Beijing's Global Media Offensive

Since China’s ascendancy toward great power status began in the 1990s, many observers have focused on its economic growth and expanding military power. In contrast, most viewed China’s ability to project “soft power” through its media industries and its global influence campaigns as quite limited, and its ability to wield influence within the domestic politics of other countries as nonexistent. But as Joshua Kurlantzick shows in Beijing’s Global Media Offensive, both of these things have begun to change dramatically.

An incisive analysis of China’s attempt to become a media and information superpower around the world, and also wield traditional forms of influence to shape the domestic politics of other countries, the book shows China for the first time is actively seeking to insert itself into many other countries’ elections, social media, media, and overall politics, including that of the United States.

Kurlantzick focuses on how all of this is playing out in the United States, where Beijing has become the biggest spender on foreign influence activities, and also in China’s immediate neighborhood—Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand—as well as in Europe and other parts of the world. He also traces the ways in which China is increasingly collaborating with Russia in their efforts to become more powerful global influencers via disinformation and other tools, but critically examines whether Beijing has enjoyed great success with these efforts to wield power within other countries’ domestic societies and politics and media.

While China has worked hard at becoming a media superpower, it sometimes has failed to reap gains from its efforts. It has undermined itself with overly assertive, alienating diplomacy and is now broadly unpopular in many countries. Still, Kurlantzick contends, China’s media, information, disinformation, and more traditional influence campaigns will continue to expand and adapt, potentially helping Beijing to wield major influence over other countries’ politics—and to export its models of political and internet control. China’s efforts also may not only help protect the ruling party; they may also help China build alliances with autocracies and undermine press freedoms, human rights, and democracy across the globe.

An authoritative account of how this sophisticated and multipronged campaign is unfolding, this book provides a new window into China’s attempts to make itself an information and broader influence superpower.

One of New China Books’ Best China Books of the Year

Read a review of the book in the Irish Times.

Watch the author’s book talk with the World Affairs Councils of Orange County, Austin, Phoenix, Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, and Global Santa Fe.

CFR Fellows’ Book Launch Series: Beijing’s Global Media Offensive by Joshua Kurlantzick.

Watch an interview with the author held by the Global Taiwan Institute.

Listen to an interview with the author on The President's Inbox podcast with CFR's James M. Lindsay.

Listen to a podcast interview on Disinformation Wars with the author on Chinese media strategy.

Listen to a podcast interview with the author on BBC’s The Media Show.

Listen to an interview with the author on LSE's The Ballpark podcast.

Listen to an interview with the author on China's soft power operations from the Asia Matters podcast.

Listen to an interview with the author on Deep State Radio podcast.

Read an interview with the author on the China Project.

Read an interview with the author in The National Interest.

Read an article on technology-enabled authoritarianism by the author in The Globalist.

Read an article from the author on how China has harnessed global information networks in The Diplomat.

Read an article from the author on China's influence efforts in Malaysia in Washington Monthly.

Read an article from the author on China's influence efforts in Australia in the Interpreter.

Read an article from the author on China's influence efforts in New Zealand in Stuff.co.nz.

Read the author's new op-ed on China’s failing influence campaign in Boston Globe Ideas.

Read part one of an excerpt published in Nikkei Asia on China's influence efforts with its diaspora.

Read Part Two of an excerpt published in Nikkei Asia on China's media influence.

Read an excerpt published in Foreign Policy on China's state media expansion.

Read an excerpt published in the National Post.

Read an article on the book on Axios.

Read the author's new op-ed in World Politics Review on China's influence operations in Central and Eastern Europe.

Read an interview with the author on 112Watch.

Read an interview with the author on the China Project.