“Whatabout” Legitimacy: International News as Distraction in China

• In Event: Chinese Politics Mini-Conference: China’s Role in International Relations and Its Worldwide Impacts

Abstract

Legitimation constitutes a foundational pillar of authoritarian politics, and propaganda is a key strategy of legitimation. What is puzzling is that the Chinese regime enjoys remarkable popularity despite its unappealing propaganda. Prevailing studies of Chinese propaganda predominantly concentrate on domestic matters or historical conflicts with rivals. This approach assumes that the underpinning of domestic legitimacy hinges upon propagandistic discourse concerning the regime itself and internal issues. This study proposes that international news on Chinese state media serves as a potent and efficacious propaganda instrument, strategically mobilized to shift people’s attention away from domestic problems. By diverting the public’s focus from the negative agenda and diminishing its salience in evaluating the Chinese regime, negative international news mitigates legitimacy loss and even enhances regime support.

To test the hypothesis that Chinese media will likely increase the production and dissemination of negative international news following legitimacy crises and mass protests, I obtain all social media posts of Chinese state and local party media from January 2019 to the present day. Both the Granger causality test and a non-parametric permutation analysis identify a significant increase in negative international news on Chinese media after legitimacy crises and mass protests, supporting the international news as distraction hypothesis. A survey experiment is in progress to investigate whether the intended consequence of distraction is achieved. The project expands the realm of authoritarian propaganda research by recognizing international news as a distinctive and significant form of propaganda material. Moreover, it provides insights into the intricate relationship between propaganda and legitimacy in autocracies.

Author

• Shuyuan Shen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign