Copy Reference The year 2020 is unique for China and ASEAN member states. The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted a huge impact on the world, and China and ASEAN were not immune. Yet, bilateral trade between the two sides has grown, and China and ASEAN have become each other’s largest trading partner. The 2020 ASEAN-China Media Cooperation Forum (ACMCF), themed “Upgrading the ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership through Mutual Assistance and Cooperation,” was held on October 23. The forum brought together many media outlets and think tanks from China and ASEAN to exchange views on enhancing bilateral cooperation.
“As the effects of COVID-19 continue, media from China and ASEAN countries should take on the responsibility to speak out, build consensus, and inspire people to create a favorable public opinion environment for regional development and global economic recovery,” said Guo Weimin, vice minister of the Information Office of China’s State Council.
This writer participated in the forum and gathered excerpts from several speeches to share with readers.
A Global Community of Health for All
The most important issue of 2020 has been the coronavirus. “The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated world changes in a way not seen in a century,” said Guo Weimin. “We have once again seen proof that no country is immune from a major crisis. Mankind is an interconnected community with a shared future.”
At the critical stage of China’s fight against the pandemic, ASEAN countries provided China with valuable support, he added. When ASEAN countries were at a difficult time fighting the pandemic, China extended a helping hand and provided strong support. This reciprocal exchange embodies not only the deep friendship between China and ASEAN countries that drives them to stand together in times of difficulty and support each other, but also the spirit of building a community of shared future for mankind. China stands ready to work together with ASEAN countries to continue mutual assistance and cooperation to build a global community of health for all.
Guo’s speech started with expressing China’s willingness to strengthen health cooperation with ASEAN countries. He noted that since the outbreak of the coronavirus, Chinese President Xi Jinping has spoken with ASEAN leaders frequently to share encouragement and support and jointly guide regional cooperation on the fight against COVID-19.
China and ASEAN countries have supported each other in provision of epidemic prevention supplies, sharing of experience in fighting the pandemic, developing vaccines, and conducting joint prevention and control. Cooperation efforts have produced positive results. Both sides established express channels to facilitate personnel exchange, strengthen mutual connectivity, accelerate resumption of work and production, and restore the stability of industrial and supply chains to promote regional economic recovery.
“Certain countries have politicized and weaponized the epidemic, used racist language to label the virus, and continuously spread political viruses,” said Guo. “This wrong approach confuses perceptions and is unpopular. We hope that the media in China and ASEAN countries will adopt an objective and rational position, oppose false information and stigmatization, tell the story of cooperation in fighting the pandemic, spread positive energy of cooperation and win-win, and jointly create a fair and just international public opinion environment.”
Guo Weimin’s proposal received a warm response from attendees. “The current situation caused by the COVID-19 epidemic demands enhanced cooperation among ASEAN dialogue partners and the international community, and we should recognize the importance of media cooperation in times of crisis,” said Kung Phoak, deputy secretary-general of ASEAN. “Implementing measures to maintain social distancing during the pandemic has kept more people at home, making social media their main source of information. Given the potential for social media to spread misinformation and fake news, it is necessary to explore the role of enhancing the accessibility of reliable media and digital information during this crisis.”
China International Publishing Group (CIPG) President Du Zhanyuan called on media from both sides to actively publicize the important measures and achievements China and ASEAN countries have made on strengthening prevention and control cooperation, enhancing exchange of experience in prevention, control and treatment, increasing sharing of cooperation information on vaccine research, development, production and use, and creating a good atmosphere for public opinion for regional public health governance.
Malaysian Ambassador to China Raja Dato’ Nushirwan Zainal Abidin expressed appreciation for the theme of cooperation proposed by the forum in his speech. “The COVID-19 pandemic is causing fundamental changes in the structure of the world economy, pushing our economic relationship even closer and demanding further cooperation in other areas such as journalism, academia, and culture.” Raja Dato’ highlighted the need for China and ASEAN to promote media cooperation, in particular by systematically identifying topics of common interest that benefit people of all countries.
Secretary-General of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) Chen Dehai suggested that media from China and ASEAN focus on epidemic prevention and control and resumption of work and production, seek out heartwarming stories of mutual support and friendship, publicize outcomes of win-win cooperation, and improve the atmosphere for regional cooperation.
Chen offered three suggestions: First, media from regional countries can promote the theme of friendly cooperation through coverage of work on epidemic prevention and control and resumption of work and production. Second, the two sides should strengthen policy communication and institutional building and continue to deepen communication in media policy, regulation, and development planning. Third, leaders should expand areas of media cooperation and adapt to the development trend of new media, especially mobile communications as the realm becomes more social, personalized, video-based, and intelligent.
The Digital Economy: A New Engine
This year is designated as the China-ASEAN Year of Digital Economy Cooperation, a campaign promoting closer connectivity, smarter cities and other fields. Both sides look forward to achieving greater development of people-to-people exchange and strategic partnership through digital economy cooperation. The COVID-19 outbreak has dealt a heavy blow to the real economy, but also provided more possibilities for development of the digital economy. One of the main topics of the forum is “new opportunities brought by the digital economy for ASEAN-China media cooperation.”
