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!