Making the Netherlands China-friendly: A single case
study of China’s influence efforts in the Netherlands.
Master Thesis in Political Science
Track: International Relations
By: Karin van Diest
Student Number: 11793848
Supervisor: dhr. dr. J.Y. (Julian) Gruin
2
ndReader: mw. dr. J. (Julia) Bader
Submitted on 21.06.2019
Abstract
The report the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) states that China deploying efforts to make the world more Chinese friendly, by among others damping critical voices. Its efforts aim to influence public opinion in a number of sectors in public life focusing on media, academia and politics. These efforts - often called political influencing – are coordinated by a state, ranging from overt and legitimate actions to more covert and coercive activities. While deploying these efforts China adheres to its strategy of soft power. Evidence of these efforts has been found in various democracies outside Europe. This thesis aimed to examine the influence of China in the Netherlands, by examining its power efforts through the sharp power theory. This thesis endeavors to take a more critical look at China’s activities in order to contribute to the broader academic debate about China’s rise.
Table of Content
1. Introduction p. 4 2. Literature review p. 8 3. Background p. 13 4. Theoretical framework p. 19 5. Methodology p. 24 6. Analysis p. 27 6.1 Culture p. 27 6.2 Media p. 30 6.3 Education p. 358. Conclusion and discussion p. 42
Chapter 1: Introduction
Over the past decades, the People’s Republic China (hereafter PRC) has developed itself from a developing state to one of the most influential powers in the global order. China has experienced unprecedented economic and social development since the declaration of market opening and reforms in 1978 (Morrison, 2018). China's share of the global economy has become ten times as large, its gross national income per capita has been 40 times higher what lifted many Chinese citizens from living in severe poverty (Orr, 2019). With this national development, China adapted a new foreign policy strategy as well. Xi Jinping, both general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (hereafter CCP) as well as president of the PRC, propagated ‘the new era’ defining China dream to take the center stage in the world order. In order to pursue this goal, China adopted the strategy of soft power (Walker & Ludwig 2017; Pei, 2018). China’s soft power is crucial for its peaceful rise as major player in the new world order (Weissmann, 2015)
However over the past few years, many argue that China’s attitude and foreign policy have become more assertive (Hsiao, 2017; Walker & Ludwig 2017; Barboza, 2018). China’s assertive, and some argue sometimes even aggressive, use of power projections became an important aspect in securing the core interests of its state (Cole, 2018). States over the world have started to take a more critical look at China and its role in the global order. Also the European Union has been looking more critically at China actions lately.
In March 2019 the European Commission published the report EU-China a strategic outlook. In this document the Commission state that there is an increasing appreciation that the balance between opportunities and challenges emerging from China has shifted (European Commission, 2019). Over the past years, China’s economic, military and political strength have increased significantly on both scale and speed. The increase of power has posed some serious dilemmas. The European Commission states that China is a collaboration partner with closely aligned objectives in many areas, a negotiating partner with whom it needs to find a balance of interests and a economic competitor in the emulation of technological leadership as well as a systemic rival fostering an alternative model of governance (European Commission, 2019 p.1)
Also the Netherlands is aware of the changing global environment and the role of China in this process. The recently published report Netherlands-China: a new balance notes that whereas the Netherlands in 2013 aimed to make China an interested party in the global order, nowadays China has become successful by among other things entering international institutions and creating new ones (Netherlands Cabinet, 2019). With this changing environment it is no longer the question how the Netherlands can profit from the Chinese development and how to integrate the state in the international order. Currently it is much
more about the significance of China’s rise for the place of the Netherlands in Europe and in the rest of the world. In that context the Dutch Cabinet aims to continue to cooperate with China, bearing in mind the ideological differences. It stresses it want to focus on chances, but also wants to have a better understanding of the potential threat and challenges such as (economic) security, cyber espionage and political influence operations.
The report the Dutch general intelligence and security service (AIVD) states that China deploying efforts to make the world more Chinese friendly, by among others damping critical voices (Netherlands Cabinet, 2019 p.41). Its efforts aim to influence public opinion in a number of sectors in public life focusing on media, academia, Chinese overseas communities and political targets. These efforts - often called political influencing – are often coordinated by a state, ranging from overt and legitimate actions to more covert and coercive activities. These efforts are often deployed under the broader umbrella of soft power. China’s political influence efforts - that aim to make foreign states more China friendly – are primarily visible in Australia and New Zealand (Brady, 2017).
In Australia such activities came to light in 2017, when the Economist reacted on an investigation about the extent of Chinese interference in Australia (Schmitz, 2018). The article puts that China is trying to exert influences on Australian citizens by among others engaging in academic spheres and reaching out to Chinese people overseas. Notable is China reaction stating that the accusations are over exaggerated and China uses now other means than soft power, just like many other states. In New Zealand similar activities have come to light. A research of the Wilson Centre note that China’s image of peaceful rise has made it able to use its narrative of soft power efforts while influencing overseas society and foreign governments (Brady, 2017).
There are signs that China is deploying the same efforts in European states. Especially in Eastern European states, including the G16+1, such efforts have become increasingly visible (Benner, et al. 2018). In Western European states these efforts has received less attention. However, there are signs that Europe is becoming increasingly important, both as a part of China’s more general outward reach such as its the Belt and Road Initiative (hereafter BRI) and as an alternative to collaboration with the United States, with whom the overall relationship is rather tense lately. The Netherland in specific seems of strategic importance for the Chinese, since it serves as a gateway to the rest of Europe (Cingendael, 2019). The port of Rotterdam, one of the largest seaports in the world, and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the third largest airport in Europe, the Netherlands serve as a connective logistic hub.
The trend of China influencing foreign states to make them more China-friendly, the sense of awareness of the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service and the strategic
importance of the Netherlands make one wonder till what extent China is influencing the Dutch society as well. This leads to the following research question:
To what extent is China deploying influencing efforts directed at the Dutch society?
First, this research questions rests firmly on an assumption that China indeed want to make the world more China-friendly. However, it has become clear that over the past years various states in the world expressed concerns on China strategizing in various areas in foreign societies under its soft power umbrella. China soft power efforts are often regarded as political influencing meaning the integral –often covert- employment of activities that shape information about political sensitive themes towards a predetermined audience for the realization of strategic political aims (Cole, 2018). In addition, political influencing tries to insert a state’s interest, priorities and opinions into the public opinion and decision-making processes of another state. This often involves multiple tactics to target foreign academia, media, opinion leaders and (former) politicians (Walker & Ludwig, 2017). The Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service states that influencing of public opinion continues to be pose a serious and increasing threat to the Netherlands and its allies (MIVD annual report, 2018). One of the concerns of the problem that arises with these efforts is the undesirable effect that it is in direct contrast with the Dutch norms and values.
The Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations state that the government considers surreptitiously influencing of the Dutch society and public opinion by state actors undesirable, since it affects the integrity of political and administrative decision-making, independent judiciary and fundamental freedoms such as freedom of the press, academic freedom and freedom of expression (Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relation, 2017). The government is committed to an open information society, and therefore wants to prevent the surripitutously influence of state actors on the society. Making the Netherlands more China-friendly promote an discourse of positive narrative and counter regime critics, which both have a negative effect on the Dutch values system of freedom of expressing, acadmic freedom, freedom of press etc. Influence efforts thus poses a possible threat for the Dutch democracy.
In addition, the concerns towards the strategized soft power efforts are sometimes even linked to deeper suspicions of ‘ China’s peaceful rise’ linking to hybrid warfare (Pronk, 2018). Hybrid warfare involves deploying a mix of economic, information, military and diplomatic force to pursue strategic goals (Bekkers et. al 2019). The critics argue that political influence is a tool of China’s hybrid warfare aiming to undermine Western societies and establish a new China-centric world order (Shullman, 2019). Although this is assumption has
a very strong narrative, it underscores necessity and importance to gain reliable research on the aims and extent of China political influencing under the guise of soft power.
This thesis aims to provide insight in the efforts of China to actively engage and perhaps influence in the Dutch society. This scholarly research focuses on the aims for strategizing soft power and the activities involved, rather than the measuring the actual influence China. This will contribute to a more coherent and broader picture China increasing presence in the Netherlands. In turn, this will help scholars of political sciences and foreign policy makers to better understand and therefore adjust and respond to it. Such a comprehension seems in dire need, since both academics and politicians still try to figure out if China’s rise is peaceful and coming with chances or on the other side tend to take form of hybrid warfare and brings along challenges and threats.
In order to answer the central question, this thesis will first set out a brief literature reviews discussing soft power, China’s strategic use of it and the debate about the inherently differences of democracies and autocracies soft power strategies. This will be followed by a theoretical background to exemplify China’s underlying objectives of take the central stage in the world order, and the actors involved in it. The fourth chapter illuminates the shift from soft to sharp power, which is often regarded as influence operation. The sharp power theory centers coercion and manipulation instead of attraction and persuasion – as soft power does- in a state toolkit of influencing foreign states. The theory focuses on specific namely culture, media and education. The fifth chapter addresses the methodological approach of the thesis, exemplifying the literature based single case study, the data collection and the limitations of the thesis. The sixth chapter explains the empirical analyses of the thesis, divided in the three focus areas of sharp power. The first subsection focus on influences efforts in the cultural domain, concentrating on the cultural collaboration agreements. The second subsection addresses the influence activities in de media domain, looking at media outlets and journalism. The last subsection looks into the education domain, examining people-to-people exchange, knowledge initiative, student associations as part of the influencing toolbox. The final chapter provides an overview of the conclusion and discussion of the result of this study, based on the three hypotheses. Examining the three areas on which the hypotheses are based on should provide a well-informed conclusion on China influence efforts on the Dutch Society. Based on the theoretical and empirical research this thesis comes to the result that China influence efforts in the Dutch society are relatively limited.
Chapter 2: Literature review
As mentioned above, China soft power is central in its foreign policy and crucial for is peaceful rise in the global order. As a result China’s soft power is highly debated, with many scholars writing about the subject. The following section provides an overview of the literature regarding soft power. First the general concept of soft power will be discussed to thereafter elaborate on a broader academic debate the differences between democracies’ and autocracies’ soft power strategies.
Since the start of humanity, power has taken a central position in relationships (Bourdieu, 1979). Consequently, power is also one of the main components of politics on local, national and international level. Understanding politics and international relations is therefor largely depended on understanding the concept power. Morgenthau (1985) defines power as the relation between political actors in which actor A, has the ability to control the mind and actions of actor B. Gowa (1993) describes power as the ability to shift the probability of outcomes. He explains that as state A has the control over B to the extent that it can get state B to do something that it would not do otherwise. In addition, Hartman (1996) states that power is related to influence, starting with latent utilization of power (persuasion), to conscious and planned power (pressure), ending with the organized use of hard force. Generally, these definitions include that power is the ability of a state to influence and shape how another state acts. As mentioned earlier, political and international relations depends largely power relations. Power is thus one of the most decisive aspects for a state to attain national interests. Consequently, every state tries to achieve, maintain and use power.
In classical literature, power is primary associated with military capabilities, strategies and visibility. This stems mostly from the dominant realist approach of international relations and the focus on hard power (Gray, 2011). Although hard power has been used irregularly throughout academic articles, (neo)realist often examine conflict with the state as actor exercising sovereign power to pursue national interests. The capabilities involve primary military instruments, coercive diplomacy and economic sanctions (Wilson, 2008). It can be deployed to influence an actor to behave in a way it explicitly does not want to behave, but has to do due to power discrepancy (Shambaugh, 1996). This can be linked to the well-known saying of Thucydides: “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” (Lebow, 2001).
In 1993 Joseph Nye introduced hard power’s counterpart: the concept of soft power. Nye (1990) claimed that, with the “growing erosion of state sovereignty, the economic interdependence of states, creation of new communication channels and technologies, and the importance of non-state actors, the effectiveness of traditional hard power has decreased”.
