In a continued effort to boost the country's soft power, the government has been very supportive in providing training to foreign journalists through various programs offered in different academic institutions, China Daily remarked.
Over the weekend, a lecture was held at the Communication University of China (CUC) wherein 21 trainees from Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand participated. The program is being supported by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education and the State-owned energy firm Huaneng Industry.
Apart from CUC, other premier journalism schools in China have also ventured into this kind of training programs.
Through an exchange program initiated by the China-Africa Press Center, Renmin University of China's School of Journalism and Communication has already trained 10 journalists from African media per year since 2014. For this academic year, the institution received 28 enrollees--its highest figure to date.
Five slots for Pakistani journalists are also available for the university's journalism scheme. Zhong Xin, director of the school's international affairs, shared that participants in this program study "various aspects of China, [build] friendships and [strengthen] their Chinese counterparts' understanding of Pakistan" in a span of nine months.
Meanwhile, a master's program in global business journalism in Tsinghua University accepts 20 foreign students each academic year. Hang Ming, its co-director, said that they have already sent off around 200 graduates coming from 50 countries.
In an estimate by CUC President Hu Zhengrong, over 100 foreign journalists come to China to enrol in such programs annually. Most of these international students hail from developing nations in Europe, Asia and Africa.
"China is the world's second-largest economy and a significant stakeholder in global affairs, but its soft power needs to manifest itself through people to people, heart to heart dialogues," Hu remarked.
Emphasizing on the advantages of such courses, he further shared: "Training foreign journalists in China allows them to experience the country's full complexity, thus ensuring more objectivity and consideration when they portray China to their audience."
However, apart from teaching technical skills, CUC Faculty of Continuing Education dean Steven Dong noted that these media training programs should also include content production courses which can be used as a platform for "all-around media cooperation."