Propaganda: A Four-Letter Word
Propaganda: ideas, information, facts or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause (Merriam-Webster).
In response to my last article presenting the Chinese government’s position and arguments on Taiwan {“The Island That Got Away (and Why It Needs to Come Home)”}, I received the following critique from an American friend who has spent most of his adult life living in Asia:
“Sad to see you writing such CCP propaganda on Taiwan….Chinese people care about Taiwan only because the CCP has brainwashed them to care since 1949. You should be explaining how Chinese propaganda and thought control works and how dangerous this is. This obsession with Taiwan could just as easily be reversed through a couple of generations of more enlightened propaganda.”
He challenged me to think more about this topic. About the power of propaganda. About the structure of propaganda in China. About Chinese propaganda and Taiwan.
The Power of Propaganda
Propaganda and politics are today two sides of same coin. When the term, propaganda, was originally named by the Catholic Church in the 16th century, it was used in a religious sense to “propagate the faith.” The term did not transition to the overtly political sense until the 19th century.
The goal of propaganda is to shape debate in order to both influence and direct results. What is consistent about this, no matter the proponent or the time period, are the emotion, repetition, and conviction that go into the arguments. This is the seductive power of propaganda. If we say something loudly enough, forcefully enough, and long enough, it can become manifest reality. Facts become what the promoter says they are. And too many people accept these facts. This constructed reality has weight.
Propaganda in China
Propaganda in the P.R.C. is big business. The Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, a/k/a Central Propaganda Department, oversees an information ecosystem with tentacles stretching into all levels of the country--national, provincial, municipal, neighborhood.
This effort is at once centralized and decentralized, official as well as unofficial. Myriad offices, bureaus, and organizations, and presumably many tens of millions of Chinese, are charged with directing and pushing propaganda in all types of media and communications, publicity, promotion, policy pronouncement, patriotic education, and ideology. It is an extraordinarily powerful enterprise that enables the Party to exert broad, comprehensive, and stringent dominion over society.
Ensuring social stability and protecting the preeminent position of the Party are paramount in the propaganda endeavor. A major component of China’s social stability narrative revolves around emphasizing harmony and suppressing bad or inconvenient news.
If you complain in China, you run the risk of being charged with spreading “negative energy” that damages the nation’s harmony. Censorship in the news is also extensive. An example of this is the starkly different treatments of the recent Tibet-Nepal glacier-triggered flood on either side of the shared border. While reporting on the catastrophe is in-depth and wide-ranging in Nepal, it is tightly managed and sanitized in China.
As to protecting the Party’s preeminent role, there has been a renewed emphasis on Party discipline and political loyalty over the past decade in the name of anti-corruption. From central policy directives and purges to company governance, the Party has been increasingly overshadowing and thwarting the operation of portions of China’s economic miracle with disruptive and confidence-crushing impacts.
Propaganda in China is well-funded and highly coordinated. Propaganda protocols are also deployed internationally through an extensive program to “tell China’s story well.” This story within and without China is told patriotically, vigorously, and more than a touch it feels at times, defensively. Again, if something is repeated loudly enough, forcefully enough, and long enough, it becomes so to many listeners.
The iron hand of the Party is ever present in both the foreground and the background. And yet, it is not absolute. There is a vibrant online world in which expression of criticisms, frustrations, and aspirations breathe. Wordplays, euphemisms, and metaphors are used to communicate discontent. This online world lives in a constant state of whack-a-moll with government censors. In a place where passions of the people have cyclically festered and then erupted throughout history, managing these passions is a conundrum for the Chinese government. How do they keep a lid on those passions without inflaming them further?
Chinese Propaganda and Taiwan
Now, my friend who inspired this article is not wrong. The CCP has spent decades creating existential urgency over the Taiwan issue. This serves its legitimacy, governing, and power purposes. Much of the Chinese citizenry accepts the One China Policy in concept, though many probably do not give it regular thought in light of the struggle of daily living.
As this relates to Taiwan, the situation could easily go in one of two troubling ways depending on one’s perspective. First, acceptance or acquiescence of the Party line could lead to the population actively and passively supporting war if the government so elects. Second, if the government does not desire war, the success of its propaganda could still lead to domestic conflict because the CCP has occasionally struggled to contain the drumbeat of nationalism it encourages.
I also agree with my friend that generations of propaganda from the government in the other direction could in theory change the consensus and provide for a potential, alternative future between the Mainland and Taiwan. This could be win-win, but it would require cross-Strait trust that is currently nonexistent and is hard to envision since utilizing propaganda for positive outcomes is rare indeed.
Conclusion
Propaganda is integral to Chinese Communist Party rule in China. It is strict, omnipresent, potent, and not going to change anytime soon. This is why looking deeper into this aspect of what makes China tick, and why, is important even as it is uncomfortable.
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