrial complex. It has revived its 1960s ultra-anti-Communist doctrine during which its CIA went round the world to topple governments. (Some term it the “Jakarta” method.)

But despite possessing formidable intellectuality at so many levels, USA hardly bothers to define and build its nationhood. It thinks its love and championship for “freedom and democracy” alone can overlord the world. A nation is defined by the cohesiveness of its people. The American society lacks homogeneity in terms of racial make-up. It is a country with hundreds of different ethnicities. Whites are dominant, but Blacks are also numerically strong and, as all know, because of their history in the country, they will not hesitate to stage unrests each time they feel they are bullied. Hispanics and Asians, though significant in numbers, are meeker and the latter, especially, tend to suffer the brunt of the underclass anger felt by the Blacks.

Let’s be real in this fact: all of us are racists; it is a question of degree. But we keep prejudices to ourselves. Our prejudices are usually not anchored on assumptions that we are superior to another race, but rather, as a form of hard-to-believe or hard-to-accept behaviour exhibited by individuals or groups of another race. Many call it stereotyping.

But the racism as practised by Whites like Donald Trump is different. They think they are superior and are therefore entitled to be deferred by the lesser non-Whites. Of course, there are Whites who genuinely believe in racial equality but, by and large, some superiority complex is always evident even amongst them.

There has been no serious attempt in USA to bridge this superiority-inferiority gap. Lip services are often offered, but they are quite hollow in nation building. Only a culturally integrated approach based on shared beliefs or philosophy can make this work, which is not possible under the racial and religious mix of the American society today. The Blacks also do not have champions to rally their community to develop a culture that is worthy of sustainability and respect through education, behavioural change, etc. Hispanic politicians like Ted Cruz think they are as white as Whites.

Secondly, much of the American transformation in the past has been driven by its open-arm welcome to talents from all over the world. The Whites dominated this phenomenon before the advent of ICT. However, this has changed a great deal since then. Much of Wall Street is still White or Jew, but the productive forces in ICT and the digital economy today are very Asian-driven – the Chinese from Greater China and Southeast Asia, the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis from South Asia, the Japanese, and the Koreans. The Chinese are particularly good in applications, which translate into markets and money for the ICT and digital economy which help them to scale even higher planes in product research and innovation. Starting with Trump’s anti-China-ism and Biden’s continuation of playing to the home gallery, many Chinese who want to make America their home are beginning to have second thoughts. Some exodus will happen; this will certainly create an intellectual and entrepreneurial vacuum which is quite irreplaceable for a long time.

I take pride in the fact that I read widely, not only from the mainstream media, but also from the social media, academic journals, professional publications and even writings from not very credible organisations. But I hold dear to this belief: Keep an open mind of what you read or see.

Many from the American and Western intelligential world are world class in thoughts and concepts. They know exactly what is ailing America and have voiced out their concerns often. However, politicians in America and their sycophants in Europe, the QUAD/Five Eyes fraternity and amongst many Chinese in Hong Kong, Taiwan and even Singapore choose to be blind and deaf to realities and continue to subscribe to the cold war mentality that Trump and Biden are preaching. Many of these politicians and their sycophants are educated in the best universities, yet they continue to help Biden spew lies about China on issues like democracy in Hong Kong and genocides in Xinjiang. In this ICT age, nothing can be hidden. None has come up with evidence, which is most fundamental in Science, Law, and what-have-you.

Hong Kong has been under Britain’s colonial governors for almost a hundred years. Which governor had given Hong Kong the democracy the West has been preaching? I was reading an article written by a Nepalese Gurkha some days ago. Has Britain helped these Nepalese after they had served their purpose? Hong Kong is just a convenient ground for the West to sabotage China; their concern has nothing to do with democracy. The unfortunate part is that the successive Chief Executives of the Hong Kong Administrative Region have failed to address two things – one: the need to reeducate the Hong Kong young – through the education system – that they are Chinese and NOT British, and two: the need to solve the housing problems there.

Next is the genocide and forced labour claims in Xinjiang. Can any one of us believe that America and the West care about the Muslims there? Come on…

In his life Trump has never done an honourable piece of business. Do read his niece’s book to know who really this man is. Biden’s record may be cleaner; but he has never played a role where he has to be held accountable for. You may not like Xi Jinping, but he certainly had to slog hard all his life – from administrating villages to managing hundreds of millions at city and provincial levels – to be what he is today. And the people in the Politburo are there not because they have a great university degree, or they are scions of a great fortune, or their father is so-and-so. In China they must work like crazy to earn their stripes.

