CHINA'S HIDDEN HAND: HOW IT INFLUENCES THE PHILIPPINE MEDIA

 

“Nandito pala talaga sila (They are really here).”

National Security Council (NSC) Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya’s statement above refers to the Chinese presence in the Philippine media today.

If so, have you ever wondered how China influences our local media? Whether it’s the news, the entertainment, or the social media, China has a growing presence and impact on the media landscape that affects our opinions and perceptions of its policies, especially on issues that matter to us, such as the West Philippine Sea, human rights, or democracy. But how does China do it? And what does it mean to us?

If you are curious about these questions, let’s delve into the phenomenon of China’s influence on our local media -- how it operates and evolves in various aspects and dimensions.

The case study The China Factor in Taiwan’s Media: Outsourcing Chinese Censorship Abroad by Huang Jaw-Nian published in the Open Edition Journals cited how China extended its influence by manipulating Taiwan’s media. The study stated that such a phenomenon of China’s influence can be applied as well to other countries like the Philippines.

Two models come into play: the “commercialization of censorship” by Kurlantzick and Link, and the “China Factor” by Wu Jieh-min.

The “commercialization of censorship” model, a modern authoritarian media control, was created by the Chinese Communist Party to transfer preventive control over media content from the government to the private sector. It triggers self-censorship and bias in favor of China using various economic incentives and threats to co-opt private media companies as collaborators.

The “China Factor” model is a process by which China exerts political influence on a target country, say the Philippines, by absorbing it into its sphere of economic influence. It creates a structure in which the Philippines becomes economically dependent, such as establishing government-business networks, developing local collaborators by offering privileges and special interests, and finally employing these collaborators to achieve China’s intended goals.

Integrating the two models, the study constructs a framework systematizing the mechanisms of China’s “outsourcing” of its censorship to private media companies in the target country, like the Philippines, in three steps corresponding to three levels of analysis: international, sectoral, and corporate.

STEP 1: CREATE ASYMMETRIC ECONOMIC STRUCTURE

China today, gunning for an alternative international order in the region, and even globally, seeks to chip away at the current American domination. Resorting to its economic clout as a means, China exerts its influence in carrying through its geopolitical goals in other countries.

This initial step makes the target country, say the Philippines, to become economically dependent on China at the international level as shown by the following headline:

Flashback: “China Visit Helps Duterte Reap Funding Deals Worth $24 Billion” (Bloomberg, October 21, 2016)

Having announced a foreign policy shift toward China just months into his presidency, President Duterte brought home the bacon of funding and investment pledges after his four-day visit to China as both nations agreed to resume talks and explore areas of cooperation in the South China Sea.

Sad to say, before the end of his term, we had figured out already its eventual outcome as revealed by the following headline:

Flashback: “China’s Loan, Investment Pledges Unlikely To Be Fulfilled Under Duterte’s Term – Carpio” (CNN Philippines, June 8, 2020)

Empty promises – that’s how China’s $24 Billion of committed loans and investments turned out to be soon after. Useless – that’s how Duterte’s stacks of extended concessions to please China ended up at the end.

Caveat. Here comes another one.

“Marcos Snags $22.8bn In Investment Pledges On China Trip” (Nikkei Asia, Jan 5, 2023)

Good luck with that one.

By the way, one concession that Duterte had extended that turned to China’s advantage -- signing of formal media cooperation agreements between the two countries that are still active today -- the inimical effect of which is spelled out in the next step.

STEP 2. CO-OPT MEDIA CAPITALISTS

Inside the target country, like the Philippines, China takes in and brings together the media capitalists at the sectoral level, to become its local collaborators to fall in with its censorship. In front of such collaborators, China dangles financial resources in the Chinese circulation, advertising, and capital markets -- the enticing siren song in “outsourcing” its censorship to the local media landscape.

Headline: “How pro-China propaganda is seeded online in the Philippines” (Rappler, Nov 1, 2023)

Rappler hit upon a group, the Integrated Development Studies Institute (IDSI), a prominent actor presenting itself as a think tank and pushing pro-China narratives. Having neither a record on the SEC nor DTI online database, IDSI frequently attacked independent media organizations critical of the pro-China Duterte administration.

The Manila Times and SMNI, with histories of fueling disinformation and attacking critics of the Duterte administration, often gave a platform to IDSI according to Rappler.

Rappler also came upon Sass Sasot, a prominent pro-Duterte blogger, who has been flagged for spreading disinformation, as among IDSI’s supposed “thinkers”.

Without naming names, NSC Asst. Dir. Gen. Malaya said that “they are, at the very least, propagandists or willing proxies of China in their malign information operations.” Besides Sasot, George Siy, and Herman Tiu Laurel being named in the Rappler report, Rigoberto Tiglao, Mark Anthony Lopez, Anna Malindog-Uy, Trixie Cruz-Angeles, and Uere Rebu Bainrebu, though not being named, had gotten their articles shown as exhibits.

Speaking of The Manila Times and Tiglao, among the paper’s premium columnists, oddly enough, only Tiglao seems entitled to be viewed by both the premium subscribers and the general public freely through his website. By contrast, readers of his opposers such as, Maj. Gen. Edgard A. Arevalo, Rafael M. Alunan III, and Francisco S. Tatad are restricted by the premium subscription.

STEP 3. CARRY OUT AND NORMALIZE SELF-CENSORSHIP

Finally, backed by the local media capitalists, the local media’s corporate and market structures in the target country, like the Philippines, play ball with China’s mass communication policies. Structural changes may finally drive some Filipino journalists to normalize self-censorship in rooting for China in the news editing process.

In such a process, two patterns come into effect. First, top-down, the media capitalist or the owner explicitly or implicitly gives a rundown of news editing and reporting to the chief editor, the chief editorial writers, and other high-level managers through weekly executive meetings. Second, bottom-up, the reporters and editors themselves tried to get the drift of the media capitalist or the owner’s message and then slanted news and opinion content to go along with their bosses' line of thinking.

At first, each pattern hinges on the media capitalist or owner’s power to call shots at employees’ fate with the proverbial dreaded “You’re fired!” Subsequently, amid the day-to-day collaboration in the corporate hierarchy, this self-censorship evolves into a culture that reporters and editors harmonize with, fall into, and ultimately embrace as a matter of course.

Exhibit A: “Inside China’s Audacious Global Propaganda Campaign” (The Guardian, Dec 7, 2018)

The above banner story disclosed China’s 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. “Telling China’s story well” means serving the ideological aims of the state.

Exhibit B. “Philippines: Beijing’s Global Media Influence Report” (Freedom House, 2022)

The report cited that at least 36 people from the Philippine media industry went on a subsidized trip to China in 2019, with some participants parroting Chinese state talking points upon their return. These trips stopped only as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Let me wrap up this article with the statement of NSC Asst. Dir. Gen. Malaya:

“We are a democracy and we respect the rights of individuals to freely express their positions on matters of national concern. However, once they utilize these fora for the purposes of disinformation, misinformation, utilizing the Chinese narrative, the ones coming from Beijing, then it becomes a threat. And that is exactly what is happening now.”

Head collage photos courtesy of istock, pdf coffeedotcom, and freepik

Video clips courtesy of YouTube