Government/Politics - 324. page

In order to enhance its global influence and carry out the directive from the central administration to focus on propaganda work overseas, China has laid out a media strategy to build up its overseas media power. It will "follow the rules of the games (with the Western media) but is also capable of expressing a completely different position and perspective."

Xinhua and CCTV are actively recruiting resources worldwide so they can "bring China’s voice overseas." With projected financial loss of 20 million yuan in the first year, Global Times launched its English edition on April 20, making it China’s second English language news media published outside of China (the other is the People’s Daily). Xinhua said it will add more languages to its online news and invest in mobile news services. CCTV will add Russian and Arabic to its foreign language channels and hopes to have 11 new channels in 7 languages within the next three years.

Source: Sing Tao News Network, April 27, 2009
http://www.stnn.cc/china/200904/t20090427_1018499.html

In gearing up for the 60 year anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule in China, the General Office of the Party issued guidelines for patriotic education. The guidelines consist of six parts with detailed requirements for all levels of government bodies to follow.

Source: Xinhua, April 26, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2009-04/26/content_11262168.htm

For the first time, 49 high-ranking officials in Guangdong province were sent to an emergency management training class for a period of 5 days. The training covered contingency plans for overseas incidents as well as information and press control in emergencies.

Source: Secret China, April 21, 2009
http://www.secretchina.com/news/289248.html

Global Times English Edition will start its first publication on April 20, 2009. The Global Times English website will also start on the same day. Global Times English Edition will be the second comprehensive English newspaper published in China. It will report the world from the Chinese angle and convey Chinese people’ s stance and viewpoint on major issues around the world.

Global Times, a newspaper under the People’s Daily, began publishing in 1993 and is one of the newspapers with the largest number of subscribers in China.

Source: Xinhua, April 19, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newmedia/2009-04/19/content_11217348.htm

The International Herald Leader, a branch of Xinhua News, published an article which reflected China’s state view analyzing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s intention of his trip to China. The article quoted Globe and Mail to describe Harper’s China policies as “childish”.

The article stated the belief that the Canadian Minister of International Trade Stockwell Day’s recent visit to China signaled an important policy adjustment to seek more trade opportunities with China to survive the current economic crisis. The article mentioned that Harper has consistently criticized China on human rights issues since he was elected.

Source: Xinhua News/International Herald Leader, April 16, 2009.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2009-04/16/content_11193852.htm

On April 17, Jia Qinglin, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, spoke at a forum on the Party’s religion work attended by provincial level party leaders.

Jia emphasized that all levels of party committees and government bodies should understand the overall and strategic importance of religion work under the current environment. They should further strengthen and exercise the Party’s leadership in religion work; strengthen research and investigation of the current status of various religions; pay attention to religion work at the ground level; strengthen the support of patriotic religious organizations; fully encourage and utilize personnel within those organizations to play active roles to bridge the connections between the government body and religious believers to ensure stability among religions.

Jia also instructed that it is required that they should actively engage in building friendly relations with religions from overseas and be on guard against foreign forces using religion for espionage. 

Source: Xinhua, April 17, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2009-04/17/content_11200560_1.htm

The People’s Daily published an opinion piece titled "Let the Glory of the New Era Shine in our Patriotism." It states that "to celebrate the new China’s 60th anniversary, (China) will carry out public patriotic education in depth throughout the entire nation. The Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China had a teleconference to motivate its staff and assign tasks, marking the kickoff of the program."

Source: People’s Daily, April 15, 2009
http://opinion.people.com.cn/GB/40604/9131420.html

The President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez arrived in Beijing on April 7 for a three day visit. Upon arrival, he stated that “a new world order is being established”.

The BBC Chinese report indicates that it believes the motive of developing the relationship between Venezuela and China is simple: Venezuela wants to break loose of the trade dependency on oil with the United States, while China wants to expand its oil supply channels.

In addition to the oil trade relationship, the two countries have military and news media relationships.

Source: BBC Chinese, April 7, 2009.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_7980000/newsid_7988800/7988822.stm