In America, all you need is to be able to articulate or debate well; it doesn’t matter whether you have substance or not. You have Blondie like Nancy Pelosi (she is not blond, though) who speaks as if she has forgotten to bring her brain along, and people like Mike Pompeo, who is a Harvard MBA, who openly admits he can lie and lie. So what, he says? Yet people like Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong will travel all the way to worship them. And you have pseudo-scholars like Peter Navarro who can generate fictitious bibliographies. And I suppose there is no need for me to single America’s minions in Canada, Europe, Australia, and many parts of Asia for this citation.

What is disturbing to ethnic Chinese like me is America's newfound paranoia against China and by extension Chinese. Nations are like participants in a perpetual marathon. Over a specific span of time, you will see a leader, followed by close pacers, the bulk of also-runs and, finally, a bunch of laggards. In the past, you have great civilisations in Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, India and China. Some have disappeared; others are just a pale shade of their former selves today. Then came the colonialists in the 1500s and the British became the undisputed leader until the end of World War II. Now the US is leading the pack. But this spoilt brat has a problem. He thought no one could possibly or should overtake him. All of a sudden, he realises someone is pacing very closely behind him. That someone is the "old hack" he used to take pity on. How dare he, he roars! Instead of pulling himself together to keep ahead, this brat slows to pick stones to throw at the old man. He also rallies his goons to floor the old man. But this old man, having survived the last five thousand years, is only interested to keep running! 

I chanced upon a recent book by S Condemi called “A Pocket History of Human Evolution and am taking the liberty to produce one of her diagrams here:

Condemi S (2018)

Contrary to earlier belief that Homo sapiens left Africa some 60,000 years ago, the latest research seems to show that the migration reached China more than 100,000 years ago. I do not want to speculate, save to say that there must be something more to it than meets the eye!

I read questions and answers posed in Quora frequently. Much of the world is still suspicious about China and Chinese. To be this is a failure on the part of China to tell its stories.

Readers may want to read a recent book written by Chris Kantha called China, China, Chyyna. To many in the West, I am sure he will be regarded as a China apologist. But he really writes things that the West should know about China. He also highlights China’s failure in its inability to do a good international PR job. This deficiency has been highlighted by many, significantly by Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani and even by yours truly in several of my earlier postings.

 

America's GDP is Growing, Really?

I have not studied Economics. However, I did pick up some broad understanding of Economics from general reading and talks with or by people who are knowledgeable about Economics. Lately, I have been reading that many western economists are quite excited about the prospects of the GDP growth in America despite the ravages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. I am not convinced at all; I thought it was all false optimism.

These are some of the bits and pieces I picked up about the US economy:

As of March 2021, MO (physical money and bank reserves at the Fed) in America is said to amount to USD5.8 trillion; of which USD2 trillion was in circulation. In 2020 alone. At the biggening of 2020, M2, which includes physical notes and coins, bank reserves held at the Fed, accounts at banks and money market mutual funds, is said to be USD15.3 trillion and by September, it was USD18.7 trillion, an increase of more than USD3 trillion!

And came Joe Biden. His USD1.9 trillion stimulus package, amongst other things, gave direct payment of up to USD1,400 for middle and lower-income Americans. On top of that he is proposing a USD1.2 trillion infrastructure framework. Where does all this money come from? The Fed’s “printing press”, of course.

Let us look at how GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is measured.

GDP = C + I + G + NX

Where:

C             - Private=consumption expenditures by households and nonprofit organisations

I              - Business expenditures by businesses and home purchases by households

G            - Expenditures on goods and services by the government

NX          - Nation’s exports minus its imports

Does it have to do with Money Supply? Or the well-being of a country’s finances? I just cannot see much in terms of co-relation, except that in America, much of C which contributes to about 70% of the US’s GDP must have come from all this new money.

But is all this new money generated by increased economic activities or productivity? The question is no.

As long as the world is happy to let America have a free ride, there is no danger to the US economy. But countries like China, which is America’s biggest trading partner, is wising up. No sooner, the US has to fork out more USD for same amount of goods. You do not need an economist to tell you this is called Inflation.

And if discount the growth rate against inflation and population growth, the truth emerges. There is hardly any growth, if any!

Americans must realise that money does not grow on trees!