China tries to reshape Tibet, Xinjiang narratives with new propaganda efforts

Chinese authorities have rolled out new propaganda efforts aimed at countering Western narratives about the human rights situation in the northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Tibet.
In recent weeks, they have continued to invite foreign vloggers to visit Xinjiang, home to millions of Uyghur people, a majority Muslim ethnic minority group. Also this month, China inaugurated an international communication center to produce content portraying some “positive developments” in Tibet, such as Tibetan people’s growing income.
Since 2017, the United States, United Nations, European Parliament and rights organizations have condemned China for interning up to 1 million Uyghurs, forcing hundreds of thousands of Uyghur women to go through abortion or sterilization, and forcing Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang to work in factories, which prompted the United States to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act in 2021.
In Tibet, human rights organizations and Western countries, including the U.S., have accused the Chinese government of erasing the Tibetan language and culture through compulsory Chinese language education for Tibetan children, forcing hundreds of thousands of rural Tibetans to relocate to urban areas and replacing the name “Tibet” with the Romanized Chinese name “Xizang” in official documents.
Taiwan said on September 5 it knows of reports China has been recruiting Taiwanese influencers to visit Xinjiang and help promote a more positive narrative about the region through their videos.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees cross-strait exchanges, said it was still looking into the recent surge of Xinjiang-related content produced by Taiwanese influencers and urged them to avoid violating an anti-infiltration law by accepting payment from Beijing.
Taiwanese Youtuber Potter Wang claimed in June that the Chinese government had been inviting Taiwanese influencers on paid trips to China to produce content. His claims prompted several Taiwanese YouTubers who have recently published videos about Xinjiang to deny receiving payment from Beijing.
In response to warnings from Taiwanese authorities, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said Beijing welcomed “Taiwan compatriots” to visit China and enjoy “the magnificent mountains and rivers, taste the various kinds of food, experience the local customs, and share what they have seen and heard.”
Apart from inviting Taiwanese influencers to visit Xinjiang, Beijing has been inviting foreign journalists and vloggers to visit Xinjiang since the start of 2024.
In several reports, China’s state-run tabloid Global Times said these foreigners learned about “Xinjiang’s latest economic achievements, religious freedom, and ethnic integration” following visits to local industry, religious venues and residential homes.
Some experts say Chinese authorities usually impose tight control over foreign influencers’ itineraries in Xinjiang to ensure the content they produce is aligned with the positive narrative that Beijing aims to promote, which is contrary to existing foreign media reports about mass internment of Uyghurs, forced labor of ethnic minorities or harsh birth control programs.
“Foreign influencers usually spend time in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, and visit places like the Grand Bazaar, where they will try local food and watch dance performances that could seem to suggest that cultural forms of the Uyghur people are protected,” said Timothy Grose, a professor of China Studies at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana.
In addition to showcasing aspects of Uyghur culture, Grose said, foreign influencers’ Xinjiang videos will often portray Uyghurs being employed and local signs containing Chinese and Uyghur characters.
“Beijing believes this is an effective strategy [to counter existing international narratives about Xinjiang] if they are indirectly controlling the types of pictures that are exported out of Xinjiang,” he told VOA by phone.
By flooding social media platforms with Xinjiang content produced by these foreign influencers, Grose said, the Chinese government is trying to reach and influence casual viewers, especially younger audiences, with no deep knowledge about China or Xinjiang.
“These casual viewers don’t have expertise in China, so they won’t know where to find signs of oppression in the videos since they are unfamiliar with the Uyghur culture or China’s ethnic policy,” he said.
Since China is directly or indirectly filling social media platforms with content aligned with their preferred narrative for Xinjiang, Grose said, it will be difficult for academics, activists, and journalists to counter Beijing’s propaganda efforts with content that reflects the reality in the region.
Telling the Tibet stories
Beijing has also launched a new initiative to “tell the Tibet story well.”
On September 2, several local and central Chinese government agencies inaugurated an “international communication center” in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, that aims to enhance Beijing’s ability to promote its preferred narratives about Tibet.
During a roundtable event focusing on “building a more effective international communication system for Tibet-related issues,” French writer Margot Chevestrier, who works for China’s state-run China International Communications Group, said that many young Chinese people are affected by “biased reporting” on global social media and that these misunderstandings often stem from “misleading reporting by some media or individuals.”
The new international communication center will “enable more people at home and abroad to know Tibet, understand Tibet, and love Tibet,” according to China’s state-run China News, an online news website.
Some analysts say the communication center may serve as a centralized institution to “coordinate” Beijing’s propaganda efforts focusing on Tibet.
“Since there doesn’t seem to be as much propaganda efforts on Tibet as on Xinjiang, Beijing might be thinking how they can use this tactic,” said Sarah Cook, an independent researcher on China and former China research director at nonprofit organization Freedom House.
Cook said the amount of propaganda effort that China dedicated to Xinjiang and Tibet shows that these two issues are of a high priority for Beijing.
“While Tibet and Xinjiang are their priorities, the tactics that the Chinese propaganda apparatus deploys are similar, including spreading disinformation through fake accounts, restricting foreign journalists’ access to certain places, and suppressing information that contradicts their preferred narrative,” she told VOA by phone.
Since its propaganda efforts have been seemingly successful, Grose said, Beijing will continue to employ the same set of strategies to challenge existing facts about the situation in Xinjiang and Tibet.
To push back against Beijing’s campaigns, he said, Xinjiang and Tibet-focused groups should try to increase their presence on social media platforms and create more “captivating and moving” visual content that is “properly contextualized” but can influence young audiences.
Additionally, Cook said it’s important for individuals concerned about the situation in Tibet and Xinjiang to work with like-minded research groups and expose the different propaganda campaigns that China is pushing.
“They can try to produce short videos informing people of Beijing’s tactics,” she said.