The nation's second largest corporation signed collaboration deals with state-run Chinese media outlets including China Daily and People's Daily, the latter of which is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese government.
A spokeswoman for Microsoft said both agreements "Expired years ago and were not renewed." But experts say the fact that Microsoft inked the deals at all is a major win for the Chinese Communist Party.
"The purpose of all this is to show the Chinese Communist Party that it's firmly on the side of China and the Chinese system," Cain added.
A Chinese media scholar wrote in 2019 that the Chinese New Media Laboratory "Provides data support for research on international communication effects." The announcement of the deal was met with fanfare in Beijing, where executives from Microsoft and China Daily came together for a signing ceremony and photo op.
"Microsoft does not want to anger the Chinese Communist Party and access those 1.2 billion potential consumers," said Cain, author of The Perfect Police State, an exploration of the Chinese Communist Party's surveillance regime.
"Microsoft has made huge inroads in the Chinese government over the last two decades. That takes a lot of political posturing to win over Chinese Communist Party officials." Since the 1990s, Microsoft has entered into dozens of partnerships or cooperative agreements with various Chinese government entities, records show.
An executive wrote on the Chinese app WeChat last year that Microsoft hopes to "Deepen the fertile ground for scientific research [and] help to cultivate digital talents and join hands with Chinese innovation to go global." Efforts to "Cultivate" Chinese talent include the "Great Wall Project," which was first established in 2002 in conjunction with China's Ministry of Education.
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