Weekly Briefing, Vol. 21. No. 4 (MK) September 2019
Shaping the Perceptions of the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China in N. Macedonia
Introduction
October 1 marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The celebration actives organized by China’s government, in the first place the large military parade that regularly takes place on Chang’An Jie in downtown Beijing, as well as the promotional activities organized overseas – including the activities (co)organized by the Chinese Embassy in the Republic of North Macedonia (hereinafter Macedonia) – were covered by the Macedonian press. However, the discourse on China during this period was also shaped by the reports in the international press and their translation in Macedonian media. Furthermore, China was part of the discussion in several important events for Macedonia’s foreign policy in the days before and after October 1, which greatly shaped the discourse on China, its global role, and Macedonian-Chinese relations in light of the People’s Republic anniversary. In this article, therefore we analyze these two different aspects of the perception of China’s 70th anniversary in Macedonia, and in general, the shaping of the discourse on Global China and Macedonia-China relations in the country.
Celebration Activities and Coverage in the Macedonian Media
China’s 70th Anniversary in Macedonia was marked with a reception organized by the Chinese Embassy in Skopje, which took place on September 24. The reception was attended by at least a couple of hundred guests, which included the incumbent President of Macedonia, Mr. Stevo Pendarovski, and the former President, Mr. Gjorge Ivanov, as well as a number of other officials from various branches of the government and from the Army, representatives from the business sector, and representatives from the academia and civil society. The reception organized by the Embassy was at the same time the first more significant organizational endeavor under the supervision of the new Ambassador of China to Macedonia, Mr. Zhang Zuo. Mr. Zhang assumed his position only in September 2019 and is still relatively unknown to the Macedonian public. He had previously held only a couple of meetings with top-level officials, and the Anniversary ceremony was his chance to also introduce himself to a greater number of political, business and intellectual elites.
The reception featured various promotional materials that celebrated China’s 70th Anniversary, including a photo exhibition, a video, as well as a political speech by the Chinese ambassador to Macedonia. The narratives of the promotional materials as well as the political speech focused on China’s economic and techno-scientific progress in the past 70 years, its global vision and its intended contribution to global progress – which was a notable difference compared to the discourse from previous such events, which for example have predominantly focused on China’s traditional culture and natural landscapes, and were apolitical in nature. During the reception, there were plenty of references to the relations between Macedonia and China, both at the bilateral level, as well as within the frameworks of 17+1 and the Belt and Road Initiative. The reception, the speeches and the promotional materials were not widely covered by the media – despite the presence of some journalists at the event.
Outside of the formal reception, one of of the central public promotional activities organized by the Chinese embassy in the country to mark China’s 70th Anniversary was the traveling exhibition titled “China in my eyes.” The exhibition showcases amateur photos taken by Macedonian citizens during their trips to China in the past years, alongside with their captions and first hand accounts of their personal experience of visiting, living, studying or working in China. As such, the exhibition was intended to bring China – often imagined as too distant and alien – closer to the Macedonian public by presenting the personal perspectives of Macedonian citizens who had a chance to visit China. The exhibition was launched in the Summer of 2019 and has since moved through several towns in the country. Around the days of the 70th Anniversary, the exhibition was hosted by the House of Crafts in Kumanovo, was accompanied by a formal reception, and was covered in the media.
In the traditional media outlets, China’s anniversary was modestly covered. The central focus was on the military parade held in Beijing, and on the retrospective on the People’s Republic’s trajectory in its 70 years of statehood. The parade itself was appraised as a spectacle and as a demonstration of China’s emergence as a global power. What dominated the news reports were the images of the state of the art weaponry of the People’s Liberation Army, as well as highlights from the speech given by President Xi Jinping.
In reflecting on China’s trajectory in the past 70 years, Macedonian media used primarily ready-made content provided by international press agencies. There was no original content produced on the topic, nor there were statements by Macedonian politicians or experts. There were no Macedonian correspondents in Beijing for the occasion, and no original in-depth analyses or debates on China in the media. There was only one instance of significant original content produced on the topic. Namely, a well known and accomplished senior journalist, Pande Kolemishevski, taking the exhibition “China in my eyes” as an invitation, reflected on his own personal experience and impressions from his travels to China in the 1980s. This was the period when Macedonia developed close relations with Jianxi Province, and Skopje established partnership with Nanchang. Kolemishevski said that during his trip to Jiangxi at the time he saw a version of China that was still poor and in many ways lagging behind SFR Yugoslavia, and that his impression was that China would need decades to catch up with the development of Macedonia. In his op-ed, he reflected on the incredible development of China ever since, which completely defied his predictions, and the tragic decay of Yugoslavia and Macedonia during the same period.
Geopolitical Nuances
Unlike in the past years, China has become an ever more complex topic for the Macedonian media and the public debate. The fact that the reporting on China still relies predominantly on the republishing of reports originally authored by international press agencies, means that the discourse on China in Macedonia greatly mirrors the discourse on China in the West. That means that in addition to the reports on the military parade in Beijing and the retrospects on China’s trajectory, the reports on the anniversary this year were accompanies by a number of references to current (geo)political developments and their interpretations.
Thus, in most of the reports on China’s anniversary, the celebratory images from Beijing were contrasted with the images from the Hong Kong protests, including scenes of street violence, which escalated on October 1. Another narrative that accompanied the reports on China’s Anniversary was the one of the ongoing trade war between the US and China. The media also reported on the congratulatory message issued by the US President Donald Trump on the occasion of China’s anniversary, framing it as a signal that the chances for a deal between the two sides still exist. Trump’s controversial request that China should investigate the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden also made the news.
China was also a hot topic in the EU, which was also reflected in the Macedonian discourse. On September 27, the EU held a large-scale EU-Asia connectivity forum, which also featured Macedonia’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Radmila Shekerinska. The event was largely interpreted as the forging of a EU-Japan partnership to balance China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In the last week of September, the EU Chamber of Commerce in Beijing also issued a paper that charted a more competitive EU-China relations in the future, which also found its place in Macedonian media and shaped the discourse on China during the days of the anniversary.
At the same time, around the days of China’s anniversary, there were two other events taking place in Macedonia which indirectly referred to China. On October 1, the prestigious British weekly magazine The Economist hosted an international conference in Skopje, focusing on the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Western Balkans. The event dominated the Macedonian news cycle. One of the main guests of the event was Wess Mitchell, the former US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. In Skopje, Mitchell repeated the narratives of strategic competition between the West and China (and Russia) in the Balkans. His message was widely reported in the media. On October 4, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Ohrid. In his public address, he had also reiterated the point about the perceived negative role of China in the region, and warned Macedonian leaders to be cautious when pursuing cooperation with China. His a message was also widely reported in the media.
Conclusion
In the period around its 70th anniversary, the topic of China’s trajectory and its global role had increased presence in the Macedonian media and public discourse. This was both a result of China’s own promotional efforts, and the growing relevance of China in both the global and the regional (and even national) debates, not the least as a result of the proliferation of the frames of competition between the West and China. What has been almost totally absent from the process, however, is the development of authentic Macedonian discourse on China that would thoroughly analyze China’s trajectory and the meaning for Macedonia. In that kind of situation, the perceptions of China and its anniversary among Macedonian citizens are subject to the competitive narration coming from various external sources, rather than a genuine product of informed deliberation of Macedonian policymakers, experts and the public.