Chinese in political communication

propaganda new

Today is UN Chinese Language Day, a day ‘to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as … equal use of all six official [UN] languages’. Of course, there’s no such thing as the Chinese language – there are hundreds. Today, there’ll be no end of blogs on the history of Chinese characters and the richness of Chinese cultures. As researchers looking at Chinese political communication, we wanted to take a different angle.

Naturally, all languages are shaped by politics. But this is especially true in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Over the last 70 or so years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has gone to great lengths to control language use. This ranges from reforms of …