It is a land with increasing political, economic and cultural influence abroad. It has a healthy manufacturing and corporate sector at home. It is also poised to host the most expensive Olympic Games on record.
On the face of it, China seemed to have finally broken away from its Communist past to rebrand itself as a vibrant, rising superpower.
On the face of it, China seemed to have finally broken away from its Communist past to rebrand itself as a vibrant, rising superpower.
But just as it approaches the final lap of its Olympic preparations, political issues have upstaged its economic miracle and once again put the country back on the front pages for all the wrong reasons.
Protests abroad and a rising tide of nationalism within China have made it increasingly apparent that Beijing’s ‘One World, One Dream’ slogan is a tad optimistic, leaving the Government less than 100 days to get the country back on message.
“China is a brand, a global brand, and their decision to host the Olympics presents unique opportunities and challenges, as the world will get to see - and hopefully know - China better in a very compressed period of time,” says Craig Briggs, managing director, Asia-Pacific of brand creation and design specialists Desgrippes-Gobe.
“[Globally] the China brand owns personality attributes such as ‘growing’, ‘factory’, ‘big’ and ‘unsophisticated’. The Olympics give it the opportunity to add important new personality attributes, such as ‘modern’, ‘quality’, ‘international’ and ‘welcoming’; and, simultaneously to lose or modify some attributes - moving from ‘big’ to ‘powerful’ and from ‘unsophisticated’ to ‘rising’,” Briggs adds.
The Games themselves were always going to be something of an international PR problem for China due to the event’s high profile and the number of groups with an axe to grind with the mainland.
The Government’s handling of the unrest in Tibet and the subsequent torch relay protests has exposed either a naïveté or an inability to manage public opinion outside the reach of its state media. The hangover of spending the latter half of last century under a leadership that cared little what the West thought of it now means the country has to negotiate a steep learning curve in the public eye.
“They’ve failed to do their issues management properly,” says Elliot Pill, course director of International Public relations at Cardiff University and a visiting professor at Beijing’s Communications University of China.
“If you do your issues management well [a situation] doesn’t tend to erupt into a crisis. The mistakes must have been made a while ago in failing to identify issues that could destroy public perception on the world stage. The Tibet issue, the reaction to it and the torch relay has clearly destroyed a lot of global reputation for the Chinese because it has brought up a whole range of other issues that, in effect, have had to be discussed and aired in public.” Pill adds that China now has to address its IOC bid pledge to improve its stand on human rights.
“China’s not very good at talking about their problems to the world,” says Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of Beijing-based media website Danwei.org. “So whether talking about Tibet or any other problem, they often revert to the sort of language that Westerners find difficult to understand, reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution - for example, calling the Dalai Lama ‘the devil in sheep’s clothing’. Certainly their use of vocabulary and the tone in which they discuss any problems in China never does them any good as far as their international image goes.”
Historically, mainland China has always dealt with sensitive issues behind closed doors, but a move onto the world stage means it will have to undergo a culture change in the way it addresses problems.
“The Government really needs to engage with a broader international media audience to demonstrate the improvements that are taking place and not just try to presume that because they’ve got the Games they can sweep all the other side issues under the Olympic carpet,” says Pill. “Unless [international media] think the Government are looking at those issues broadly and are really clear about their responses to them, then it’s going to look like cover up after cover up after cover up.”
Recent events inside and outside China and the resulting finger pointing and jingoism has exacerbated an already negative situation, creating, or reinforcing, a negative opinion of China overseas.
“The world press would love nothing more than to knock a rising star back down a few pegs,” says Briggs.
“China needs to tell its story, but should not appear to be closed to listening to dissent. China has every right to be proud of its history, its people and its Olympics. But pride taken to the extreme is not pretty, and it works against the brand mission.”
Despite recent setbacks, a look back over the past two decades shows how opening up economically, political engagement and a string of cultural events abroad has gradually softened public opinion abroad on China, changing its image from ‘the sick man of Asia’ to the world’s biggest market and producer, as well as a global power in waiting.
And Briggs, for one, thinks China can bounce back from their current negative image in the West.
“One only need look at America as a brand to see how events - and how those events are handled - can change a brand. The American brand values of ‘freedom’, ‘opportunity’ and ‘equality’ have suffered mightily over the past seven years.
“But, people the world over are wonderfully forgiving when you give them reason to be so. China and America will have a great chance to set things back on course very soon.”
But does China even care what people abroad think of it? Much is being made of the Government-stoked nationalism being spouted by China’s young, but national pride is by no means limited to them. Mainland decision makers appear to be revelling in the confidence that comes with their new-found status as an emerging economic superpower.
“I don’t see their international image as a priority for the Government; their priority is their domestic image and that’s going to trump all other concerns,” adds Goldkorn. “There’s also a feeling their growing trade with other developing countries is becoming more important. You’re not hearing a peep of criticism out of South America, Africa or the rest of Asia, with the possible exception of India and Japan.
“[The seats of] any Western dignitaries who don’t come to the Olympics will be given to diplomats and politicians from developing countries, who are signing resource deals with the Chinese. They care a lot less what we think than the West tends to imagine.”
“Western campaigners do not understand the pressure this Government is facing and realise the very reasonable job it is doing of dealing with modernisation issues,” says Alan VanderMolen, president, Asia-Pacific, at Edelman.
“There can be no better time than now to engage with the Government. They are more willing than ever to discuss issues that are taboo but it needs to be done in the appropriate way and visible campaigns that are dominating CNN and the front page of the New York Times are not the best way to open a dialogue.”
Bad international press, nationalism and anti-Western feeling may all ultimately feed foreign fears over China, damage business ties and be difficult to control.
But considering the changing balance of international power towards an emergent China, it now begs the question, not of whether China has a PR problem in the West, but has the West now got an image problem in China?
“The bigger risk is frankly a backlash from the citizenry against things Western,” warns VanderMolen “Not so much people, but foreign brands. If I’m McDonalds, I’m sitting there thinking: it’s only a matter of time before someone starts busting up my windows in Beijing and Shanghai. Just look back to the anti-Japanese rage of two or three years ago.”
