Tag Archives: Soft-Power

China Turns to Online Courses, and Mao, for Soft-Power Mission

22mao-web-articleLargeBy JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ October 22, 2015

Guards changing shifts beneath the portrait of the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Gate in Beijing after a flag-raising ceremony this month.
Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press

HONG KONG — Karla Cabrera, a 29-year-old lawyer in Mexico City, was excited when she came across “Introduction to Mao Zedong Thought,” an online course about the Chinese revolutionary leader. She has a passion for Chinese history, and she hoped the class would shed light on the brutal Continue reading

China’s soft-power push, coming to a TV near you

AFP By Felicia Sonmez

March 20, 2015 2:00 AM

Beijing (AFP) – A hard hat-clad American TV host grips the bamboo-and-steel scaffolding, the dizzying urban landscape of China’s commercial centre Shanghai unfolding far below him.

“I’m bringing cameras and questions to places outsiders are rarely permitted, to investigate the aspirations of the world’s fastest-growing middle class,” architect Danny Forster tells Discovery viewers.

There is just one catch: both the cameras — and the questions — are co-funded by the Chinese government.

Beijing has long sought to boost its “soft power” abroad, spending billions of yuan on expanding the international presence of its state-run media — including broadcaster CCTV Continue reading