How China Can Fix its PR Problem
Every few months, China unrolls a plan that looks less-than well thought out. Maybe it’s censoring the media facilities during the Olympics. Or quarantining hundreds or thousands of travelers to Beijing over H1N1 fears, even though (or because) the country didn’t bother to do anything for the first three months of SARS six years ago. This, despite the fact that the first outbreak was far more dangerous than the current one. Or it could be branding Jack Cafferty an enemy of the state. Or calling Pelosi a “defender of arsonists, killers and looters.”
Or most recently, when China decided to unveil Green Dam, the software that is theoretically designed to stop kids from seeing porn, but which critics have argued in fact is a political tool that blocks websites deemed sensitive. Meanwhile, Google is getting the blame for “corrupting” the country’s youth, even though Baidu has just as much access to porn. The big difference? On Google you have the option of a “Safe Search” function, which should weed out porn. On Baidu? Since China doesn’t acknowledge that porn could show up, there’s no way to opt out/in. A cynical person might say that blaming Google is an attempt to deflect attention away from Green Dam (incidentally, not the best timing to unroll a censorship tool called “Green” just as Iran’s revolution is symbolized by the same color. Not sure what to make of this, but it called be good. And while I’m getting off on a tangent, I always thought that porn was “yellow” in China, not green. Maybe I’m wrong about that. Back to the normal rant.)
So what is the solution to all of these butchered policies? Well, Cup of Cha has a cup of advice: China should hire one intern from any of the major public relations companies in Beijing. Every time the government comes up with a big initiative, it should ask Bobby the intern, “Hey, is this a good idea?” Think of him as the policeman of common sense. “Hey Bobby, think it’s a good idea to give a multi-million dollar contract to a censorship company that no one has ever heard of and is so clearly stealing the software from the US that it, in fact, looks for updates on a server in California? No? Hmmm…maybe we hire 10,000 internet police instead.”
Seriously, is there any first day PR intern who would not have recognized that, at the very least, Green Dam would need to be rolled out more carefully than it was?
This is a problem with a country without democracy. Officials never have to face the voters, so there is a certain lack of PR savvy that sets in. It’s hardly like democracy stops people from being idiots. See Rod Blagoevich, Elliot Spitzer, Michelle Bachman or any Italian official. However, normally people are a little more careful and at least have their PR disasters privately for as long as possible. In China, usually there is no recognition that perhaps foolish decisions should be kept out of the spotlight.
And that is why China needs Bobby the intern. Bobby, a sophomore at Emory who is interning at a Beijing PR firm for the summer is the answer to all of China’s public blunders.
Bill responds:
Posted: June 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 pm →
Who is the audience of Chinese government PR programs ? You the foreigner, or the local Chinese ? What is important is that the local Chinese remain calm and obedient. And if the foreigner like it too, it is icing on the cake. If not, no big deal. The Chinese government can always do things to silence those. Whatever they were doing are effective, at least apparently. Don’t you see all the Wuhao coming out to defend the Green Dam ? And there are millions, if not tens of million of Wuhao’s out there that can drown out any dissent. OK, some locals are not happy. But they are the silent minority. As long as they stay silent, and not marching on streets, the Chinese government has won, and their friends and family gets the tens of millions of RMB.
stuart responds:
Posted: June 24th, 2009 at 8:02 am →
Bobby the intern would never have let them do something so obviously staged as this: http://tinyurl.com/n3ogme
Dan responds:
Posted: June 28th, 2009 at 9:06 am →
Gosh, what’s so bad about calling Pelosi “defender of arsonists, killers and looters.” I would think a comment like that would only help China’s PR….