A Golden Carnival in the Golden Era?Coverage Summary of British media and Chinese media

on Xi’s Visit 

Chinese President Xi Jinping returned to Beijing last Saturday after his five-day state visit to Britain. It was the very first state visit by a Chinese President in ten years, and it definitely soon became a significant transnational media event in UK and China. Meeting UK royals and politicians, visiting universities and enterprises, even enjoying the prestigious fish and chips in a pub; “Big Daddy Xi” attended over 30 public events during his transitory but fulfilling visit. Faced with a prospective “Golden Era”, both British media and Chinese media made great efforts to cover Xi’s visit comprehensively. And mass media, news web portals, together with social media, constructed a carnival-like media event. This carnival, differing from Bakhtin’s carnival, contained both solemnness and wittiness.

Xi is on AirIt is impossible to make a state visit absolutely on air. But Xi’s visit is almost there. Both British media and Chinese media gave enough faces to this UK-Sino grand event.Through the Internet, live reports were given by The Guardian, The Telegraph, Mirror, BBC and some other online portals. While n China, Xi’s Visit was wholly followed up by Chinese online media giants like Netease, Sina, Sohu, Ifeng and Tencent, in terms of featured pages on their websites and uninterrupted posts on their social media outlets.

Chinese online media giants gathered news from diverse sources, covering Xi's visit as much as they could.

Now let's turning our attention to mass media. The observation is that British mass media and mass media in Sinosphere reported Xi’s trip with sufficient sincerity last week. Huge coverages came out especially when iconic public events happened. In the interim, Chinese mass media, particularly the main-streamed ones, lauded ties with the UK and the success of Xi‘s visit .

The Guardian and The Times gave prominent coverage to Xi's state visit on their front pages. And more detailed stories were offered on their inside pages.

Interestingly enough, 6 Chinese enterprises came all the way to advertise on Financial Times on October 20th, in celebration of Xi‘s Visit and the advance of China-Britain relations. 

6 Chinese enterprises, state-owned or private,  had their full-page advertisements on Financial Times.  For them,  stronger UK-China relations breed unprecedented commercial opportunities.

Coverages from the GrassrootsSocial media is doubtlessly a great resource for the public to follow what is going on. In Xi's case, the public sphere constructed by social media, was much more boisterous than ritual-like news delivered by media in the traditional sense.When searching the hashtag #XiUKvisit or #Xijinping on Twitter, all sorts of live information and personal comments were there - partly positive and partly negative - from the media organizations or the witnesses.On the "Chinese Twitter”, Weibo,  one of the most popular Chinese social media, accounts of currently UK-based Chinese users took over the reporting of Xi's Visit.  Britain-based famous microbloggers @ 英国的那些事 儿(here in UK) and @ 英国报姐 ( UK times), with over 4 million and 8 million followers respectively, led the discussions of the state visit. Their posts were even more timely and diverse than those of media outlets, exerting a great influence upon the Sinosphere.

Quite a few British-Chinese  and Chinese students chose to cherish this infrequent opportunity, following Xi's trace in person and sharing those moments toward their personal social networks  on social media like Wechat. Polis Intern Lily He,  master student of LSE-USC programme, observed Xi's Visit herself with other Chinese students. 

Mutual Curiousness

Xi's Visit made British media and Chinese media be in a subtle relation: they could not agree with each other, but in the mean while, they were really curious about the reactions of the opposite side. We usually have highlights for sports matches. But last week, we could see British media and Chinese media highlighted each other.Coming out with 3 articles, The telegraph paid continuous attention to how Chinese media covered president’s visit, both political and apolitical. And The Guardian summarized that Chinese media were delivery a clear message was: China is a dominant world power. 

Tom Phillips, Beijing correspondent for The Guardian, posted a photo of front pages of Chinese media on Twitter. 

Meanwhile, coverage highlights of British media were nearly everywhere on Chinese web. Chinese media either translated a certain piece of news or outlined standpoints of British media. They were much more focus on the attitudes of British media, not only toward the state visit, but also the “First Couple”. Taking advantage of social media, quite a lot of Chinese

media summarized the reactions of British media on a daily basis via their outlets.

The official English-language website of China Radio International summarized what British media talked about on a daily basis through its Wechat public account "Word Wide Chinese".

Consensus and DivergenceAlthough the British media and Chinese media focused on the same event, their standpoint varied. Thus, consensus and divergence lay in the coverages of both sides.The consensus is that business matters. Both sides agreed that Xi's state visit made business sense rather than politics sense. For instance, the￡ 40-billion   deal  was of  great concerns. Chinese media managed to present the  commercial   logic behind Xi's visit . But does that mean Sino-UK relation will become a real mutualism? British media seemed not that agreed. Another divergence occurred in the unfailing critiques. Human rights? Democracy? Tibet? Hong Kong? Weiwei Ai? All these subtle issues are sort of UK-related. Not surprisingly, these topics were covered by British media last week.  

Unpleasantness does exist in the UK-Sino relations.

Pub and FootballLet's go back to a more relaxed topic. Xi's state visit offered Chinese people a brand new opportunity to know about UK. Rather than political issues, Chinese netizens were more concerned about the pub Xi and Cameron visited and how a suspected United fan was taken a selfie with a City star.When Xi and Cameron were still in The Plough at Cadsden, the name and postcode of the pub, together with Cameron's brilliant story of losing his daughter there, were widely spread on Chinese social media. Thanks to Cameron, it was the very first time for most Chinese that they had seen the head of the country clinking glasses in a not that formal occasion. People even made fun of Xi and Cameron, when they saw the two world leaders flushing after drinking only a little. If you logged in your Weibo account last week, then you can not escape from the posts about Fish and Chips as well. The national dish of UK gained its popularity thousands of miles away.

Videos of Xi and Cameron in the pub became the most shared ones on Chinese social media.

Football is another common language.  As BBC said, the #XiJinpingVisitsUK hashtag has been trending, with tens of thousands talking about one topic alone: football.But Manchester United or Manchester City? That is a question! British media previously revealed that Xi is a United fan. If it is true, then problem occurs.

Chinese netizens, especially the non-City fans,  jokingly called the council “dark-minded tour guide.”

The selfie taken by Sergio Agüero may have the opportunity to be the selfie of the year. Though is was not the first selfie of Xi, but it still surprised Chinese people, for selfie is not that common among the elder generations. Chinese netizens playfully commented that both Agüero and Cameron were too scheming because they stood back and made their faces look smaller. Those non-city fans could not stopping guessing what Xi might feel, when taking a photo with a player from a long-term local rival.

Agüero’s photo might be a good example of selfie.

Keep Calm and Forge Ahead Together?

Xi's case implied that while British media and Chinese media do have consensus, divergence is still there. But with the help of media, Xi's state visit was still a influential political show, for both UK governors and Chinese governors. British media and Chinese media got the chance to deploy their skills while the public had fun. Is the golden age coming? Looking back and looking around, then we may know the smooth and stable relation between two countries is of great significance. “Keep calm and carry on” is not only a British thing. Maybe in the future, as what President Xi pointed out, UK and China can 'forge ahead together'.