Perception Management - China

China

Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party controls all the paper and media in China. The internet is also under strict control and censorship. The Propaganda and Information Leading Group is generally responsible for all the information controlling and censorship. The unit is also one of the largest in the CCP leadership organ. The manipulation of information is specifically common in China. The perception management is frequently applied. During the Beijing Olympic, facing the criticisms about its questionable domestic human right policy, Chinese government successfully altered international media's attention to the apolitical Olympic ideals by creating intensive coverage of the positive feedback of Olympic on paper, TV, and internet, despite the governmental officers made promise in 2001, when Beijing was still competing for the right to host the game, to improve its poor human right practicing. The images and video captured that night by Chinese media would display only the packed, patriotic crowds and nothing of the rest of the celebrants, who were largely occupied with taking photos of themselves with friends, family, and even security personnel.Hosting the World: Perception Management and the Beijing Olympics JIM LORD Bob Jones University

Chinese military scholars argue that their nation has a long history of conducting "psychological operations," a phrase that connotes important aspects of strategic deception and, to a certain degree, what the US Department of Defense portrays as perception management. Several articles published by the PLA’s Academy of Military Science (AMS) journal Zhongguo Junshi Kexue, for example, examine psychological warfare and psychological operations mainly as a deception-oriented function of military strategy. An example of Perception Management occurred at the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing. The officials decided to replace the originally chosen singer with Lin Mioke, who lip synched during the Olympic opening ceremony. The reason the officials made the decision is because in their opinion the original singer wasn't attractive enough to represent China. It wanted to show only its attractive parts and people to other countries.

The Beijing games were an opportunity for China to show its rapid development. The presence of a large contingent of foreign businessmen, media, and politicians necessitated a strict system of perception management before and during the Olympic Games. Lord, J. (2009). Hosting the world: perception management and the Beijing olympics. The Chinese government had been controlling media to exercise "mind control" and manipulate public opinion on its citizens. All Chinese media, including newspapers, periodicals, news agencies, TV stations, broadcasting, the movie industry and art performances, are categorized and managed as "mouthpieces" of the ruling Communist Party.

"Mind control" includes "indoctrination from kindergarten to college through officially compiled textbooks, as all teachers are categorized as 'educators of CCP' (The Chinese Communist Party)". According to Qinglian He, a former Chinese government propagandist and now a senior researcher at Human Rights in China, by exercising "mind control", the Chinese government has misled the Chinese population from the values of human rights and democracy, and also from the truth.

The Chinese government has also used strategies to manage the perception of their country to the rest of the world. One example of this was the various perception management techniques the Chinese Communist Party used before and during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The government wanted to ensure that it could use this opportunity to portray China as positively as possible by showcasing its development and modernity rather than some of its more internationally disliked features such as its domestic human rights policies and frequent government protests. China looked at its opportunity to host the Olympic Games as "a definitive demonstration of its status as a world partner comparable to any power in the Western world".

The Chinese Communist Party manipulated the world’s perception of China in many ways. They made certain that those who would be directly talking to the media had the "right" talking points; mostly these focused on promoting the stability and dominance of China’s economy. Also, the government restructured the landscape of Beijing to portray a sense of modernity to foreigners. Three new buildings called the "bird buildings" were constructed at a high cost, including the forcing of a large number of residents to relocate. A couple of new subway lines are also built to increase the convenience for foreigners to reach the Olympic village. The government also did whatever it could to make the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics more impressive and extravagant than any before. An example of how they managed perceptions in this realm was the intentional substitution of a more attractive girl to lip-sync "Ode to the Motherland" instead of using the original singer, whose image was considered less preferable. Beijing’s security forces were also greatly increased before and during the Olympic Games to ensure that no large protests could be started and possibly caught on camera by the media. Not only the security forces, reeducation camps, and imprisonment are also made possible for Chinese citizens who made known a desire to protest around the Games. The government also announced a few days prior to the opening ceremonies that three "demonstration parks" would be opened for protests, requiring a written request form five days in advance, although at the end none of the requests were granted. Promotional materials are also made as ideal as possible, for example the slogan "One World, One Dream" referring to a unifying ideal of "love for all mankind". There was even the creation of a slogan, ("Beijing Welcomes You") and five stuffed animal mascots used to portray Beijing and China as harmonious and cordial.