Press. voanews.com
China's sweeping
claims of jurisdiction over the South China Sea were rejected last month by an
international tribunal in The Hague, but the Chinese government has worked to
defy that ruling with diplomatic maneuvers, assertive rhetoric and propaganda.
One example of
China's version of the South China Sea dispute has been on spectacular display
for most of the past two weeks — a video playing 120 times per day on a huge
screen in New York City's famed Times Square.
Chinese state
media say the three-minute video message is targeting a "global
audience" — in this case, the 350,000 tourists and New Yorkers who pass
through Times Square every day — with the message that China “has indisputable
sovereignty” over the South China Sea.
The Chinese
video appears on a 200-square-meter screen high above Times Square, one of the
most prominent locations on an enormous advertising display that covers one
entire side of the building known as 2 Times Square.
VOA reporters
went to Times Square on Wednesday, the next-to-last day of the Chinese video's
12-day run, to ask onlookers what they thought of the display, and the South
China Sea issue. It turned out most of the visitors they spoke with had not
even noticed the South China Sea message.
Outdazzled in
venue
The three-minute
video, partly in Chinese, is filled with earnest discussion of the serious
geopolitical issues involved, and it certainly is outdazzled by the gleaming,
flashing array of huge LED screens on all sides, sending out commercial
messages for all sorts of services, products and entertainment media.
The South China
Sea video appeared around the clock from July 23 to August 3 on a screen that
has been leased by Xinhua, China's official news agency, since 2011. The New
York Times estimates the Chinese pay between $300,000 and $400,000 per month in
rental fees.
A tourist named
Josh, sitting on some steps directly below the Xinhua display, confessed he
hadn't noticed the display. Near Josh and a companion was Hannah, a South
Korean tourist, who said she did not even know the video from Beijing was
playing high above the street.
The VOA
reporters kept pointing out the video screen to people who had no idea it was
there — so much that they felt they were acting like free tour guides
representing Xinhua.
China is trying
to save face, both at home and abroad, after the Permanent Court of Arbitration
ruled on July 12 that Beijing violated international law when it seized and
damaged submerged reefs off the coast of the Philippines.
Chinese media
say "it is time to let the world understand the truth [about] the South
China Sea," and that the video message is helping to correct
"falsehoods" arising from the ruling in The Hague.
Yet the Chinese
video itself has been accused of spreading falsehoods. It prominently features
a British member of Parliament, Catherine West of the Labor Party, quoting some
of her past remarks about tensions surrounding the South China Sea in a way
that suggests she is fully behind Beijing's position.
West disagrees,
and says she was quoted out of context, because she has "consistently raised
concern over Chinese island-building and military deployment in the South China
Sea."
British
correspondents also have pointed out that another staunch supporter of
Beijing's viewpoint appearing in the video is identified as John Ross, "a
former policy director of economic and business policy of London." He is
perhaps more accurately described as a fellow at China's Renmin University who
has defended China's human-rights record, a frequent contributor to the
state-owned China Daily and a former leader of an international Marxist group.
Back to the
tourists in Times Square. Two South Korean visitors, JP and Mosey, were puzzled
when they learned that China has been renting the giant LED screen to play
political messages.
“That must be
expensive, right?” Mosey asked. To them it seemed like only large companies
paid such high prices for advertising. JP pointed at another display featuring
one of South Korea’s most well-known brands, saying, “Samsung! Samsung!”
A tourist
visiting New York from China seemed unimpressed by the video. "This is for
local people to see," he told the VOA reporters, because "it is in
English." (Actually, there are a number of subtitles and captions in
Chinese.)
Unimpressed
Li, a Chinese
tourist from Canada, did not seem particularly interested in the matter. He
said he doesn't particularly follow Chinese news, or the problems in the South
China Sea.
Several tourists
said they felt China's message would have been more effective if it was played
for diplomats at United Nations headquarters, just a kilometer or two away from
Times Square.
Harvey, a French
father leading his family around New York, said China should have answered the
international arbitration court's ruling in a more appropriate forum.
"Here, you look up and there's a lot of advertising," he said.
"There are too many other things mixed in there with the important things
so the message is unclear.”
Times Square's
promoters have used the slogan "crossroads of the world" to describe
that section of midtown Manhattan for decades, long before digital technology
and riotous displays amplified the dizzying effect of commercial advertising to
the current level.
With so much
competition for the attention of passersby, even strong political propaganda
can be overwhelmed and disappear without a trace.
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