The SCIO was formed in 1991 when the CCP Central Committee decided that the External Propaganda Leading Group (中央对外宣传小组) of the CCP Central Committee should have the name of State Council Information Office externally.[2][3][1] The External Propaganda Leading Group was transformed into the Office of External Propaganda (OEP, 中央对外宣传办公室). The office was created with the goal of improving the Chinese government's international image following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.[3] According to scholar Anne-Marie Brady, the SCIO became a separate unit from the CCP Central Propaganda Department but still connected to it and was the "public face of this new direction in foreign propaganda work."[3]
The office formerly had responsibility for internet censorship in China. The SCIO's Internet Affairs Bureau dealt with internet censorship and repressed "disruptive" (anti-Chinese government) activity on the web in mainland China.[4][5] However, in May 2011, the SCIO transferred the offices which regulated the internet to a new subordinate agency, the Cyberspace Administration of China.[6] In 2014, the OEP was absorbed into the CCP's Central Propaganda Department.[1]
In November 2020, the director of the SCIO, Xu Lin, gave a speech in which he emphasized the need to "resolutely guard against digitalisation diluting the party’s leadership, resolutely prevent the risk of capital manipulating public opinion."[7][8][9]
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