UPDATED on July 22, 2026 at 10:16 p.m. ET
The video opens with an aerial shot of a lone China Coast Guard ship at sea on a peaceful day, as comfortable, whimsical music carries us into China’s newest propaganda music.
“Azure sky, crystal sea, chasing gulls, blazing solar, patrolling the South China Sea, guarding infinite loneliness, infinite vastness, and guarding this sea, this peace and concord.”
The lyrics of the primary verse introduce the setting – it is a music about an enlisted member of the coast guard stationed on the disputed sea, considering longingly about somebody he loves again residence.
In later verses, he asks her what colour the clouds are the place she is, what fragrance she’s carrying, and if she’s ingesting espresso or tea, as a result of he’d like a style too.
The music, “I Miss You on the South China Sea,” is Beijing’s newest try to make use of common tradition to form worldwide perceptions of one among Asia’s most contentious maritime disputes, analysts instructed Radio Free Asia.
The English model of the music video was launched this month by Chinese language state media to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the 2016 worldwide arbitral tribunal ruling that rejected the authorized foundation of Beijing’s sweeping claims over many of the disputed waters.
A Mandarin model debuted about six months earlier through the Lantern Competition, a Chinese language cultural occasion that marks the top of Lunar New 12 months celebrations and the approaching of spring.
Although the English model is seemingly supposed to enchantment to a world viewers, the analysts questioned whether or not this marketing campaign is prone to resonate past viewers and listeners already sympathetic to China.
“China’s state media spends little time truly fascinated by how the message will likely be obtained elsewhere,” Ed Moon, an impartial cross-Strait analyst and founding father of intelligence website Strait Sign, instructed RFA. “Its main focus is on guaranteeing that the general message accurately aligns with the official narrative.”
At one level, the singer makes use of a quantum physics time period romantically, telling his beloved that he would cross time and area to show along with her “what quantum entanglement is.”
However regardless of the obvious awkwardness of the English lyrics, the music makes an attempt to painting China Coast Guard personnel as extraordinary folks with very actual emotions of eager for residence and people they love, whereas their duties have referred to as them far-off to the remoteness of the open sea.
Controlling the narrative
The video displays a broader effort by Beijing to enhance official statements with emotionally pushed storytelling, as China more and more seeks to speak its positions by documentaries, influencers, quick movies and different types of common media.
“China needs to challenge its presence within the South China Sea as peaceable, benign and wholly regular. The concentrate on the human facet of the coast guard crew members suits this sample,” Moon stated, including that Beijing’s state media is primarily involved with guaranteeing content material aligns with the Communist Social gathering’s official narrative relatively than persuading international audiences.
Inside China’s political system, he stated, Beijing’s sovereignty claims are handled as traditionally and factually self-evident, leaving little perceived want to elucidate them to abroad audiences.
As an alternative, Moon stated, China has more and more outsourced the duty of “explaining” the nation to international workers working inside its media system and to abroad influencers who produce favorable content material about China. In consequence, English-language state media has develop into much less necessary than sustaining consistency with Beijing’s messaging.
He additionally famous a rising emphasis on producing content material in each Chinese language and English, describing it as proof of tighter coordination throughout state media shops and a renewed concentrate on abroad Chinese language communities, which Beijing more and more sees as receptive audiences.
The music represents an effort to make use of tradition as a political device whereas softening the picture of the China Coast Guard, Jason Ng Sze Chieh, a lecturer at INTI Worldwide School Subang in Malaysia, instructed RFA.
“An try to instrumentalize tradition and common media, asserting China’s authority to patrol and ‘shield’ the South China Sea,” Ng stated. “The music video is the opposite monitor: a focused manufacturing constructed particularly to promote a peaceable picture of China.”
Defending Beijing’s pursuits
Ng stated the music consciously rebrands the China Coast Guard as “a benign drive relatively than ‘Wolf Warrior,’” utilizing themes of intimacy and private sacrifice whereas leaving the underlying political message unchanged.
“The message beneath doesn’t change – China is defending its pursuits, and nothing else,” he stated.
Ng contrasted the music video with what he described as one other strand of Beijing’s affect technique – embracing profitable cultural works that weren’t initially created by the state however later align with its messaging.
He stated Beijing more and more pursues “two tracks,” persevering with to supply explicitly patriotic materials whereas additionally co-opting independently produced content material that promotes a good picture of China, notably amongst abroad Chinese language communities.
“The music video appears like synthetic intelligence-generated slop, rendered within the soothing type of Chinese language pop and designed to promote the world on China’s ‘peaceable’ intentions,” Ng stated, including that the manufacturing’s visuals and even the singer’s voice appeared synthetic.
China has more and more sought to current its coast guard as an expert drive sustaining order in what it considers its personal waters, whilst confrontations with Philippine and Vietnamese vessels have intensified lately. Beijing says its actions are lawful and essential to safeguard its sovereignty, whereas rival claimants accuse it of intimidation and coercion.
The 2016 ruling by a world tribunal in The Hague discovered that China’s expansive “nine-dash line” claims had no authorized foundation below worldwide legislation. China rejected the ruling and continues to say sovereignty over many of the South China Sea, the place competing claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have made the waterway one of many area’s most risky flashpoints.
Edited by Eugene Whong.
Replace specifies that the Mandarin model preceded the English model by roughly six months.
