Thorsten Pattberg with YANG Rui, famed Chinese journalist and CCTV International Presenter

YANG RUI and Thorsten Pattberg, Beijing Forum 2013

BEIJING FORUM 2013 – No other media figure has helped to accommodate if not to shape China’s rise more in the recent decade than YANG Rui, the CCTV International Presenter and host of ‘Dialogue’, an English-speaking political TV program. Mr. Yang has been called the Larry King of China, and his show Dialogue is watched by tens of millions. He recently drew criticism in particular for his anti-foreign, xenophobic remarks on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, and in general for his aggressive personality and stance against foreign media that tends to report China in an unfavorable light. I met him at the Alliance of Civilizations meeting during the Beijing Forum 2013, where he shared his views on how China should be presented and respected by international media, and how especially CCTV tries to convey a China image from the point of view of the majority of the Chinese, which is naturally and often very different from Western-based media. Mr. Yang enjoys cult-status and has attracted a huge fellowship of Chinese students who regularly flock to his CCTV show(s) not only to student current international affairs and culture trends but also to study Political and Culture English. Among expats and foreign students in China, Yang Rui is known as probably the most international and recognizable Chinese media personality of the decade. [VISIT EAST-WEST DICHOTOMY]