Consequently, the concept soft power arose promoting attraction and persuasion rather than coercion, trying to influence the hearts of actors. Soft power can be described as the ability of a state to get what it wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment (Nye, 2004). This is done, using all means that are at their disposal, except from persuasive economic or military means (Cooper, 2004; Gray, 2011). Soft power compasses attraction of a state, deriving from its culture, political values and policies. An important role is devoted for civil society, the private sector, and institutions as main proponents. As Nye (2004, p.254) states it: “When our activities are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, our soft power is enhanced”. However, later, most scholars started to take more critical position at the use of soft power in foreign policies. Because of the changing realities of international politics, scholars started to put in doubt the idea of democracies’ peacefulness (Burnell 2010; Economist Intelligence Unit, 2016). Indeed, between the 1990- 2000s increase of coercive measures by the world’s leading democratic states toke place: economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure - let alone military operations – gained a common place in foreign polices. But most importantly, the shift in academic interest was triggered since autocracies also came to appreciate the power of a good image in international politics and started to build and exert soft power strategies (Hunag et al, 2006). According to Rosanvallon (2009) the primary reason of this shift can be found in the diffusion of power of international relations mainly driven by transnational actors, economic dependency, nationalism in weak states, changing political issues and lastly spread of technology (Nye 1990, p.160). This power diffusion makes it nearly impossible for a state, authoritarian as well as democratic, to exert and maintain political influence abroad without soft power strategies. As result, many contemporary researchers write, and leading international relations academic journals are full of case studies on autocracies’ soft power.
Over the past years the soft power strategy of China also received more scrutiny, of both Chinese and Western academics and officials. Wang Huning former member of the CCP introduced soft power to China policies in 1993 (Li & Hong, 2012). In the article Huning argues that if a state has an admirable culture and ideological system, other states are likely to follow it (…) therefor it does not have to employ its hard power that is costly and less efficient. However, at that time, Hunting’s article was not influential, partly because of the restraint of conservative CCP member who wanted to directly copy strategies of the West (Courmont, 2013).
Couple of years later, soft power received increasing attention in China. From 2000 to 2004, yearly 53 Chinese academic articles wrote about soft power. This number increased to a yearly average of 313 times between 2005 and 2008 (Lai, 2012 p.2). The adoption of Nye’ Soft power and the integration of Chinese ideas has resulted in a different view on the theory. Chinese scholars acknowledge soft power as the power through attraction, only they
adhere slightly different elements that generate attraction. One of the main differences is the meaning of attractive values and institutions. Chinese scholar and politicians tend to focus on economic development with the Beijing consensus as prominent example. Many Chinese academics argue that socioeconomic success is the primary feature of soft power (Liu, 2011; Lai 2012). In addition, Chinese scholar stress that national unity and the legitimacy of the regime are key features in order to develop sustainable soft power strategies.
Besides the attention for soft power amongst Chinese scholars, also the Chinese government started to adhere the concept. In 2004 during a conference of Chinese diplomats stationed abroad, former president Hu Jintao announced that China’s primary goals should be to advance its development by strengthening friendships with foreign states as well as promoting fostering a stable and peaceful international environment in which China is able to deploy soft power strategies to benefits its interests (Lai, 2012 p.11). Moreover, Chinese officials became aware that the rapid economic growth of China created concerns elsewhere in the world (Wang & Lu, 2008 p.435). As a reaction, China advanced their soft power strategy in order to counter the narrative of ‘the threat of China’s rise’ and foster the discourse of ‘China peaceful rise’ (Lai, 2012 p.2). In 2007, China formally adopted the concept of soft power as strategy during the seventeenth National Congress of the CCP. In the years after, the Chinese government created various tools of influence to advance its soft power strategy. Over the past years, soft power has become one of the primary strategies of China’s foreign policy. China soft power is no longer regarded solely as an instrument to reach power it rather enables China to internationally cultivate a positive image, especially in the developed world (Courmont, 2013, p. 348-351)
However, as mentioned above the use of soft power of autocratic states is a controversial and highly debated subject. Many scholars have taken a more critical view towards the soft power strategy of authoritarian regimes. In 2016 Walker (2016) wrote an article ‘the authoritarian threat: the hijacking of soft power’. In his article Walker states that the primary aim of autocratic states is not to promote their model of governance, but rather tries to contain the distribution of democracy and reshape the values and norms of the international political order. Moreover, he stresses the importance to understand this new form of soft power as influence efforts since illiberal regimes are embracing the strategy to spread pseudo realities.
Perhaps one of the most well known attempts to ‘de-Westernize’ the concept of soft power was made in 2014 after a conference at the University of Newcastle (Barr et al. 2015, p.13). Based on the papers presented at the conference, the academic journal Politics’ published a special issue ‘The Soft Power of Hard States’, which examined case studies of the soft power of Russia, China and Iran. The article states that it is difficult or even impossible to use soft power efforts as authoritarian regime. Some scholars take an even stronger
assumption and state that China soft power is part of a hybrid conflict strategy. It argues that the exploitation of information operations represents the CCP’s hybrid or non-kinetic attempts to exert direct influence in strategic areas of competition in Asia and Europe and other places in the world (Raska, 2015). However there are also more conceptual debates about the authoritarian use of soft power. These studies provide objective arguments why the soft power of authoritarian regimes is inherently different than the ones of democracies. Since this research focuses on the influence efforts in foreign societies two distinctive features of autocratic soft power require further explanation.
First, critics argue that the soft power strategy of a democratic state primarily conducted by, and serves the objectives of the private sector and the society (Patalakh, 2017). The state functions as advisory and coordinating body that in case needed fills the gaps left by the first two actors. On the other hand, autocratic states elaborate and determine on the objectives of a soft power strategy as well as taking care of the implementation. The founder of soft power, Nye (2004), states that soft power centers the efforts of civil society, the private sector, and individuals as the principal component. In authoritarian regimes soft power actors and mechanism are directly overseen and promoted by government agencies. In contrary to democratic state, the main actors of soft power in autocratic states are only part of the strategy where and to the extent that they are allowed to by the regime. Xuetong (2008), stresses China miss some basis principles for soft power focusing on the lack of independent institutions and social justice systems.
Secondly, the messages and narrative that the forms of governance spread are different. In democratic states national and international versions of the media have no or almost no discrepancy in content and ways of reporting (Patalakh, 2017). In autocratic states the media send more partiality, emotionally stronger rhetoric and narrower range of ideas when broadcasting at domestic than abroad. In addition, a one-sided presentation of news appear in a democratic state, is presumable seen as non-credible and perceived as propaganda (Nye 2008, 100-101), since the populations of democratic states are used to the pluralism of ideas in media. Therefor, to market their messages to democratic citizens, the international messages of the state-owned media of autocracies have to be shaped and customized in a certain manner (Whitten-Woodring, 2009). Democratic’ state-owned media do not need to do so in similar cases. Sequential, the gap between the messages of national and international public media in autocracies is both, broader than the gap of media in democracies, as well as different in character. But over the past decades, adjusting media rhetoric in the aforesaid manner seems to more difficult for the media in the era of internet and globalization. Due to all information being available to everyone, the gap between domestic and international has become blurry (Rawnsley 2013, p.154).
power is implemented by autocracies. Both democracies as well as autocracies aim in deploying soft power is to create a favorable environment in which it can pursue its objectives. However since autocracies soft power does not derive from its society and public sector, its implementation can have very different features than in democratic states. Moreover Nye states that soft power is an indirect feature of a state to shape environment that derives from the public sector and society. China on the other hand, uses soft power as a tool to influence foreign actors directly, controlled by only the CCP.
