A freight train has to travel 11,000 kilometers to get from Mannheim to the port of Guoyuan in China. Before it arrives, it goes through Poland, Russia and Kazakhstan.
As far as the Chinese government is concerned, even more freight trains are expected to cover this distance in the future - as part of the Infrastructure Project of the New Silk Road. This will strengthen the regions around the Yangtze River and the Rhine, announces Beijing. And: An improved cooperation with Germany in the areas of logistics, trade and manufacturing.
Read on the "Silk Road Information Service", informed by China's state news agency Xinhua to the current most prestigious project of the Communist Party in Beijing, for about 900 billion dollars are available and should allow trade routes to Duisburg and beyond.
THE MIRROR
Several news about the "New Silk Road" is reported by Xinhua about the service every day. For example: Western countries should spend more money on the initiative than originally planned. In addition, the wind energy balance in the Ningxia region of China has reached a new record and the People's Republic remains Uzbekistan's largest trading partner. One success message follows the other.
About the state news from China, written in English, emblazoned next to the Xinhua logo yet another: the dpa platform. The largest German news agency has been hired as a technical service provider and unlocks the Silk Road messages at the request of their customers for them. A note that it is state propaganda is not necessary, it says on demand: "The platform serves a professional B-to-B market , in which is known how the news agency Xinhua is organized," replies dpa spokesman Jens Petersen.
DPA
The trade relationship with Beijing does not affect China's own coverage, Petersen says. "The Xinhua Silk Road Information Service is a pure commercial product unrelated to dpa reporting from or about China or any other topic." The "comprehensive and critical" coverage of China is "beyond question".
Nevertheless, Thorsten Benner from the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin rates the business relationship as problematic. "Any Western media company that claims to be independent journalists can not make its mark available to Chinese propaganda media," he says. "That's incompatible with your own claim to journalism and credibility."
Rather skeptical of Chinese self-commendations
In the past there had been criticism of Chinese propaganda under the umbrella of major media brands: The article pages of the "China Watch" were in serious newspapers as so-called paid supplement , a kind of advertising brochure, such as the "Washington Post". "China Watch" is a direct offshoot of China Daily, the state-run English-language newspaper based in Beijing. The "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (SZ) also printed an ad in 2016, which consisted of Xinhua articles and praised Chinese athletes (read more here). The SZ publishes the supplement "China Watch" no longer.
The Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics) in Berlin also came to the conclusion in its study "Authoritarian Advance" that public opinion about China should be influenced above all by the brand umbrella of established media brands. China is actively involved in "improving the global perception of China's political and economic system and positioning it as a viable alternative to liberal democracy," quoted Deutsche Welle from the study.
The readers of Western media are generally rather skeptical of Chinese self-commendations: "In France, Germany and the UK, it is very difficult for the Communist Party to dominate the image of China," says Benner. "There are many independent voices here, and think tanks, researchers and most journalists report very critically and differentiated about China." Nonetheless, Beijing is also trying to convince journalists and scientists to tell a "positive history of China", as President Xi Jinping said at the last People's Congress.
more on the subject
Geo-strategic major project setback for China's Silk Road
The project of the "New Silk Road" should help. It is not just the companies that promise new business opportunities with the world's second strongest economy in the world praise the initiative. There are also prominent advocates, such as former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder: "I am convinced that especially China's 'New Silk Road' brings people and economies of Asia and Europe even closer together," he said at this year's "Hamburg Summit".
Companies such as the British banking house HSBC sometimes take the historiography. For example, the bank released an entire series of articles on the "New Silk Road" on the online page of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".
faz.net
The confession to the "New Silk Road" is above all a big propaganda show. The topic is appropriate because it is not linked in public with critical issues such as the human rights situation in China. Likewise, negative effects of the infrastructure initiative are hidden - for example, that poor states have already been deeply indebted to the Chinese financiers. So Sri Lanka had to lease a built port to Beijing.
The imparting of consistently positive images is characteristic of the Chinese information strategy, which differs from that of the Russian. "The Kremlin is more likely to cause confusion or deepen social divisions, as we have seen in the case of Lisa in Germany," says Benner. The Chinese government, however, does not work with disinformation. Her main concern is to create a positive attitude towards China.
A scenario that Benner fears: China could buy directly into the media industry. "The law must be put a stop to that," he demands. So far there are no corresponding regulations.
Xi just promised on his visit to Latin America that China would like to open up economically even more - in the future, intellectual property in the country should be better protected. More good news.