A panel of government officials and scholars lauded the role played by China's news spokesperson system and its news release work in building social consensus, managing public emergencies and burningishing the nation's global image since 2012.
Over the years, the Chinese government's news release events have been held at multiple levels and at high frequency, and helped the country's development, said Sun Yeli, director of the State Council Information Office.
More than 100 representatives from central and local government departments, universities and media outlets participated in the discussions in Beijing.
Information that is of people's utmost concern, including those related to employment, healthcare and housing, has been disseminated through such events, which helped both central and local governments win the recognition, understanding and support of the public, Sun said.
During the pandemic, Sun said the timely and accurate explanation of COVID-19 control policies and disease prevention expertise helped boost people's confidence and assuage panic, per the State Council Information Office and Tsinghua University.
As part of its news release effort, the Chinese government also invited reporters working for foreign media outlets to attend official news conferences and provided them with the convenience of conducting interviews at the grassroots level, Sun said.
The news conferences have become an important platform to present to the world China's wisdom, proposals and solutions, he said.
Tsinghua University is among the first higher-learning institutions that participated in the development of the news spokesperson system over four decades ago.
Peng Gang, a vice-president of the university, said the cause of news release work has made substantial progress after the country adopted market-oriented reforms in the late 1970s and as it continues to strive to achieve socialist modernization.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, the progress has accelerated, and played a crucial role in modernizing social governance, telling China's development stories to the world and presenting its image to the global audience, he said.
The nation's top economic planner, Zhao Chenxin, deputy director of and spokesman for the National Development and Reform Commission, said news release work involves constantly innovating the discourse system. Spokespersons must speak in lucid, comprehensible language that common people can understand, he said.
Official news releases must focus on public concerns, and share the details about difficulties involved and efforts made by authorities to solve them, Zhao said, to gain understanding and support of the masses to the greatest extent possible.
The forum participants also agreed that more training should be instituted for spokespersons at different levels, as they are the bedrock for ensuring the high-quality development of the news release work.
The First China Spokesperson Forum was held in Shanghai in 2016 and the second in Beijing in 2018 by the State Council Information Office.
The forums were part of broader efforts by central authorities to broaden the horizons of China and other developing nations on the global stage, where the field of public opinion has long been dominated by Western nations.
China is moving closer to the center of the world stage, and the news release work will play a part that matches China's overall national strength and international status, Sun said.