“As a new force for epidemic prevention and control and economic recovery, the digital economy has played a unique and important role in promoting economic and social development,” said Du Zhanyuan. “China and ASEAN countries have accelerated exploration of digital transformation and development, and cooperation in the digital economy has been getting closer, which has become a new highlight of China-ASEAN cooperation.”
Du urged media from China and ASEAN countries to seize the important opportunity for digital economy development, promote innovation and upgrading, and deepen cooperation on the digital technology drive, content production, talent cultivation, and resource allocation. “Both sides should optimally utilize new technologies to provide faster and more reliable information services, bridge information communication, amplify public opinion, and leverage advantages in digital economic policy linkage, new digital economic models, and case sharing of new business patterns to promote cooperation and inject new impetus into rapid economic development.”
Media representatives from China and ASEAN countries discussed the topic of the digital economy from their unique perspectives. Chua Chim Kang, chief editor of Chinese News and Current Affairs of the Media Corporation of Singapore Pte Ltd., said that the digital economy cuts through geographical boundaries and creates new growth drivers that are changing the traditional economic ecology. “The digital economy has enabled companies in Singapore to access huge markets outside Singapore and allowed Singaporean media to rapidly expand their audience while more efficiently distributing content to Greater China and ASEAN countries,” he said. “China is a global leader in the digital economy, and I hope that it will play a lead role in promoting media collaboration in the ASEAN region through cooperation with ASEAN countries.”
Ling Shuo, editorial board member at the International Department of Xinhua News Agency, cited his two decades of experience witnessing the consistent increase of convenience in purchasing goods from ASEAN countries as evidence of the impact of the development of the digital economy on daily life. According to a survey he conducted, media from ASEAN countries are quite interested in news about cutting-edge technologies such as big data, cloud computing, AI, driverless cars, and 5G communication and tend to launch follow-up reports quickly. Some media outlets from ASEAN countries even published or broadcast special reports on digital technologies that facilitated poverty alleviation.
Bhuwanart Na Songkhla, managing director of Bangkok Today and chairman of the Thai-Chinese Journalists Association, used his speech to discuss new media opportunities afforded by the digital economy. “Promoting digital platform cooperation between media from China and their ASEAN counterparts is crucial for China to expand its overseas popularity,” he said. “In-depth cooperation in new media will facilitate mutual understanding between China and Thailand. In my opinion, the biggest challenge for cooperation between Chinese and Thai media on digital platforms is recruiting a professional team capable of understanding the history, culture, politics, public opinion, and languages of both China and Thailand, which is a very difficult task.”
“So far, more than 1,000 media outlets and bloggers from ASEAN countries have registered accounts on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent,” noted Yang Yanxin, general manager of the Social Media Operations Department of Sina.com. “From October 19 to 23, Chinese netizens posted more than 10,000 blogs and articles on investment, studying abroad, education, food and lifestyle of ASEAN countries.” China’s social media platforms, led by Sina Weibo, have accumulated huge strength. Yang suggested forums such as ACMCF continue to be held and various forms of communication and exchange regularly be conducted to provide new ideas for business development on both sides.
A Case Study from the Philippines
Attendees of the forum overwhelmingly affirmed the importance of strengthening media exchange and cooperation between China and ASEAN. But what would be the negative effects of neglecting media exchange and cooperation between the two sides?
Fan Zongding, local news editor, reporter, and columnist with World News of the Philippines, tracked the information flow during the pandemic from a journalist’s perspective and reported: “By researching various countries’ fight against the pandemic, I determined that cooperation between the media and think tanks is crucial and can even change a country’s destiny at a critical moment.”
Fan cited the Philippines’ fight against the pandemic as an example. In early 2020 when Wuhan was locked down due to the outbreak of the pandemic, the Philippines already had infections.
“China adopted resolute measures to combat the coronavirus, and soon essentially won the battle against COVID-19,” he said. “In the process, China amassed a great deal of valuable experience in terms of rapidly establishing virus testing capacity, arranging many quarantine facilities, establishing a sound contact tracing mechanism, and concentrating medical resources for treatment, which read like a playbook for the global fight against the pandemic.
“Unfortunately, a gap in media connections between the two sides impeded China’s ‘playbook’ to fight COVID-19 from passing to the Philippines. After a lull of nearly 30 days following the first confirmed case in the Philippines in late January, the outbreak expanded rapidly in early March. During those precious weeks, the Philippines received very limited first-hand information from China and a deluge of Western coverage of the epidemic in China, which prevented the effective communication necessary to import successful experience from China. China’s temporary treatment centers, for example, played a crucial role in controlling the epidemic, but were initially attacked by Western media as concentration camps. Such misinformation really hurt the Philippines’ preparations to fight the epidemic.
“The lack of cooperation between the media of the two countries enables Western public opinion to dominate in the Philippines. When China was trying to publicize its anti-epidemic experience for the outside world, many Filipinos were busy discussing how the epidemic was caused by Chinese people eating wild animals, claims that China concealed information, and conspiracy theories about the virus being produced in a laboratory. With hindsight, such discourse was clearly a meaningless waste of time.
