I doubt this piece was signed off personally by Xi Jinping or anything, but all these little details lodge subconsciously in your mind. Like, you might not specifically think of Chairman Mao as a poor rural dweller famous for his love of spice after reading this article, but after reading dozens of pointless details like it you might start to think he wasn't such a bad guy after all.
shadowofneptune|3 years ago
This doesn't seem to be a literary habit particular to China.
quesera|3 years ago
Some advertisers spend on relevant keywords, others pay for generalized brand awareness. Many do both.
Anything published by a government in a foreign language has an agenda. It's propaganda. In this case, "brand awareness" propaganda.
Maybe the goal is to promote tourism, or to give a boost to exports.
Maybe it's to keep the country/government in the front of foreign readers' minds, to foster a sense of commonality or appreciation.
Whatever. There's an agenda. It's worth discussing and thinking about.
Like with advertising, it's important to know what role you are playing in the publisher's agenda. Accepting the material uncritically is not a neutral position -- it makes you a unwitting player in their game.
You are completely correct that the US does it too, both internally (presidential mythologies, to use your example) and externally (Radio Free X etc etc).