To summarize, power has been a subject of debate in international politics for many years. Whereas traditional political science studies focus more on the hard power, contemporary scholars try to exemplify the concept of soft power. As soft power scholars previously primarily focused on democracies, later autocracies started to understand the power of a good image and started integrate to strategy into its policies as well. As a consequence many scholars started to take a more critical look at China’s soft power strategies, arguing it is deployed to contain distribution of democracies and promote the autocratic model of governance. In addition, some scholars even argue that the soft power efforts are part of China hybrid conflict strategy; information operations that represents the CCP’s hybrid or non-kinetic attempts to exert direct influence in strategic areas abroad. Although these arguments have a strong narrative, other more objectives articles do show the conceptual differences between autocratic and democratic soft power.
Overall, it can be argued that Chinese soft power is indeed different than the one of democratic state. The most important differences are in the role of the public sector and the society. China uses soft power as tool to directly influence foreign states, which is in contrast with democracies in which soft power is an indirect tool derived from the public sector and society. Therefor it is likely that China’s instruments of soft power are deployed differently than the once of democracies.
Before starting to elaborate on the theoretic framework of this thesis, it is necessary to take a step back. As mentioned above power projection – soft or ‘autocratic soft’ are being deployed to influence a state to behave in a certain way. On the basis of the report Netherlands-China: a new balance we assume China wants to make the Netherlands more China-friendly. However this is a somewhat simplistic notion to comprehend the China influence efforts in the Netherlands. To fully understand this notion the following chapter elaborate on China view on foreign policy and its aims for Europe in general and the Netherlands more specific.
Chapter 3: Background
As has become apparent by now, China exercises power over other state to make them do something it would not done otherwise. This makes understanding China’s intentions and strategy very important. Understanding China’s strategy offers a framework to comprehend the state’s behavior, and thus its activities in the Netherlands. Over the past years China has been very open about its intentions, written in the many policy documents such as the Made In China 2025 plan, BRI and the Double First-class University Plan (Chan, 2018). However, making foreign states more China friendly is a macro level objective that is intertwined in many strategic plans. Therefore this section aims to explain China’s so-called grand strategy. A grand strategy is a set of ideas of a state’s primary long-term objectives and interests (Jisi, 2011). This chapter does not discuses in detail the clearly written policy plans of the Chinese government. It rather tries to explain the bigger ‘grand strategy’ in order get a better understanding of China influence efforts towards foreign states. It also exemplifies the role of the actors of the grand strategy in order to create a better comprehension of its activities abroad.
The concept op grand strategy is much debated and the various definitions of grand strategy have very different understandings (Brands, 2014). Moreover, a grand strategy can be easily confused with the concept of strategy in a more narrow sense. This thesis adheres to the definition of a grand strategy as an integrated and coherent set of ideas about a state’s ultimate political goals, and how these objectives should be achieved (Biddle, 2007). Thus, a grand strategy must define the state’s ultimate objectives and interests (Brands, 2014 p.3).
Some further explanation of the term is necessary. First, a grand strategy focuses on long-term horizon, on the development and integration of both domestic and international policies that should exist for decades (Kennedy, 1991). It connects short-term policies and activities to medium and long-term objectives. This enables officials to prioritize the principal long-term objectives and apply the resources available to the state, to the most important purposes. At the same time it enables the policy makers to balance means and capabilities to pursue other objectives. That means that policy makers can make choices based on the state’s priorities and they can best apply the limited capabilities and resources to specific medium- and short-term goals.
Secondly, a grand strategy of a state does not officially have to be documented or articulated as such (Brands, 2014). While some states leaders intentionally develop a grand strategy, statecraft is frequently constructed in organic and iterative way. A leader is involved in the nation’s grand strategy irrespectively of a state official documented its long-term strategy. Political leaders must make decisions on short-term opportunities, the biggest
threats, and when and how resources and capabilities must be deployed. The strategist Luttwak (2015 p.409) states “all nations have a grand strategy, whether they are aware of it or not”. The question is whether the state posses an organizational body that take actions to accomplish the long-term objectives (Brands, 2014). Moreover, Martel (2015 p.3) states that a grand strategy has to be reducible to criterion that are clear enough to give guidance to people who have to implement the strategy.
States have various goals and interests, however a grand strategy prioritizes the states long-term objectives and create both domestic and foreign policies (Martel, 2015). As mentioned earlier, the Chinese leadership has clear and explicit objectives for China, demarcated in clear timeframes. The primary objectives stems from the CPC’s constitution. First it states “realization of communism is the highest ideal and ultimate objective of the Party.” (Communist Party of China, 2019). Secondly it puts “China is in the primary stage of socialism and will stay so for decennia.” Moreover it says “the principal contradiction in the Chinese society is the growing material and cultural needs of the Chinese people and the low level of production.” As a response the CCP states to provide in these needs by accommodating the growth of material production and socials wealth and make development the principal priority in governing and rejuvenating the state (Communist Party of China, 2019).
Moreover the CCP’s constitution puts “the beginning of the new era characterizes China's entry into the new level of development aiming to realize a moderately prosperous society.” (Communist Party of China, 2019) In this new level, strategic goals in regards to social and economic development are achieved by the time of the Communist Party’s centenary (Norton, 2015). By 2021 China has become “a moderately prosperous society” with a capita per GDP “up to the level of moderately developed states”. Moreover it wants to accomplish modernization by 2049 at the centenary of the PRC.
