Zhao Qizheng, minister of China's State Council Information Office, is really a very busy man. What is he busy with mainly? Zhao Qizheng said in his recent interview with reporters that he is busy with explaining China to the world. In late 1990s the name of Zhao Qizheng started to link with the foreign publicity work of China. He was appointed vice minister of China's State Council Information Office in January 1998 after serving as vice-mayor of Shanghai and he was appointed to his current post in April 1998.

"Keep good relations with countries'': Building a good environment for international opinion

Just as good "relations with people'' beneficial to individual development, Zhao coined a new word "relations with countries'' -- a country's international image. Good "relations with countries also show the overall national strength of a country, which is favorable to making the voice of the country heard in the world's arena and to better safeguarding the country's interests. The mainstream media will play a special role in the opinion environment of the world. So to create a good "relations with countries'' the publicity media of our country have special mission.

With more than 20 years of work experience in Shanghai, which is in the forefront of China's economic reforms and opening up to the outside world, Zhao knows very well the significance of letting the world understand China. He said China has made rapid progress in various aspects since implementing the guidelines of reforms and opening up to the outside world established by Deng Xiaoping. China has played an important role in the international arena no matter in politics or in economics. It is very evident for China to give a full play to a big power. Several years ago Comrade Jiang Zemin successfully visited many countries and established strategic partnerships with many countries. He led Chinese people to enter into the center of the world's arena, thus playing an important role in promoting peace and development in the world. Nowadays President Hu Jintao has also paid successful visits to many countries and taken part in many international conferences, which is beneficial to letting the world know more about China.

Zhao believes that the importance of enhancing and improving the foreign publicity work in the new century should be fully understood and efforts should be made to create a good international opinion environment for building a well-off society in an all-round way in the country so as to make our country win initiative in the complicated and fierce international competition, thus making contributions to the safeguard of the national stability and to the promotion of the reunification of the motherland.

Due to historical and realistic reasons foreign countries have not enough understanding of China or even there are many misunderstandings. Therewith Zhao said that to change such conditions it is the best way to intensify the news reports about China's social development and to tell the world something about China's history, current situation and policies.

Zhao said generally speaking, foreigners have always come to know China through concrete places and personages. In the age of reforms and opening up to the outside world the publicity work should be focused on establishing the new image of China's civilization and development and on promoting the international society's understanding of China in order to create a sound international environment for the construction and central work of China.

"Methods": Know the domestic conditions and the outside world

Zhao advocates that difference in the publicity work should be made between foreigners and our own people. For example, what foreign audiences are interested in the issues is different from those domestic audiences are concerned. The publicity work should be focused on the research of foreigners' interested issues and reading habit. As our audiences are foreigners we should tell things in their way of thinking and reading habit. Otherwise we will fail. In one word only by paying attention to ways can we achieve good results.

In the past people often said publicizing China to the world. Zhao said the word "explanation'' should be used here in order to avoid misunderstanding. The English word "propaganda'' has been used for too many times in history. The meaning of the word is quite different from the meaning of publicity used in Chinese. In the present situation, it is the best way for China to intensify the accuracy, transparency and effectiveness of news reporting. So he would like to describe the foreign publicity work as "presentation'', "explanation'' and "dissemination''. That is to tell the world of China's existence and to disseminate the civilization and culture of China.

To put foreign publicity work into practice we are urged to know the domestic conditions and the outside world. Zhao thinks that by knowing the outside world we mean that the progress and culture of the outside world should be understood while by "knowing the domestic situation we mean that China's realistic conditions should be understood. For example, when talking of the development zones in China, we cannot make it clearly if we do not know Shenzhen and Pudong development zones. Involving China's actual conditions the politics, economics and culture of China should be talked of. Without enough knowledge for these areas, there will be no powerful publicity.

In foreign publicity practice Zhao often said that attention should be paid to the effectiveness for each piece of work. He said foreign publicity work should be divided into different layers of work. There exist three different layers in China's foreign publicity work: the basic conditions, the current political news and the explanations of hot issues. In the basic conditions of China, the contents should be what we want to tell foreigners and what foreigners will be most concerned about. In current political news, efficient release of important, especially, breaking-news events should be made. In the explanation of hot issues pointed comments and arguing should be focused on.

"Results'': there are obvious changes

Talking of the actual conditions of the foreign publicity work Zhao said that with the accelerated media reform in recent years there are more voices from China on the world's arena, which, however, does not adapt to China's present status and functions in the world that should be given play to.

He asked, "How will foreigners know China?'' Many foreign media have made research on our Chinese contents. Many foreigners' impressions of China may come from their visits or from their receiving Chinese people. One does not get in touch with all the more than 30 municipalities and provinces and the 1.3 billion people at the same time, which is absolute. One must know China through the partial understanding of China instead of the whole. As a result, each Chinese can play a role in disseminating China's image. However, the more impacts China has brought to the world are made through our mainstream media. It is a pity that our media are not very powerful. There is short of newspaper and TV group playing a great role in the world.

Hence now it is the biggest problem to make our media powerful and to build a batch of media with international competitiveness so that our media can exert more influence on international issues. The corresponding improvement of our media's reporting methods will make our foreign publicity reports more close to the reading habit and way of thinking of foreign audiences.

With the help of the State Council Information Office there is a great advance in China's publicity work. The improvement appreciated by foreign media is that the government news-release system featuring spokespersons for the State Council has improved the government information dissemination. Each month the mainstream media from foreign countries will receive many invitation letters from the State Council Information Office. All the topics including the Taiwan issue and macro-control measures they are concerned about are included in the press conferences.

Zhao introduced that through efforts a three-tier government news-release system featuring spokespersons for the State Council, all central government ministries and provincial-level governments has been established. Last year, the information office held 60 press conferences. The office has held more than 10 batches spokesperson-training classes and trained thousands of new spokespersons.

The reform and opening up has brought rapid economic development to China with further improvement of China's international image and status. China has drawn more attention from the world. All these have provided our media with a favorable environment for accelerating growth. Zhao believes that our foreign publicity media will have bright prospects with a great room for development.

By People's Daily Online