| After the bloody Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China (CCP) suffered a devastating blow among the overseas Chinese (OC). The CCP responded to the challenge by implementing transnational outreach policy in the OC community, which includes substantial efforts to increase the Party's influence in the overseas Chinese-language media (OCLM). By conducting a qualitative analysis of the evolution of the CCP's OC policy, this thesis finds that the Party has made tremendous progress in achieving the policy's strategic goals: modernization and transnational legitimacy. The CCP's increased influence in the OCLM has made crucial contributions to the Party's success in restoring transnational legitimacy in the OC community. This thesis finds that the China News Service (CNS), China's second-largest news agency operating under the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, plays a major role in the CCP's attempt to influence the OCLM and centralize the production of Chinese-language news. |
