With a Java applet digital clock counting the seconds to 1 July, when Hong Kong returns to Chinese control, the Hong Kong 1997 Web Site launched this week. The Chinese concern supporting the site has enlisted the services of US-based interactive ad agency Poppe Tyson to promote its take on the "return to sovereignty."
China is "beginning to realize the importance of public relations and public opinion in capitalist countries," said Stanley Rosen, political science professor at the University of Southern California. "They're realizing that they have to win friends and influence people through a variety of points and that it's not just the White House that matters."
Poppe Tyson, which has also worked with the Indonesian government to promote its Web site, will provide strategic marketing and consulting to help the Chinese broaden their Web audience. Andreas Panayi, Poppe Tyson's director of international operations, said his firm sees China and its mission of disseminating pro-Chinese information as "just like any other client.... This is the official site where you can get information on the handover - the only site authorized by the Chinese government."
The site itself makes no reference to its government connection, but - short of interactively soliciting visitors' opinions about the takeover - goes all out to instruct its audience in the history and future of Hong Kong. A pictorial history from an "ancient time" through last year, an "encyclopedia" of the islands' history and people, a comprehensive biography of the man who will be the new Hong Kong's first chief executive, and daily news about the takeover are all elegantly designed - if clumsily worded - by the Xinhua News Agency, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese government.
Beginning in late June the site will provide "live online coverage of key events," according to a press release. Streaming video may be used, but no other details were available.
The site is an offshoot of the China Wide Web national business intranet, which is run by the China Internet Corporation - itself backed by Xinhua. That venture, to wire China with a censored, Chinese-language network, relies on nearly a dozen US-based technology companies like Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, IBM, Netscape, etc.
The alliance with Poppe Tyson Interactive marks the first involvement of a Western advertising concern in the technology venture. While previous partnerships have underscored the benefits of applying US computing expertise to further the vision of a "wired" China, bringing smooth-tongued ad-men into the mix suggests that China is looking to new media to sell itself as well.
