Chirpy music video in English extols China's soon-to-be-unveiled 13th five-year plan

The propaganda-heavy video, entirely in English, starts with: "Hey have you guys heard what's going on in China? The shisanwu!". PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM TWITTER

A chirpy, colourful animated music video was released across China's official media on Tuesday, extolling an unlikely topic: China's 13th five-year plan on the country's economic strategy, to be unveiled after the Communist Party's 5th plenum ends on Thursday (Oct 29).

The strikingly propaganda-heavy video, which is entirely in English, starts with: "Hey have you guys heard what's going on in China? The shisanwu!"

The catchphrase refers to "13-5", or the 13th five-year plan, which will be hammered out during the four-day meeting of some 200 leaders of the Communist Party.

The three-minute video, which explains how the regular plans are formulated and implemented, has been splashed across state media, including the Twitter account of state-run news agency Xinhua, and the website of a Communist Party news website.

It seems to be designed to appeal to Western audiences,with its high production values and use of American-accented English-speaking narrators.

Here is a sample of the often-repeated lyrics in the video:

If you wanna know what China's gonna do,

Best pay attention to the shisanwu!

The shisanwu

The shisan what? The shisanwu!

The lyrics continue:

As the plan goes from high to low,

The government's experience continues to grow,

They have to work hard and deliberate,

Because a billion of lives are all at stake!

This is not the first video of its kind. Many more such pro-China videos in English have been produced, on several major events in China, including policy annoucements and politicians' trips abroad.

They are all produced by Fuxing Road Studio, a shadowy production company that does not give a clue as to its origins. Neither does it credit the people behind the scenes of the video.

However, all the videos produced by them are undoubtedly and unashamedly pro-Chinese Communist Party.

It also hires foreign public relations agencies to promote their videos.

News website Quartz contacted a few of these PR firms, and a British firm hired to promote a video did not even know that the contract was from Fuxing.

It remains unclear as to what benefit Fuxing receives from making and promoting such videos.

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