Lila Kidson, who studies at Peking University and featured in a video praising China's President Xi Jinping, speaks during an interview with Reuters at the Peking University campus in Beijing, China, September 25, 2015. Faced with a patchy image abroad, China is adopting an unusual tactic in its propaganda campaign: using bright-eyed foreign students to burnish its reputation. The problem is that most people appear not to buy it. A new video, released on Tuesday on the YouTube and Facebook accounts of People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, has been ridiculed on the In

Lila Kidson, who studies at Peking University and featured in a video praising China's President Xi Jinping, speaks during an interview with Reuters at the Peking University campus in Beijing, China, September 25, 2015. Faced with a patchy image abroad, China is adopting an unusual tactic in its propaganda campaign: using bright-eyed foreign students to burnish its reputation. The problem is that most people appear not to buy it. A new video, released on Tuesday on the YouTube and Facebook accounts of People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, has been ridiculed on the Internet for the interviewees' fawning praise of Xi. Kidson, a 22-year-old fourth-year American film student at Peking University who described Xi as a handsome and "super charismatic" leader in the video, said she thought the outcome was "cute". "I don't think I would go so far as to say it was propaganda," Kidson said. "I think every country's media wants to portray their country in the best way that they can." REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon