Josh Kurlantzick’s new book ‘Beijing’s Global Media Offensive: China’s Uneven Campaign to Influence Asia and the World’ is a comprehensive account of China’s attempts to become a media superpower, in a way commensurate with its growing economic clout. The book looks into where and how Beijing has failed in its efforts to date, and explains where it is meeting with success, as well as offering ideas on how countries like the U.S. should respond. Josh’s early career was spent in journalism, and he is now the senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The following is a lightly edited transcript of a recent interview.
Josh Kurlantzick.Illustration by Lauren Crow
Q: In your book you provide a great amount of detail on how China's media influence is growing globally. But you also say that, in many ways, its efforts have been a failure: very few people, for example, watch CGTN [China’s state-run English language channel],
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