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ID: 182702

Barking Without Biting: Understanding Chinese Media Campaigns During Foreign Policy Disputes / Wang, Frances Yaping

Wang, Frances Yaping	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

What motivates Chinese media campaigns during foreign policy disputes, and how are they carried out? “Influence campaigns” are often recognized as highly pertinent to international security, yet they remain understudied. This article develops and tests a theory that explains these media campaigns as strategic actions to align domestic public opinion when it deviates from the state’s preferred foreign policy, exploiting the media’s mobilization or pacification effect. These divergent media effects correspond to two types of media campaigns, respectively—mobilization campaigns and pacification campaigns. The pacification campaigns are particularly important because they indicate that hawkish rhetoric may counterintuitively pacify the public, and hence its adoption implies a moderate foreign policy intent. A medium-N congruence test of 21 Chinese diplomatic crises and process tracing of the 2016 Sino-Philippines arbitration case offer strong support for the theory and demonstrate how a pacification campaign works and how it differs from a mobilization campaign.

Key Words

Chinese Media Campaigns ; Foreign Policy Disputes

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ID: 167483

Jawing through Crises: Chinese and Vietnamese Media Strategies in the South China Sea / Wang, Frances Yaping; Womack, Brantly

Womack, Brantly	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

Winston Churchill once said, ‘it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.’ However, negotiations are particularly difficult when they are enmeshed in public opinion precommitments. The sharpest crisis between China and Vietnam in the last 30 years concerned the placement of a Chinese oil rig into contested waters in 2014. This study analyses the Chinese and Vietnamese propaganda efforts surrounding the crisis as examples of the instrumental use of propaganda in managing domestic public opinion on diplomatic crises. The article argues that despite very different approaches to public diplomacy during the crisis, both states were primarily concerned with avoiding escalation and ending the confrontation. The authors show how propaganda function as a pacifying device in dealing with rising domestic nationalism when executing a moderate foreign policy.

Key Words

South China Sea ; Chinese ; Vietnamese ; Media Strategies

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