SPECIAL FEATURES OF COOPERATION BETWEEN UKRAINIAN AND CHINESE MEDIA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FULL-SCALE WAR IN UKRAINE IN 2022–2025

Abstract

China naturally claims to be the leader of the civilized world, so establishing relations with China is extremely important. As Ukrainian and Chinese media have not cooperated since the founding and prosperity of Harbin (1898–1945), media experts have to revive this opportunity from scratch. There are two obstacles; on one hand, it is the Great Chinese firewall (a set of tools for internal restricting access to the Internet) as well as lack of research not only in strategies of media partnership but total and complete absence of them. Nevertheless, the purpose of this study is to record bilateral discussions on the possibilities of media cooperation between China and our country during the russian-Ukrainian war in 2022–2025, identify their main trends, challenges, strategies and conclusions, and outline, if possible, some perspectives.The study focuses on the conclusions made in the author’s published works (2022–2025); the analysis of roundtable discussion «How the Chinese speaking media cover the war in Ukraine» (Kyiv, 2022); publications and a speech by Chinese theorist and practitioner of journalism Xiaoyu Lu at the first Global Ukraine seminar held by the Ukrainian Catholic University (2023–2024); the interview on «Armiia TV» platform given by Viktor Konstantynov, head of International Relations and Foreign Policy Department at Institute of International Relations, Kyiv National University (2024); summary of the final monitoring «What media of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan write about Ukraine and russian aggression» conducted by the independent NGO Detector Media (2024 р.) and others.As a result of the comprehensive discussion, it was found out that the mainland media of China are still dependent on the regime (although this does not greatly affect their attitude towards our country). International media with Chinese-language branches (including Taiwanese and Hong Kong) are 100 per cent pro-Ukrainian. They are exactly those media that use balanced expertise and call a spade a spade, provide comprehensive information about military confrontations. However, in order to improve the situation, it is necessary to accredit Chinese journalists directly to the war, to establish cooperation with local bloggers, freelancers and the vast diaspora, while engaging new generation Ukrainian-speaking experts who are not linguistically linked to the pro-Russian lobby. So far, as of 2025, even the Chinese state media, unlike Russian propaganda, do not insist on official rejection of territories or changing the political regime, so effective cooperation with the Chinese media is a key to building a positive image of Ukraine.