How to Use
Lingua Sinica is an interactive tool allowing users to gain as complete a picture as possible of Chinese-language media environments and actors across the world as well as points of engagement on media and information by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In our system, both actors and points of engagement are referred to as “dispatches” — concise posts we use to monitor the landscape.
Responding to growing interest internationally in the broader impact of China on the global information space, Lingua Sinica also recognizes the importance of local context and agency in determining the health of journalism and media cultures as well as broader measures of information integrity. China can be one factor — even an important factor — impacting the information landscape in a country or region. But it is rarely the only, or even the most decisive factor.
Providing Crucial Context
Therefore, a key contribution of Lingua Sinica is to provide — alongside mapped “dispatches” such as Chinese-language media and various forms of PRC engagement — richer contextual information for countries and regions. You can explore this context by selecting the “Context” menu at the upper right-hand side of the site, where you will find Feature Stories related to media issues in various countries or regions; Interviews with journalists and experts with local knowledge; and Flash Reports, short news bites that report breaking media stories, often directly from our biweekly Lingua Sinica newsletter (Click HERE to Subscribe).
Any of these contextual pages allows you to locate stories and voices relevant to a particular country or region of interest, and each post will also come with recommendations for “More Stories” and further “Country and Regional Context.”
Finally on the contextual side, users can opt to go directly to the “Country Profiles” section, where concise reports (in progress) on various countries lay out key issues — including overviews of the legal and political environment, snapshots of the Chinese diaspora and Chinese-language media, media usage trends, commercial factors, and so on. Users viewing country profiles will also be able to see a local view of mapped “dispatches” for that country, as discussed below.
Understanding Dispatches
The “dispatches” in the Lingua Sinica system are organized in our database as either activities or entities. As our special focus is on either PRC-related engagements or on Chinese-language media globally (including diasporic and exile media), the entities we map are of two basic kinds: 1) domestic Chinese-language media; and 2) other entities, including media, that have documented media engagements with PRC actors. Note that you may also see entities in our database because they are parent organizations or media to entities directly involved in activities.
Chinese-Language Outlets
In Thailand, for example, you will be able to locate domestic Chinese-language media outlets like the Sing Sian Yer Pao (星暹日報), even if these do not (as is so far the case) have a history of engagement with the PRC. We make it a special point to include these outlets because they tend to be more vulnerable to attempts at engagement or interference by Chinese state actors, which prioritize the Chinese diaspora as a point of leverage overseas.
Chinese-language outlets can also provide an important view on the health and resilience of the journalism and media landscape in many countries across Asia and around the world. This is particularly true in countries like Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia that have vibrant Chinese-language media industries and traditions, and in regions like Hong Kong and Macau.
Non-Chinese Language Outlets
As our database logs various entities across the world that are engaged with PRC entities on media and information, you will also be able to locate non-Chinese language outlets like Thailand TV5, which in October 2023 signed a cooperation deal with China Media Group (CMG). Note, however, that non-Chinese language outlets or other entities that are not engaged with PRC counterparts will not appear on our map.
Activities
Activities in our system are so far of two basic classifications — media engagement activities (MEAs) and AI engagement activities (AIEAs). MEAs include a wide range of activity types, from media summits and media partnerships, to official PRC visits (an ambassador visits a newspaper office) and placement of media content from PRC state media. AIEAs currently include just a few activity types: AI cooperation agreements, AI governance agreements (generally state to state), AI localization (such as the use of a Chinese AI model, for example, in India), and AI regional forums. The specific activity types we monitor may change as our research advances. We are also working actively to input activities going back as far as the early 2000s.
We have opted for the word “engagement” to describe activity types more generally because we believe it is important to monitor and provide transparency to China’s activities without resorting to ideological frames such as “influence” — a common and often misapplied term — and in a way that acknowledges local choice and agency.
Uncloaking Vertical Ties
Finally, a crucial aspect of our mapping of “dispatches” is to note the vertical ties of various actors, both from the PRC and from domestic contexts. In many cases, China’s activities abroad — its various engagements — happen in ways that are non-transparent, such as through ostensible civil society organizations or affiliated companies that disguise their connection to the party-state apparatus. Unmasking and understanding these connections can often help bring to the fore the clear state-led agendas that lie just behind what are otherwise portrayed as media, cultural or civic exchanges.
The example below shows an MEA in Malaysia, located in the state of Penang, involving the domestic Star Media Group (SMG), which is cooperating with the Chinese magazine Contemporary World. The planned media collaboration appears to be happening between two independent media groups, until you understand the vertical links of the Chinese partner. The space below the activity description lists the partners, both Chinese and Malaysian. Click on Contemporary World, and you can see that it is tied to the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is generally charged with maintaining relations with foreign political parties and organizations to advance Party agendas.
A Guide to Navigation
How can you best access the “dispatches” in our system to understand how, and with whom, China is engaging? There are several ways:
Start with the Compass Tool | Just below our logo on the homepage you will find a compass tool that you can click to open a search field. Start entering the name of any country and a list of options will appear. Select the country you want, and you’re off! You should see a close-up map of the country, where you can select activities and entities shown.
Use the Filter Toolbox Below the Map | Below the world map, on the left-hand side, you will see a field topped with “refresh” and “filter” options, a search field, and a series of selectable options below. The search field can be used on its own — for example, to search for an entity or country — or in combination with parameters such as “Country,” “Dispatch Type,” “Activity Type” or “Entity Type.”
EXAMPLE: Try searching for “China Media Group” in the search field (using “” to group the search terms), then clicking on the “Filter” button.
You will see results appear to the right, all activities involving CMG. Since we have not selected for “activities” under “Dispatch Type,” we are seeing all dispatches related to CMG.
However, if we wish only to focus entities that have engaged with “China Media Group,” we can select “Dispatch Type” = “entity” and then click the “Filter” button.
In the results above, you can see that the China Media Group is involved in media engagement activities with a number of organizations all over the world, including Chile’s Radio Cooperative, Thailand TV5, and the Nauru Media Bureau (a public broadcaster run by the tiny island country in Micronesia).
EXAMPLE: Search by “activity type” in the filter toolbox.
Below the filter tool, you can select any combination of types. You might wish, for example, to look at cases globally under “Media Partnership or Co-Production.” Select the option, click the filter button, and you will see the options listed from the most recent — in this case a reported “cooperation” between the Science and Technology Daily and Ukraine’s Uryadovy Kuryer.
We hope you find the various dispatches and points of context at Lingua Sinica helpful. If you have any further questions — or queries about accessing and using our data — please see us at the Contact Us page.
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