ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Beijing’s Public Diplomacy (PD) 2.0 and analyzes how its local digital tools – Baidu and Weibo – have been strategized by the Chinese Communist Party for placing China on the world map. Accusing Western new media platforms of exaggerating China’s potential as a regional threat and of ignoring its achievements, the state has blocked the access of Western digital media platforms in the country. However, it has also adopted Twitter, Facebook, and others to communicate with foreign audiences, providing them with the Chinese government’s alternate perspectives and thereby influencing public opinion, often in line with its soft power strategy. Highlighting the Party’s attempts to shape and manipulate public opinion on domestic policies with foreign policy ramifications, the chapter examines Beijing’s attempt to push its benign intent online through projects like the Belt and Road Initiative targeting the global community. The chapter also studies China’s enlarged public space, brought about by the new media, amidst state control. It examines the government’s strong interventionist role in using new technology to guide PD and internal political communication, often to divert attention. The chapter also highlights the blurring of border thesis, a major characteristic of the new media ecology, which has also led to tensions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang with the state cracking down on dissent, thereby underscoring yet again the new media’s ability to perpetuate authoritarianism while Chinese leaders try to pose as ‘adaptive authoritarians’.
