Authoritarian Image Management: Controlling the Message from Contemporary China for Foreign Audiences

Authoritarian states externalize their image management for foreign publics. While most of the state’s rhetorical and symbolic power is directed toward its own population, efforts at external image control aim to bolster the status of the state among foreign audiences and contain criticisms of it in international discourse. How exactly do authoritarian states manage their image abroad and what are the causal chains linking their activities to their desired outcomes? This paper proposes four sets of mechanisms to explain how authoritarian image management is meant to have tangible effects for the internal and external security of states that undertake such a strategy. The mechanisms vary along two dimensions: the aims of their content or form (positive/negative) and their intended audiences (diffuse/specific). The framework attempts to categorize specific tactics (i.e. “soft power” initiatives or coercing exiles) into higher-order groupings of mechanisms. The idea is to create a framework that can facilitate case study and comparative causal analysis across a range of contexts. The paper evaluates these mechanisms in a plausibility probe case study of contemporary China. Specifically, it draws on semi-structured interviews with current and former foreign correspondents in China, mostly from European outlets. The interviews reveal the techniques that the government uses on foreign journalists to try to contain negative news about China reaching global audiences. These include direct persuasion, restricting sites and/or persons from being investigated, surveillance, intimidation, and the spectre of visa non-renewal. Ultimately if these techniques fail, the government sometimes attempts to refute the story that results and/or impugn the reputation of the journalist. Examining how foreign correspondents are “managed” in China is important because they help shape public opinion about China in Europe and beyond, and thus provides the backdrop to China’s other efforts at extraterritorial image management.