Heath (2012) states that the priorities of the CCP is to turn China into a prosperous, strong, culturally advanced and harmonious modern socialist state led by economic development”. All other proceedings are subservient to economic development (Constitution of Communist Party of China). This was underscored by former president Hu Jintoa during his speech at the 18th party Congress, where he stated: “We must steadfast adhere to the strategic thinking that only development counts” (Johnson 2014 p.4). However, the goals should be fostered while at the same time maintaining the four Cardinal principles. The Cardinal Principles comprises the continuation of the ‘socialist road’, the upholding of the people’s democratic dictatorship and maintenance of CCP leadership (Constitution of Communist Party of China).
It has become clear that the CCP’s overarching goal for China is to maintain the power to the party, and foster rejuvenation of the state by making economic development the
central task. Moreover it aims to attain the two centenary goals of becoming a moderately prosperous society by 2021 and accomplishing modernization by 2049 (Johnson 2014). This helps China to return to what it views as its rightful status as a leading power in the global order after a century of humiliation. The objectives are integrated in Xi Jinping idea of the Chinese dream (China Daily, 2014).
One of the documents China’s grand strategy is more visible is in the peaceful development white paper in which Dai Bingguo elaborates on the core interests of China. Frequently, China’s core interests are described as sovereignty, security and development (Bingguo, 2010). These concepts are exemplified in the Peaceful development white paper as China's governance system and social stability, ensuring sustainable economic and social development and state sovereignty, security, territorial integrity and national reunification.
First, the governance system and social stability. As mentioned earlier, China’s principal goal is to remain the CCP into power. Bingguo (2010) refers to this core interest as “the leadership of the CPC and the socialist political system with Chinese characteristics”. Noteworthy is the role of the People Liberation Army (hereafter PLA). The PLA is not part of the state’s armed forces but instead an armed division of the CPC (Lawrence & Martin, 2010). The CPC’s constitution puts that the CCP has supervision over the PLA. This makes the division one of the most important features of the continuation of CPC rule.
Secondly, the ensuring of economic and social development. As explained above, a second principal goal is to foster social and economic development in order to achieve the two centenary goals. This goal is important for two reasons. First since it is desirable in itself and secondly it is essential for keeping the CCP into power (Bingguo, 2010). In 2011, at the National People’s Congress, former premier, Wen Jiabao stated that in order to ensure the social stability and regime security one need to keep the GDP growth on more or less 8 percent per year and keep the inflation below 4 or 5 percent (Lee, 2012). Moreover, a vital economy is essential for military modernization and security, the third set of core interests.
Lastly state sovereignty, security, territorial integrity and national reunification. National security, state sovereignty and territorial integrity are essential for any state. Especially looking from a realist perspective, state survival and protection of territorial integrity is the primary concern of a state (Gray, 2011). Besides defending the CCP rule is the PLA, also in charge of maintaining sovereignty and territorial integrity, safeguarding the 22.000 km long land border and 18,000 km long sea border (Bingguo, 2010). Moreover, the three forces of terrorism, extremism and separatism are also part of China national security plan (Ministry of National Defense, 2017). The three forces are particular for the relations in regards to Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan.
China has a clear and coherent ‘grand strategy’, with strategic guidelines formulated by the top political leadership, and proceedings set to defend the interests and achieving long-term objectives. This strategy is integrated in China’s foreign policy and serves as basis for the China aims in Europe in general and the Netherlands in specific. Translated to a strategy for European China has five aims. First China wants to be considered as a state that strives to construct a harmonious society and works hard to give its citizens a better future (d’Hooghe, 2010). It seeks understanding for, and recognition of its form of governance and socialist system. Furthermore, China wants to be considered as a responsible and trustworthy economic partner. It strives to be seen as an economic power that should not be feared. Moreover, China wants to be considered as a reliable and responsible partner of the international community, with the capacity and willingness to actively contribute to a stable world order. Finally, China wants to be recognized and respected as a vibrant society with an ancient but rich culture.
Translated to pragmatic terms, China’s aim to make foreign state more China-friendly derive directly from the abovementioned grand strategy and core interests. However, the fact that China is pursuing these objectives can have potential negative effects on the Dutch society. As mentioned in the introduction, the influence efforts are in contrast with basic norms and values that the Dutch society adheres. In addition, as mentioned in the literature review China ‘soft power’ does not derive from its civil society and public opinion but is directly overseen by the CCP. Since China is an authoritarian state with a one party government. This means that whereas in democracies the society controls the activities of the governmental, in China there is no higher control to held the party accountable for its actions. Thus also it action abroad are not controlled by any higher power. To fully understand China’s influence efforts abroad, underneath a brief overview of China’s key player in overseas activities are set out. The focus of this overview is on the entities that shape public opinion and civil societies abroad.
Until 2010 many of Chinese strategies where designed and implemented by so-called small leading groups (Lisi, 2007). These small leading groups played vital role in advising and coordinating at different levels in the government. Also strategies regarding controlling information and shaping public opinion where led by these leading groups, such as Central Leading Group In Propaganda and Ideological work, Foreign Propaganda Leading Group, The Central Foreign Affairs Leading Group and the National Security Leading Group. However over the past years the Chinese government has taken a different approach and gave the control to key departments.
One of the most important governmental bodies in regards to China’s ‘soft power’ is the Central propaganda department. The Central propaganda department is seen as the central
actor in controlling and monitoring China’s ‘soft power’ efforts. Another important player of Chinese internal and external propaganda apparatus is the State Council Information Office (Benner et al, 2018). Both organizations are responsible executing China’s propaganda activities, such as imitating media cooperation and other forums with foreign states. In these propaganda activities party-state media serves a key actor. The China Global Television Network (CGTN), which is a spin-off of the state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), broadcast up-to-date positive news of China and its activities overseas in various languages. The CCP aims to attract people who are dissatisfied about the Anglo-American dominance of international news to turn civil society into consumer of the CGTN platform (Ullah, 2015).
Another set of governmental bodies focus on journalism and the academic world (Benner et. al, 2018). The Ministry of State Security (MSS) and the People’s Associations for Friendship with Foreign Countries focus on identifying potential cooperating journalists and scholars with a pro China view. Also the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture investing time and money in shaping the academic and media environment in China’s favor.
