Xi’s PR Problem

China has a public relationship problem. Her image is in tarter, reported Fareed.  Below report is from the  New York Times, President Xi has a medicine for it:

China’s PR problem
President Xi Jinping last week instructed Communist Party officials to improve their communications with the rest of the world. Analysts said he was acknowledging that increasingly aggressive diplomacy had not worked.

“We must focus on setting the tone right, be open and confident but also modest and humble, and strive to create a credible, lovable and respectable image of China,” Xi said.

But it’s not as amicable as it sounds: Xi did not signal any change in the policies that have sparked the tension.

“There’s a long tradition of Chinese leaders dispensing guidance for the cadre and the people. Think of Mao Zedong’s sayings collected in the ‘Little Red Book,’” our Beijing bureau chief, Steven Lee Myers, told me.

“Xi Jinping is the first leader since then whose words have been elevated to such an exalted level in the Communist Party pantheon,” Steven said.

Xi’s speeches have been collected in several volumes already and there’s even an app for party officials to study his views. This meeting of the Politburo, the Communist Party’s top governing body, was a “study session,” meant to go over communication of the country’s policies after increasingly negative views of China.

Xi’s plan? A push “to convince the world of the wisdom of the country’s policies that have contributed to those negative perceptions,” Steven told me — “not a sign that he intends to moderate them.”

习近平讲话定调新外宣，舆论斗争“药方”能塑造“可爱”中国吗？经历了一系列外交挫折后，习近平在党内讲话中要求改善与其他国家的沟通。但他仍强调“舆论斗争”，并未暗示中国的政策会有任何改变，这可能加剧外交紧张。（阅读本文中文版）