Foreign Policy and War Correspondents

This chapter focuses on the macro-institutional level and explores the two-way interactions between China’s foreign policy and war reporting. The authoritarian regime and the media system determine that the indexing theory can be applied in China. China’s national interests and foreign policy dictate the Chinese media in an explicit and arbitrary manner. But how the journalists implement foreign policy is subtle and nuanced. Journalists have developed strategies and tactics to bypass the political constraints imposed by foreign policy and editorial guidelines. In comparison, the CNN effect is not obvious in the Chinese context. The way the media influence the foreign policymaking process is inexplicit and secretive.