Major Chinese-language media in US under CCP’s control

DHARAMSALA, Dec 12: Major Chinese-language media operating in the US are said to be under the Chinese Communist regime’s control and influence.

A recent assessment of the Chinese-language media landscape in the United States concluded that most media outlets are under Beijing’s control or possess a pro-Beijing editorial stance, the Epoch Times reported.

Citing a Nov 29, report by a group of China scholars from around the world that was published by the Hoover Institution, based at Stanford University, that details China’s attempts to influence and infiltrate U.S. government and society, it said that the Chinese regime has made it a priority to control the narrative of how China is portrayed overseas, and Beijing has launched a “concerted campaign” to control Chinese-language media.

Further, at a meeting held this August on propaganda work, the Chinese President Xi Jinping has reportedly said that “To present good images, we should improve our international communication capability, tell China’s stories well, disseminate China’s voice, show an authentic and comprehensive China to the world, and raise the country’s soft power and the influence of Chinese culture.”

Apart from increasing the operations of its state media on foreign soil—with over 2,000 staff globally at the China News Service, which acts as a wire service and sends articles to overseas Chinese media—China has taken control over some of those very same media companies that cater to an overseas Chinese audience, the report noted.

According to the report, Beijing’s influence doesn’t stop with the Chinese-language media operating in the US, the Chinese regime has reportedly used stealth tactics to buy up U.S. media companies.

China’s state-run China Radio International (CRI) began leasing local radio stations across the United States and supplying them with news content from Beijing since the late 2000s. CRI chiefly leases the stations through a U.S.-based private company, EDI Media, the report added.

“The content of all of EDI’s outlets mirrors that of China’s state-owned media,” the report said.

The report concluded that only a few media outlets that publish in Chinese are truly independent in the US.