2025 South and Southeast Asian Media Network Annual Meeting
The 2025 South and Southeast Asian Media Network Annual Meeting (2025南亞東南亞媒體聯盟年會) was held on September 5, 2025, in Kunming, bringing together representatives from 11 countries including China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, India, and Sri Lanka. The event featured what Chinese state media characterized as “high-level participation” from propaganda and information ministers, underscoring the official and diplomatic core of what the Chinese hosts portrayed as a meeting about regional media cooperation. China Daily publisher Qu Yingpu (曲瑩璞) and Yunnan’s top propaganda official, Zeng Yan (曾艷), delivered keynote addresses. Zeng emphasized the need to build “a more united model of global media cooperation” (更團結的世界媒體合作典範) — a reference to China’s ambition of creating media industry blocs to counter what the leadership regards as an imbalance in Western dominance of global public opinion. Attendees launched new cooperation projects and discussed leveraging artificial intelligence for regional media development, with Myanmar’s information minister noting the need to learn from China’s technological advances. The meeting presented itself as a platform for “Global South” media collaboration while advancing China’s narrative influence through coordinated messaging and technology transfer initiatives. Among the foreign participants mentioned in news reporting was Vansay Tavinyan, editor-in-chief of Pasaxon newspaper (Laos); representatives from the Thai News Agency under Thailand’s state-owned public broadcaster, MCOT (Mass Communication Organization of Thailand); Qing Lian, the head of Cambodia’s Ministry of Information; and U Maung Maung Ohn, Myanmar’s information minister.
