The Financial Times reported today that the Chinese leadership is making a big push to better inform international audiences about the way things really are in China.

China is pushing its state media to create credible, appealing news for an international audience, in an attempt to spread a more favourable image of the country in the west.

The plan, backed by at least Rmb30bn ($4.4bn, €3.3bn, £3bn) in government funds, comes as Beijing looks back on a year of public relations disasters.

Global Times, closely affiliated with the Communist Party will launch and second English-language newspaper while Xinhua hits the airwaves with an English-language station.

Of course, it would be simpler and cheaper to just let the international journalists already in China gain access to restricted regions in the country to file their reports, and to allow them to do their jobs without being beat up by local government thugs.

But the image might not be as pretty.