Propaganda in the People's Republic of China refers to the use of propaganda by the Communist Party of China to sway public and international opinion in favor of its policies. Domestically, this includes censorship of proscribed views and an active cultivation of views that favor the government. Propaganda is considered central to the operation of the Chinese government. The term in general use in China, xuānchuán (宣传), itself originally translated from "propaganda" in western languages, has retained the original neutrality of the word and could be seen as synonymous with the word 'publicity' today.
Aspects of propaganda can be traced back to the earliest periods of Chinese history, but propaganda has been most effective in the twentieth century owing to mass media and an authoritarian government. Mao-era China is known for its constant use of mass campaigns to legitimize the state and the policies of leaders. It was the first Chinese government to successfully make use of modern mass propaganda techniques, adapting them to the needs of a country which had a largely rural and illiterate population.
Read more about Propaganda In The People's Republic Of China: Structure and Mechanics, Propaganda On The Internet, Domestic Propaganda, External Propaganda, Propaganda in The Arts, Influence Operations in The United States, See Also, References
Famous quotes containing the words propaganda, people, republic and/or china:
“All propaganda or popularization involves a putting of the complex into the simple, but such a move is instantly deconstructive. For if the complex can be put into the simple, then it cannot be as complex as it seemed in the first place; and if the simple can be an adequate medium of such complexity, then it cannot after all be as simple as all that.”
—Terry Eagleton (b. 1943)
“[When asked by the judge, after her first arrest, at age 15: “Do you expect to convert people to socialism by talking on Broadway?”:] Indeed I do.”
—Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890–1964)
“It was the most ungrateful and unjust act ever perpetrated by a republic upon a class of citizens who had worked and sacrificed and suffered as did the women of this nation in the struggle of the Civil War only to be rewarded at its close by such unspeakable degradation as to be reduced to the plane of subjects to enfranchised slaves.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.”
—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)