How Beijing wins friends and influences the influencers

State-run news outlets and local governments have organised and funded pro-Beijing influencers' travel, according to government documents

Millions have watched Lee and Oli Barrett’s YouTube dispatches from China. The father and son duo visit hotels in exotic locales, tour out-of-the-way villages, sample delicacies in bustling markets and undergo traditional ear cleanings.

The Barretts are part of a crop of new social media personalities who paint cheery portraits of life as foreigners in China — and also hit back at criticisms of Beijing’s authoritarian governance, its policies toward ethnic minorities and its handling of the coronavirus.

The videos have a casual, homespun feel. But on the other side of the camera often stands a large apparatus of government organisers, state-controlled