meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Audio Long Read

From the archives: Inside China’s audacious global propaganda campaign – podcast

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.32.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2021

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We are raiding the Audio Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2018: Beijing is buying up media outlets and training scores of foreign journalists to ‘tell China’s story well’ – as part of a worldwide propaganda campaign of astonishing scope and ambition. By Louisa Lim and Julia Bergin. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is the Guardian.

0:09.2

Hi, my name is Jocelyn Thompson-Roll. I'm a peloton instructor and I teach running and bootcamp

0:13.6

classes on the peloton tread. Don't get caught up in the amount of time that you have to spend

0:17.9

doing something. You don't need to do 30 minutes or 60 minutes for it to count. Five minutes

0:22.0

can make a big difference, even like a simple walk or a stretch or something just to get you started.

0:27.6

Start small and don't shortchange yourself. The Guardian Labs has partnered with peloton to help

0:32.5

you find motivation that moves you. To find out more, visit thegardian.com-forwardslash-motivation

0:38.5

with peloton. This message was paid for by peloton.

0:47.2

Hi, my name is Luisa Lim. I'm the author of the piece you're about to listen to, which I co-wrote

0:52.1

with Julia Bergen. The background is that I was a foreign correspondent in China for 10 years,

0:58.7

reporting for the BBC in NPR. Then I left China to teach journalism in universities after writing

1:05.5

a book about Tiananmen. While I was teaching, I started to see all these trends emerging,

1:11.5

started to see China's state-run media really expanding very fast overseas and increasing numbers

1:18.8

of non-Chinese people working for Chinese state-run media, including former colleagues at the BBC

1:25.2

who were leaving in numbers at a certain point to go and work for CCTV or CGTN, China's international

1:33.3

broadcaster. We decided to try and write a story that joined up these dots and charted what was

1:41.1

happening in all these different places around the world. When we started writing it, we realized

1:47.7

that you could see this shift from what had been quite an insular defensive internal propaganda

1:53.6

strategy, which was based on censorship, to a far more aggressive one, which was really looking at

1:59.8

changing the narrative about China outside China and really doing so by reshaping the entire global

2:06.8

news landscape. Looking back from the standpoint of today, the interesting thing is right at the very

2:13.3

end of the piece, we spoke to an analyst called Sarah Cook from Freedom House, and she gave this

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Guardian, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Guardian and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.