中文
By Ibrahim Khalil Ahasan
Journalists cannot understand a region by reading about it alone. At the Asia-Pacific Media Forum, firsthand encounters across the Greater Bay Area showed how media can strengthen understanding and cooperation.
What does a journalist understand differently after seeing an automated port at work, riding a high-speed metro, walking through an electric-vehicle factory or standing inside a zero-carbon laboratory? That question was answered before the Asia-Pacific Media Forum opened in Shenzhen on Sept. 5.
A guest takes photos of the logo of the Asia-Pacific Media Forum outside the venue of the forum in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Sept. 5, 2026. [Photo by Li An/Xinhua]
Instead of beginning with speeches, many participants traveled through various cities in south China's Guangdong province, including Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Zhongshan, visiting factories, logistics centers, technology companies, energy facilities and communities. They saw the Greater Bay Area (GBA) not as an abstract economic concept but as a working network of manufacturing, innovation, infrastructure and human activity. There is a lesson here for journalism: in a region as diverse and interconnected as the Asia-Pacific, seeing one another more accurately may be the first step toward trusting one another more deeply.
That matters because the Asia-Pacific is too economically important to be governed by distorted perceptions. APEC's 21 member economies were home to about 3 billion people in 2025, or 36.6% of the world's population. They generated $57.5 trillion in real GDP and accounted for 59.4% of global merchandise and commercial services trade.
When economies are connected on this scale, information itself becomes part of the infrastructure of cooperation, while professional, factual journalism serves as the cornerstone of cross-regional communication, bridging ideological and geographical divides amid rising global misinformation and fragmented public opinion. As U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming told the forum, facts are essential to trust, and trust is essential to a shared reality.
A misleading account of an economic policy can discourage investment. An exaggerated security narrative can turn commercial competition into geopolitical suspicion. A false report about a supply chain disruption can unsettle businesses thousands of kilometers away. Misinformation is therefore not merely a problem for newsrooms; it carries economic costs.
That is why the media's role in building an Asia-Pacific community should not be reduced to promoting a positive image of regional cooperation. The harder and more valuable task is to create a shared information environment without demanding a single viewpoint. That distinction is crucial. The Asia-Pacific does not need one voice. It needs many voices that can hear one another.
The Shenzhen Consensus adopted at the forum offers a practical foundation. More than 400 delegates from over 40 countries and regions took part, including participants from more than 200 mainstream media outlets, think tanks, government institutions, U.N. agencies and international organizations. Sixteen founding organizations jointly established the Organizing Committee of the Asia-Pacific Media Partnership Program.
The consensus called for openness, innovation and cooperation, support for multilateral trade, stronger regional connectivity, stable industrial and supply chains, digital and green development, truthful and objective reporting and deeper media cooperation. The forum also launched the "Gather in Shenzhen, Create a Better Asia-Pacific" Media Cooperation Initiative, which focuses on technology sharing, content co-creation and talent development.
But a consensus becomes meaningful only when it changes what journalists actually do. The next stage should be a shift from reporting about one another to reporting with one another.
There are already signs of that transition. Eight Chinese members of the partnership's organizing committee exchanged cooperation documents with foreign counterparts covering news exchange, joint reporting, content production, professional exchanges and new media technologies. Agreements involving People's Daily, Xinhua, China International Communications Group (CICG) and media partners in Peru, Myanmar and Russia point to long-term professional links rather than occasional meetings.
The agreement between CICG and Russia's TV-Novosti is one example of this expanding network. Alongside CICG's publishing work in more than 40 languages and its regular journalist exchanges, such cooperation suggests a simple approach: build direct media-to-media links and let more content, ideas and people move between China and the wider world.
Chinese policymakers increasingly treat media cooperation not as an afterthought to diplomacy but as part of the infrastructure of international relations. Media agreements are now routinely signed alongside broader deals during high-level visits and exchanges. In 2026, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Russia and Thailand deepened ties with Chinese counterparts including Xinhua, China Daily and China Media Group, covering news and content exchange, joint production, digital news technologies, training exchanges and efforts to counter misinformation.
The partnership between South China Morning Post and Nanfang Media Group aims to carry stories of the GBA to wider global audiences. Such arrangements matter because government-to-government relations alone cannot create mutual understanding among societies. People need to encounter one another through professional networks, cultural exchanges and credible reporting, and media partnerships can serve as one of those bridges.
Huang Can, editor-in-chief of Nanfang Media Group, called for closer ties with more Asia-Pacific media partners to share regional opportunities, strengthen people-to-people connectivity, uphold journalistic principles and offer the world a real, three-dimensional and comprehensive picture of the Asia-Pacific.