Lastly looking at making foreign states more China-friendly, one actor is central in the Chinese apparatus. In 2014 Xi Jinping gave speech at the 65th birthday of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, underlining the growing importance of the work of the United Front Work Department (hereafter UFWD). He named the UFWD the magic weapon for the rejuvenation of China (Beaumelle, 2017). Gill and Schreer (2018) put that the UFWD is the CCP’s headquarters for China push for global ‘soft power’. The UFWD initiates and maintains relations with influential individual and organizations, at home and abroad. The UFWD serves to reach out and guide key individuals and groups who accept CCP rule, promote its legitimacy, and help achieve the CCP’s key objectives (Kuo, 2018). The UFWD is made up of offices, bureaus, and subordinate units. The nine bureaus specialize in a particular geographical location or subject area abroad. Xi Jinping himself oversees the Leading Small Group of the United Front Work Department, the highest level of UFWD work. The UFWD extends its influence to elites abroad that have become known as ‘friends of China’. These elites are encouraged to promote the party’s agenda and policies within their own states.
To summarize, China aims to make foreign state more China-friendly rests upon a set of bigger set of ideas. China primary objective is to keep the CCP in power, foster social and economic development, and wants to achieve modernization for the state. In order to achieve these objectives China wants to be internationally seen as a reliable and responsible partner that should not be feared. China’s political system follows a model in which the top leadership sets up the state’s highest political objectives. However many other actors are involved in the elaboration of these objectives to policies and implementation of these
policies. Also in regards to making foreign states more China friendly a wide range of actors are involved.
Chapter 4: Theoretical framework
As has become apparent, China has clear set of ideas for its strategy to foreign states more China friendly. It adheres to soft power since it aims to be seen as a harmonious society and a stable and reliable partner. However, as mentioned in the literature review, soft power efforts of autocratic states are inherently different than the ones of democratic states. The way a state exerts its soft power depends thus, at least, partially on its political regime. It important to note that other factors such as a state’s geographical location, economic capacities, culture, history and political objectives and priorities have an impact on the characteristic of a soft power strategy of a state. Nonetheless, this chapter elaborates on the China’s authoritarian form of soft power, which also serves as basis for the analysis.
The literature review showed that soft power of autocratic states has some serious shortcomings. A concept elaborating on those shortcomings is sharp power. In 2017 the concept of sharp power has gained place in the academic literature. Walker and Ludwig (2017) introduced in the report of the National Endowment democracy the concept of sharp power, referring to authoritarian soft power that pierces, penetrates, or perforates the political and information environments in targeted states. The authors state that authoritarian influence is not about attraction or even persuasion; instead, it uses distraction and manipulation (Walker & Ludig 2017, p.6). Authoritarian states, which systematically oppress political pluralism and free expression domestically, are increasingly trying to apply similar approaches internationally in order to secure their interests. The aim of the authoritarian regimes is to shape public opinion and perception. An example of sharp power the founding document points out is China’s knowledge initiatives such as the Confucius Institutes. The institute broadcasts programs as part of cultural exchange, but excludes topics and silences themes and opinion that might negatively affect China. The structured use of influence activities are designed change the international views to the authoritarian regime’s advantage. In other academic articles that have been published since the launch of the concept, the concept often has been defined as political influence operations and aggressive projection of soft power (Cole, 2018; Emmerson, 2018; Pei 2018).
The concept of sharp identifies four areas in which autocratic states exerting their political influence, namely culture, media, education and political domain (Walker & Ludwig, 2018 p.6). The sharp power efforts in the political domain are deployed to build relationships with (former) high ranked politicians and other information gatekeepers to directly influence the democratic system by neutralize criticism and insert pro China views (Walker & Ludwig 2018 p.7). China engages in the cultural, media and education domain on the other hand to shape the perception of the society. These efforts are among others expressed by engaging in
shaping foreign media outlets and setting up knowledge initiative. This thesis aims to provide an insight to the influence efforts in the Dutch society, directly applied to the citizens. It therefor mainly focuses on the media and academic domain and pays less attention to the political domain.
Critics argue that sharp power has a strong western bias, involving an obvious and subjective value judgement (Global Times, 2018). Indeed, sharp power does portray China as the autocratic state that takes advantage of democratic states while democratic states have every right to exert influence in every possible way. In addition it does not take into account that democratic states can and perhaps do apply sharp power efforts activities as well. But although it is true that an autocratic state such as China has every right to use its culture and economic presence to increase its attraction and visibility over the world, these soft power strategies –which are generally a more natural outgrowth of a attractive society and spill-over to its cultural, institutional and sometimes even ideological influence – have been related to a more coercive attitude (Cole 2018). In addition, although many democratic states might use a similar approach, the CCP’s efforts are seen as more surreptitiously and involve a strong sense of censorship and propaganda driven by a one-party state apparatus. The CCP directly controls and steers these efforts whereas in democratic states conflicting societal forces protects these secretly aspects.
Despite the western bias - emphasizing on autocratic states taking advantage of the openness of democratic states, and leaving behind the fact that democratic states can or do apply the same efforts - does the concept of sharp power provide an useful framework to analyze the CCP’s contemporary influence efforts abroad. Since China’s soft power does not flow naturally from its civil society, public sector and only partially the government, it is possible that its power take shape in the form of sharp power. Meaning its efforts abroad involves censorship and manipulation instead of attraction and persuasion. China’s success in controlling and manipulating information domestically has been examined many times. Consequently some believe that the success in shaping and containing opinions and attitudes nationally will lead to success in exercising political influence in the international order.
Keeping in mind the shortcomings of the framework, this thesis uses sharp power to examine Chinese contemporary influence efforts in the Netherlands. However it is important to note that there is no explicit way to measure state power and influence. Both concepts are not tangible and the results of these efforts are only visible over a long period of time. The thesis therefore does not aim to determine the impact and consequences of the influence efforts, it rather endeavors to gain insight on China influence activities in the Netherlands.
Sharp power focuses influence efforts with characteristics of clandestine, directed out-warded form censorship and information control, organised by one party state. It looks at
autocratic states wielding influence abroad by of limiting or silencing sensitive subjects and thus free expression, and distorting the information environment within democracies in the domain political, culture, media and education. However as mentioned earlier this research primary focuses on the culture media and education domain, since it tries to examine the influence efforts on directly aimed at the society. Sharp power focus on. The framework provides a useful tool to examine the activities without testing the effects of it.
Many academics acknowledge culture as one of the most important aspects in attracting and influencing foreign states. Nye assumes that cultural can serve as power since it is inherently attractive, persuasive, and appealing in nature” (Li, 2012, p. 5). It is argued that ones a state’s culture is perceived as admirable, it does not have to use hard power to attract and convince states (Wang & Lu, 2008). D’Hooghe (2007) sees China traditional culture as most important tool in exerting power. One of China’s biggest assets is the generally positive image of its culture. As a reaction, the Chinese government started to actively deploy their popular culture abroad, mainly focusing on harmless non-political and traditional subjects.
However, sharp power scholars have taken a more critical position towards China use of culture overseas. Owczarek (2017) states that culture is a profound feature for advancing China’s sharp power, since the power of it is highly underestimated. The legitimacy of culture as tool provides the opportunity to exercise influence on how the state is presented abroad. Although on the surface most cultural power efforts seem legitimate, China uses the tool to spread a one-sided positive image of China. China fosters relationships to, in the long-term shape ideas. It uses cultural initiatives to win support and to neutralize criticism on the political system. Moreover it aims to create dependencies and use their influence to steer content and silence subjects that can harm the party. These methods are deployed in both overt as well as covert manner.
For the case of the Netherlands it is likely that similar, as not the same efforts are being deployed. If there are none or almost no similarities at all, it is likely that China is influencing in the Dutch media area. This leads to the following hypothesis.
H1: China deploying overt and covert activities in the culture domain by presenting one-sided information, creating dependencies, steering content and limit and even silencing criticism indicates efforts of influence in the Dutch society.
Many scholars have acknowledged the significance of media in shaping public opinion and perceptions (Baum & Potter, 2001). Consequently many of them started to take a closer look at the human processing of information and the propagation of the media. Traditionally, one considered media simply as a connecting mechanism and not as a strategic
tool for political purposes (Brody 1991; Bloch & Lehman-Wilzig 2002). However, various other studies stated that the media does not only serve as source of information, it also posses an active role. The media works as educator and shaper of public opinion (Clark, 2004). Creator and journalists can thus choose the subjects they want to address and how to address it. A biased narrative is likely to increase when partial actors involve in the process.
Also China has become aware of the power of media in achieving its objective of foreign state more China-friendly. The CCP’s has encouraged the media and cultural related enterprises to expand a positive image of China internationally (Liu, 2011). Consequently China started to invest largely in in Anglophone media outlets. In 2011, the CCP proclaimed to spend billions in order to develop external publicity work. However, scholars of sharp power take a more critical stance on China’s efforts in the media domain (Walker & Ludwig 2017; Cole, 2018). The scholars argue that China is actively engaging in the media domain by presenting one-sided information to portray China as positive as possible. These sharp power efforts are state-directed initiative that uses media as conduits for foreign propaganda.
Secondly, China is taking a more assertive approach by engaging in the domain by creating dependencies what enables it to control and steer content. Thirdly, the CCP take evens aggressive stances by limiting or even silencing stories that are not align with the Chinese view. While using these methods China aims to maintain an appearance of openness and pluralism. These methods are deployed in both overt as well as covert manner all in order to shape perception and public opinion. For the case of the Netherlands it is likely that similar, as not the same efforts are being deployed. If there are none or almost no similarities at all, it is likely that China is influencing in the Dutch media area. This leads to the following hypothesis.
H2: China deploying overt and covert activities in the media domain by presenting one-sided information, creating dependencies, steering content, encouraging (self)-censor and limit and even silencing criticism indicates efforts of influence in the Dutch society.
Moreover, over the past year there has been more research to the relationship between gaining international influence and strategizing in the educational environment. Scholars of international relations state that designing a soft power strategy is a key feature to develop so-called education hubs (Amirbek & Ydyrys, 2014). Other academics specifically focus on the influence of high quality human capital and capacity and an international intellectual human network. These features can be part of soft power that could form a long-term network and leadership positions that impact the social, economical and political environments
domestically and abroad (Landsberger, 2001). Also academics acknowledge that educational hubs serve as essential policy instrument for state in an increasingly competitive global order (Mok & Han, 2017). Traditionally, higher education institutes are above violent and ideological conflicts. The institutes serve as a neutral party with an unbiased view on historic, cultural, economic, and political issues and at which exchange of information and ideas on the one side and the learning effect on the other foster soft power.
However, critics state that China is using the educational environment and institutes to serve as vehicles to pursue its political agenda (Walker & Ludwig, 2017). These tensions are not only seen domestically, but increasingly more noises overseas state that it sometimes unclear who has the ultimate authority. Scholars of sharp power argue that the CCP’s increasingly use educational institutions as tool of spreading its foreign influence. They state that over the past years the CCP has become more active in spreading its influence using various tools. First, the CCP is actively sending one-sided information putting China in a positive daylight. Secondly, the CCP take a more assertive approach and tries to control debates, specifically on China sensitive subject and debates with strongly advocating western values, which are often in contrast with the Chinese values. Moreover, the educational domain is being used to shape and shift Western values that are in contrast with Chinese, such as human rights. The CCP is actively engaging in educational environment abroad, creating dependencies on a financial but also on a more social level. By creating these dependencies China empowers itself as it creates a bigger say, what enables them to steer and sometimes even control content. In other cases that CCP is even taking a more aggressive approach by trying to limit or sometimes even silence criticism. These methods are deployed in both overt as well as covert manner.
For the case of the Netherlands it is likely that similar, as not the same efforts are being deployed. If there are none or almost no similarities at all, it is likely that China is influencing in the Dutch academic area. This leads to the following hypothesis.
H3: China deploying overt and covert activities in the educational domain by presenting one-sided information, creating dependencies, steering content and limit and even silencing criticism indicates efforts of influence in the Dutch society.
Chapter 5: Methodology
The following chapter provides an overview of the methodology that has been used in order to examine till what extent China is deploying influence efforts in the case of the Netherlands. By choosing to examine the influence efforts in the Netherlands from a sharp power perspective this thesis focus on the complexity of on specific case (Bryman, 2012). In order the answer the central question and examine the prior formulated hypotheses this thesis thus employ a single case study. A single case study is most suitable for this thesis since it is an empirical enquiry that examines a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within the real-life context (Yin, 2014 p.4). Despite the focus the Netherlands this thesis also includes other states in the analysis to understand the full scope of China influence efforts. In its influence efforts China appears to have two approaches. Easily said China uses one approach for states with a weak(er) democracy and less wealthy economy and another approach for strong resilient democracies with a strong economy (Benner et al. 2018). This analysis takes into account Chinese influence efforts in other states with a strong resilient democracy and a wealthy economy.
While looking from a sharp power perspective, it is important to keep in mind that soft and sharp activities are not mutually exclusive and neither are they contradictory (Cole 2018). Moreover, the two concepts reinforce each other and are part of the CCP’s multidimensional approach to shape foreign societies and public opinion. Excluding non-purely sharp power efforts, or examine those in a vacuum, would not present the full spectrum of Chinese influence efforts. The CCP does not make a distinction, nor should I do in this thesis. Therefore, this analysis takes into account influence efforts that utilize the complete range of China’s arsenal ranging from soft to more ‘sharp’ power efforts. In order examine the overt and covert activities as open as possible a qualitative research single case study is most suitable, since it provides the ability to make an in depth description of Chinese contemporary activities in the Netherlands. The chosen method offers the possibility to make a well-informed reasoned conclusion based on a broad and deep range of data (Bryman, 2012).
During the empirical research a wide variety of data have been collected and analyzed. First primary resources have been analyzed. These primary resources include governmental documents, of both Dutch as well as Chinese nature. Documents includes officials statements, letters to parliament, policy papers and other official strategic papers. In addition a wide variety of secondary sources have been examined, looking at academic literature, research report, newspapers and publication of institutions such as the Leiden Asia Centre, MERICS, Clingendael institute and the The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.
Gathering data from various sources stimulates to look at the subject from various perspectives, what automatically encourages get a more nuanced idea of the phenomenon under study. Moreover, the collected data has been critically analyzed on its credibility. Many of the primary and secondary resources have been given or suggested by people of the Ministry of Defense.
Furthermore, over the past months various interviews have been held with experts in the field. The interviews have been held during various moments in the research process, to get a better understanding of China in itself, as actor in the international order and its influence efforts in the Netherlands. The interviews are conducted in a semi-structured way, using an iterative process, meaning structure of the interviews adjusted to information of previous interviews. Moreover, semi-structured interviews were used since it was likely to generate more information when using a structured form of interviews (Bryman, 2012 p.472). The topic list of the interviews is based on the theoretical framework of sharp power.
When doing interviews, it is important to be aware of language since words can be multi interpretable (Yin, 2014). The overcome such, the interviews are recorded if permission of the interviewee. Moreover due to the sensitivity of the subjects the interviews mainly serve as frame of reference for the researcher. In addition all interviews are held confidentially. In the analysis, interviewees are referred to anomalously. The experts consist of officials of various departments; The ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice and Security, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Ministry of Education Culture and Science and both the General and Military Intelligence and Security Services. Also two people of the research center TNO and Clingendael have been interviewed.
When analyzing the data, the thesis adhere the framework of sharp power. As explained in in the theoretical framework, sharp power assumes that China is deploying overt and covert activities in the domain of culture, media and education (Walker & Ludwig, 2018). Previous studies showed various tools in which China tries to apply its methods to influence foreign states. In the culture domain entering of cultural agreements have been central tool in its aims to make the Netherlands more China-friendly. In the media domain China has been buying space into media outlets and encouraging (self-)censorship to foreign journalists. In the educational domain, previous studies show that China has been actively initiating knowledge initiatives and people-to-people exchanges. Moreover is had been found that is strategically deploys student organizations. Since sharp power is a relatively new concept, the above-mentioned activities serve as guideline. However, this guideline is not comprehensive and other activities have been taken into account.
Although a literature based single case study is the best method to understand Chinese influence efforts, it comes with limitations as well. One of primary criticism of the methods is that the findings of empirical analysis are highly dependent on the researcher (Yin,
2014). The researcher can steer the results by unintended missing essential information and making unconsciously biased interpretations. This, in combination with the bias of the sharp power framework, this can possibly have a profound impact on the internal validity. Besides, using an in depth-analysis, thus focusing on one case specifically, generates results that are difficult to generalize.
In order to overcome these limitations various counter measures have been taken. In order to employ an as objective as possible empirical research two measures were taken. Firstly, this research was being deployed while working at Ministry of Defense what made the accessibility to a wide range of credible resources much easier. At the same time it offered the opportunity to talk to governmental officials and academics with a wide range disciplines (from Sinologist to experts in disinformation) creating a multi-sided view on the subject. Moreover both people of the Ministry of Defense as well as people ‘non-professionals’ have read the findings of the research. Nonetheless, one has to keep in mind a bias might appear when doing a singly case study looking from a sharp power perspective.
Chapter 7: Analysis
The following section exemplifies the findings of the empirical analysis of China influence efforts in the Netherlands, examining both overt and covert influence efforts in order to create a more China-friendly environment. The chapter is divided in three parts, first looking at the cultural and media domain and thereafter the educational domain. In order to give a better comprehension, references to activities in other similar societies are made to deepen the understanding of the CCP’s influence efforts.
7.1 Culture
The first domain of sharp power is the cultural domain. Since a few years many Chinese policy-makers have argued that culture is the most important source of China’s power abroad (Liu, 2011). In 2005 former president Hu Jintao publically called for the enhancement of culture as a part of China’s toolbox in international relations. Later in 2007, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference held a special meeting with as main topic China’s cultural as resource for building China image abroad. In 2014, Xi Jinping called on the CCP to foster China soft power by promoting the Chinese modern values and presenting the charm of Chinese culture to the world.
Strategizing in the culture domain enables the CCP, to engage in foreign societies by using traditional tools (Pei, 2018). It enables China to spread a positive narrative. Moreover it gives China the ability to exert influence, control content and limit subjects that harm the party. China efforts in creating a more China-friendly environment cover both over as methods, ranging from an active to an aggressive approach. Central in the cultural domain of sharp power are the cultural collaboration agreements, China is signing all over the world.
China has been actively initiating cultural collaboration initiatives. The agreements are mostly focused on exchange of content and commitment to shared principles. Although this strategy is not new, experts say that these efforts have been intensified and increased over the past year (Benner et al, 2018). Since the agreements are among other things focused on exchange of content it provides the opportunity to spread content steered and controlled by the CCP. Moreover, over the past years China has increasingly used various official occasions, such as state visits, summits and media forums to sign cultural collaboration agreements at a high political level. These agreements are signed with states all around the world, as well as with individual media companies. By signing these agreements in the presence of high political leader China promotes the idea that media should not challenges political leaders, but should rather support the ones at power.
