CS Monitor: China is ramping up its media abroad – and not just in Chinese
Note: this article was originally published in the Christian Science Monitor
As Hong Kong protesters staged huge marches last month over a bill to allow extradition to China, some of Seattle’s Chinese-speaking residents knew nothing about the demonstrations.
One reason: For their news, they rely on China’s propaganda outlets, which didn’t cover the large-scale, politically sensitive demonstrations in the semi-autonomous southern Chinese port city.
“I didn’t hear about any protests in Hong Kong,” says a health worker who moved to Seattle 11 years ago from China’s Guangdong Province, which borders Hong Kong. “I get all my news online from Sina.com – it’s very popular here,” she says, referring to the website of a Chinese technology company that runs news from China’s state-owned media. She declined to be quoted by name.