The ABC has partnered with a Chinese media company to open a web portal for Australian content in that country, becoming the first mainstream media organisation to launch a registered web portal in China. The managing director of the ABC, Mark Scott, and its chairman, Jim Spigelman, opened the portal in China on Wednesday and were congratulated by Tony Abbottfor strengthening Australia’s ties with China.

The news that the ABC is to establish an ‘online portal’ in China that will allow it to ‘represent and sell media content across China’ has been greeted with understandable enthusiasm by the ABC.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr today announced the Government had entered into a funding agreement with the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) for the on-going delivery of a new-look Australia Network Service, combining television, radio and digital media.

Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr has confirmed an agreement has been reached for the ongoing funding of a new-look Australia Network Service, combining television, radio and digital media.

Then there's public diplomacy. Have we abandoned this completely? What we used to have was a fairly feeble attempt at a public diplomacy function, with some funding for cultural events and expos (which limp along) complemented by plans for some marginally more rigorous programs which were disbanded before they really started (like the ill-fated 'Australia on the world stage' program)

With critics calling for the axe, the Australia Network finds itself in territory familiar to many of its larger peers in the West. But under attack, the broadcaster has found defenders of its soft-power capabilities…

In what could only be described as a complete pasting, Professor Judith Sloan has called for the axing of Australia's international television broadcaster, the Australia Network, dubbing it 'repetitive, pointless tosh'. Scrapping the service would save taxpayers millions of dollars, Sloan argues, largely based on what she saw of the service during a recent trip around Asia.

Though the corporate figures often come to stand as symbols for Western political and media imperialism, state‐sponsored media organisations exist as direct mouthpieces for that nation’s ideology. In official rhetoric this strategy is referred to as ‘public diplomacy’.