“Due to a lack of understanding of the real situation of China’s fight against COVID-19, the Philippine government and medical system were not as prepared for the pandemic as they could have been. Testing capacity did not increase, quarantine facilities were not established, contact tracing efforts were meager, and no hospitals were dedicated to COVID patients. It was in such circumstances that the Philippines rushed into combat with the pandemic, and the results were predictable.
“The reason the Philippines has suffered so much is not deficiencies in the medical system but insufficient early preparation. If the Philippine government had used the precious time from late January to early March to step up preparations, it would have definitely avoided the situation it faces today. Prejudice and misreporting on China by the Western media misled Philippine public opinion, causing ideological confusion in the government and among the people and inability to utilize China’s anti-epidemic experience, which led to terrible results. The lessons learned were profound.
“We should recognize the importance and urgency of media cooperation between China and ASEAN and determine how to promote formation of limited media cooperation agreements to conduct pairing cooperation to report on major emergencies such as the outbreak. Both mainstream media and new media can promote free flow of information in special fields or in special circumstances to gradually increase media cooperation between ASEAN and China. Both sides can play an important role in this process.”
Towards Better Global Governance
Fan Zongding’s speech received a warm response from participants. Zhang Liqiong, deputy general manager of China Sinopharm International Corporation, acknowledged the responsibilities shouldered by Chinese pharmaceutical companies in building a global community of health for all.
So far, research and development of coronavirus vaccine has been going smoothly at China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm). “Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed repeatedly that after research and development is completed, China’s COVID-19 vaccine should become a global public good and represent China’s contributions to accessibility and affordability of vaccines in developing countries,” said Zhang. “We will resolutely implement the guiding principles of President Xi and work with ASEAN countries to jointly combat the pandemic.”
To Le Minh, Beijing bureau chief of People’s Newspaper of Vietnam, called the coronavirus pandemic a very important topic for ASEAN and global media. Explaining this, he said: “Since the beginning of the 21st Century, global challenges have only intensified instead of fading. Because we haven’t yet formulated a global governance framework to efficiently address global issues, each country still deals with common global issues separately.
“We need to establish a global governance network that facilitates passing of information and wisdom under special circumstances. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 outbreak and the ensuing isolation and social distancing, the media has been playing a more important role in promoting global governance.”
Christina Chin, chief reporter of The Star of Malaysia, referenced work on electronic cigarettes to illustrate the importance of media cooperation on global public health. According to Christina Chin, controlling the harm of smoking remains a major issue facing global health today, but the emergence of electronic cigarettes created new challenges for global tobacco control. “Due to economic globalization, electronic cigarettes formed a transnational industrial chain very quickly,” she said. “Governments around the world have not yet reached consensus, and their responses have been varied.
“Think tanks and journalists should work together to ensure public health governance is strengthened, which can make a real difference.”
The forum also included the online launch of multilingual e-book Keywords to Understand China: Targeted Poverty Elimination. The book aims to enhance the international community’s understanding and awareness of China’s poverty reduction and elimination and provide reference for international cooperation on poverty reduction. A joint publication of the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies and China Report Press, both under CIPG, Keywords to Understand China: Targeted Poverty Elimination has been translated into English, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian languages.
This e-book offers interpretation of China’s poverty elimination concepts and measures through keywords, conveys China’s confidence in overcoming poverty, recounts vivid stories of Chinese people forging ahead and eliminating poverty, and shares China’s achievements and experience on poverty elimination.
Main venue of 2020 ASEAN-China Media Cooperation Forum, Beijing.
Guo Weimin China VICE MINISTER OF THE STATE COUNCIL INFORMATION OFFICE OF CHINA
Du Zhanyuan China PRESIDENT OF CHINA INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING GROUP
Chen Dehai China SECRETARY-GENERAL OF ASEAN-CHINA CENTRE
Release of the multilingual e-book Keywords to Understand China: Targeted Poverty Elimination.
Chua Chim Kang Singapore CHIEF EDITOR OF CHINESE NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS OF MEDIA CORPORATION OF SINGAPORE PTE LTD.
Ling Shuo China EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER AT THE INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT OF XINHUA NEWS AGENCY
Fan Zongding The Philippines LOCAL NEWS EDITOR AND COLUMNIST WITH WORLD NEWS OF THE PHILIPPINES
Bhuwanart Na Songkhla Thailand MANAGING DIRECTOR OF BANGKOK TODAY AND CHAIRMAN OF THE THAI-CHINESE JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION
Yang Yanxin China GENERAL MANAGER OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA OPERATIONS DEPARTMENT OF SINA.COM
Le Minh Vietnam BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF OF PEOPLE’S NEWSPAPER OF VIETNAM
Christina Chin Malaysia CHIEF REPORTER WITH THE STAR
Zhang Liqiong China DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER OF CHINA SINOPHARM INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION