China’s bizarre English language propaganda video is a technicolour nightmare

IT’S LIKE watching Play School on acid. China’s bizarre propaganda video takes us on a psychedelic tour of the Communist Party’s inner workings.

IT’S like watching Play School on acid.

China’s bizarre new propaganda video takes the English-speaking world on a psychedelic tour of the Communist Party’s inner workings.

Remember when Noni Hazlehurst used to take us through the diamond, round, arch and quare windows to expand our understanding of how the real world works?

Well, this is just like that — except instead of Big Ted and Jemima, the clip features a jolly animated foursome led by a David Bowie lookalike, who strums a ukulele while narrating the superpower’s plans for the next five years.

“If you wanna know what China’s gonna do, best pay attention to the shisanwu!” the chorus goes, in a cringe-worthy singalong style that goes on, and on, and on.

The shisanwu is China’s 13th “five-year plan”, a national road map being discussed by Communist leaders behind closed doors this week.

Dear Leader.

There’s some curiously animated characters in this clip.

State-run news agency Xinhua has enthusiastically tweeted the three-minute YouTube clip, produced by the secretive Fuxing Road Studio, which has a string of pro-Communist Party English language videos under its belt.

Wanna know what China's gonna do? Best pay attention to the 十三五! See why it matters https://t.co/SgBls5S35A

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) October 27, 2015

One has to wonder what China was thinking with this one; hardly a viral sensation, the clip has been viewed a mere 2,915 times on YouTube, despite being widely reported.

Albert Einstein, a rubber duck, disembodied lips, a mix-tape, a disco ball and mannequins on bicycles with light bulbs for heads all make appearances in the video, which includes a nod to President Xi Jinping’s “new style”.

Chinese media expert Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of research firm Danwei, thinks the production missed the mark.

“You can’t really make what the current Chinese government is doing into some kind of folk song that will appeal to people who think a VW bus is cool. It just doesn’t quite work,” Mr Goldkorn told Marketplace.

“I think for the last few years, the Chinese government has tried to master the language of the meme culture of the internet and new media, and they’ve perhaps done it more successfully in the Chinese internet.”

In classic Chinese propaganda style, the animation seeks to portray the superpower as a benign nation concerned only with the welfare of its billions of citizens — along with important infrastructure matters.

In a nod to the scientists who keep the country’s sewerage moving, human excrement is given the soft-serve ice cream treatment.

“There’s doctors, bankers and farmers, too, and even engineers who deal with poo!”

It’s not the first time China has failed in its attempt to seduce the west with an ill-fated PR offensive.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the United States last month, the People’s Daily posted an equally bizarre English-language video called “Who is Xi dada?” (“Who is Papa Xi?”), in which international students sing the leader’s praises. One young man describes him, without irony, as “like big brother”.

And when Mr Xi’s predecessor, President Hu Jintao, visited the United States in 2011, a billboard in New York’s Times Square was festooned with pictures of Chinese celebrities unfamiliar to baffled Americans audiences.

Meanwhile, diplomatic tensions have erupted between China and the United States over the superpower’s territorial claim to a disputed area of the South China Sea.

China observers will be watching for real news of the five year plan deliberations, with stimulus spending, environmental and currency policy among the hot topics.

Last year’s five year plan set an ambitious goal of doubling the size of China’s real economy by 2020 compared to 2010 levels, a feat that would require continuous 6.5 per cent average annual GDP growth.