Layalina Productions, Inc. | The Layalina Review: "China Launches Arabic-Speaking Channel"

The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 16, July 17-July 30, 2009

China Launches Arabic-Speaking Channel

Chinese state television launched a 24-hour Arabic-language channel targeting the Middle East and Africa in an effort to expand its influence abroad, reports The Chicago Tribune.

The channel will air in 22 Arabic-speaking countries and reach a population of close to 300 million people. At first, the channel will carry news, feature stories, entertainment and educational programs, but plans are in place to gradually expand the offerings.

The move is part of a program of international expansion by the state-controlled media to promote China's image abroad. Dawn reports that the propaganda chief declared, “'We must increase our broadcasting capacity to positively influence international public opinion and to give a good image of our nation.”

Zhang Changming, China Central Television (CCTV) vice president, claimed that the new channel “will serve as an important bridge to strengthen communication and understanding between China and Arab countries,” writes The Chicago Tribune.

The aim of the new channel is to address the “distorted” opinions about China in the Middle East and North Africa, reports Al-Jazeera. Through the Arabic channel, “the world can know China and China can know the rest of the world even better,” claims Changming.

Ying Chan, director of Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Center, claims that broadcasting in Arabic will be a way to counter “unfair” portrayals of China in the media.

“They want to announce their policies more to the world, and they also felt that the international media, led by the Western media, has not been fair to China,” stated Chan, according to Al-Jazeera.

The launch of the Arabic channel coincides with an era of rapid economic growth and rising global influence for China. More than half of the nation’s imported oil and natural gas comes from the Middle East, and analysts claim that the growing commercial ties between the two regions have redefined geopolitics, reports Arab News.

Michael Hedges of followthemedia.com, explains the historical significance of broadcasting in the Middle East. “The rush to set up Arabic language satellite channels targeting the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region started after the first Persian War. During that conflict the Arabic speaking public tuned to CNN’s live coverage often rebroadcast locally or available on cable systems.”

Hedges explains that this shift in attention by Western international media from Eastern Europe to the MENA region has taken place relatively recently.

“It is imperative for us to be a multi-language, multi-faceted and multi-perspective broadcaster,” said Changming, in response to the number of other foreign broadcasts in the area, reports BBC.

However, Changming did not mention the restrictions on which stories the new channel will cover in light of routine censorship by the Chinese government. He also failed to explain how China would be able to counter the “distorted” views the new channel was created to address, if Chinese media remains censored even abroad.

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