China Review News (CRN), a Hong Kong based Chinese government news agency, recently reported that the Voice of America (VOA) is planning to stop its Chinese language short wave, medium wave and satellite broadcasting services. The report expressed the belief that this only represents a strategic change in the propaganda method used against China and that the U.S. is switching to the Internet as the new approach, where U.S. technologies have clear advantages. The article referred to Hillary Clinton’s recent speech on Internet freedom, given at George Washington University, as proof of the strategy shift. The State Department recently announced that it plans to establish Chinese and Russian Twitter accounts as a new means of communication. The report expressed deep doubts about the effectiveness of the “Twitter Approach,” citing that Chinese users have already gotten used to China’s domestically developed microblogging services.
(Editor: The CRN report failed to mention the fact that the “Great Fire Wall” currently blocks Twitter, and that Chinese domestic microblogs are heavily censored.)
Source: China Review News, February 24, 2011
http://gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1016/0/7/6/101607644.html?coluid=148&kindid=0&docid=101607644&mdate=0224002804