Exporting censorship, the Chinese way

Autocratic states are not only imposing censorship on their people. They also try to export it abroad. They have been doing for decades.
It can be repressive: with examples ranging from the libel case submitted by former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein against the editor in chief of the Paris liberal newsweekly Le Nouvel Observateur to pressures exercised against diaspora journalists.
It can be seductive: funding news media or research institutions that present a positive image of the country and partly sweep away critical views from the public sphere. Deposed Tunisian leader Ben Ali for instance funded Paris publications or activated his friends in French media to excise critical stories about his reign.
China seems to be systematic in its endeavor to control its message abroad. "China's censorship and propaganda apparatus is not just an influential model for other authoritarian states. It is also increasingly designed to reach outside China's borders and affect the discourse in democratic and developing countries around the world, writes Arch Puddington, vice-president for research of Freedom House.
This article provides a few examples of this externalization of censorship, how it works sometimes subtly sometimes more rudely. In a globalized world censorship is inevitably becoming global.