Lankan embassy goes TikTok in Beijing; but why did Chinese company fund it?
For the Sri Lankan embassy in Beijing, China, this year is special for many reasons. First, this year marks the 65th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations with China and the 70th anniversary of the Rubber-Rice Pact.
In addition to that, Sri Lanka’s ambassador Palitha Kohona is actively promoting Chinese investment in the country and played a critical role in facilitating the recent Chinese currency swap deals to boost the struggling economy.
The latest move by the embassy to take SinoLanka relations to the “next level” was the setting up of an official TikTok account for the embassy with financial assistance from a Chinese company -CITS Overseas Economic Cooperation Co., Ltd.
TikTok is the most popular social media platform in China. About 2.4 billion people around the world access TikTok daily.
Addressing the event to launch the TikTok account on Friday, Ambassador Kohona said this account would be helpful to increase awareness of Sri Lanka, especially the culture and the tourism potential among the Chinese people, a statement from the Lankan embassy in Beijing said.
This would be the first official TikTok account of a Sri Lankan foreign mission, if not a first of its kind of a government institution in the country. The question remains as to why a Chinese company came forward to pay the expenses of setting it up, and who would operate it, and also, what kind of contents would be disseminated.