China Central TV: champion of the people with a blurred picture

A series of televised public pre-trial confessions have aired on China Central Television, the state-owned national broadcaster, in recent months and have included British and US citizens being paraded before the camera to admit their crimes. The performances, reminiscent of an earlier age in which political “struggle sessions” and show trials were the norm, have raised concerns inside China about the damage that they cause to the government’s stated goal of improving the rule of law. But they have also raised an important question about the role of the state broadcaster and the balance it must strike between being a global media organization, a commercial moneymaking venture and a political mouthpiece for the ruling Communist party. The question is increasingly important to multinationals such as Apple, KFC, Volkswagen, Starbucks and Samsung, which have all been targeted in the past year by the broadcaster and accused of varying degrees of malfeasance or unfair practices in the Chinese market.