CICG's ASEAN-China Media Cooperation Forum in Shenyang in June launched the "ASEAN-China Social Media Content Creators Program" and the "2026 ASEAN-China Youth Cultural Heritage Tour." Such initiatives let journalists, creators and young people exchange experiences directly rather than rely on second-hand perceptions.
The objective should not be promotional journalism. A factory project should be scrutinized, an infrastructure investment examined for its benefits and risks, and a new technology assessed critically. But balanced reporting also means allowing development successes and practical cooperation to be seen.
A journalist who has worked with a colleague from another country is less likely to see that country only through a breaking-news headline. A newsroom that can verify information directly with a partner abroad is less vulnerable to the rumors, propaganda and disinformation circulating on social media. A reporter who has visited another society's factory, university or rural community can tell a more complicated story than one assembled entirely from hearsay.
The forum's field visits showed why this matters. They were not simply showcases of Chinese development. They gave journalists a closer look at how China's high-quality development is affecting jobs, trade, energy and everyday life, and at which experiences might transfer to other countries and which might not.
Shenzhen itself illustrates the scale of transformation that journalism can explain through evidence rather than slogans. The city's GDP grew from about 270 million yuan in 1980 to 3.68 trillion yuan ($548 billion) in 2024, while foreign trade reached roughly 4.5 trillion yuan. The same principle should apply across the Asia-Pacific. A factory in Vietnam, a port in Malaysia, a digital-payment platform in Indonesia, a renewable energy project in Pakistan or a climate resilience project in the Maldives should not be treated as isolated national stories. Together, they show how the region is changing.
The Asia-Pacific is too often covered through its crises and conflicts, while everyday stories of growth, new industries, technology, infrastructure and changing lives receive far less attention. Stronger media ties can bring those stories forward, giving the region's larger and smaller economies more space to share their own experiences.
The perspective from the Maldives at the Shenzhen forum was instructive. Public Service Media Chairperson Aminath Namza argued that journalism should move beyond narratives focused only on crises and vulnerabilities and also tell stories of resilience, solutions and human progress. She stressed that mutual learning must move in all directions: small states and developing countries are not merely recipients of experience but sources of ideas. That is the kind of journalism an Asia-Pacific community requires.
Regional media cooperation must also confront artificial intelligence. More than 30 GBA companies displayed technologies in intelligent media, embodied AI, smart cities and smart living during the forum. Xinhua has developed more than 220 digital tools, holds more than 90 technology patents and has established 11 industry standards for large-model applications in journalism. The APMP 100 program aims to train 100 media professionals from across the region in AI, AI-generated content, converged media and technology-enabled production in 2026.
AI can make journalism faster, cheaper and more multilingual. It can also make fabricated images, false quotations and manipulated information faster and cheaper. The answer cannot be technological competition alone. Media organizations need to establish shared verification practices and professional standards, while keeping human editorial judgment central to news production to guard against technological risks.
The Asia-Pacific Communication Index provides another useful foundation. Drawing on more than 200,000 news samples from more than 200 major regional media organizations between 2023 and the first half of 2026, the research found that coverage of APEC is gradually moving beyond annual summit reporting toward sustained discussion of openness, innovation and cooperation. This shift reflects the consensus of Asia-Pacific economies to pursue inclusive development and win-win cooperation, and creates a favorable public opinion environment for building an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future.
The 2026 APEC "China Year" offers a natural test. About 300 APEC-related meetings and activities are being held across the country, culminating in the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Shenzhen in November. The media should not wait until November to explain what regional cooperation means. More important stories are being written every day in ports, factories, laboratories, farms, universities, technology companies and neighborhoods.
Seeing creates understanding. Understanding creates familiarity. Familiarity creates trust. Trust makes cooperation possible. The Shenzhen forum moved beyond discussion by creating mechanisms for technology sharing, joint content production and professional training, while the "Asia-Pacific Development Stories" multimedia program seeks to give greater visibility to the region's development experiences. The next task is to make those mechanisms part of everyday journalism.
If Asia-Pacific media can learn together, verify together and report together, they will not merely describe the emergence of a more connected region. They will help build the human trust that makes such a region possible. In a period of shifting global governance, that may be the media's most practical contribution: not making the Asia-Pacific speak with one voice, but helping its many voices understand that they are part of the same story.
Ibrahim Khalil Ahasan is a Dhaka, Bangladesh-based journalist.
