The CCP’s Control of its Complex Global Media Apparatus Obscures the Spread of Communist Ideology (Part 1)

On July 11, 2019, Chinese democracy activists in the United States, who came to welcome Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen at her hotel, were physically assaulted by people who identified as "patriots" and carried Chinese red flags. Huang Xiaotang/The Epoch Times

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempts to dictate the global Chinese news narrative by stealthy but seemingly innocent means. People who emigrate from China overwhelmingly prefer to receive the news in their native language. Through a complex structure of domestic and foreign registered news agencies, the CCP-controlled media translates global news to its advantage and distributes the doctored content with minimal pushback from governments worldwide.

China’s media spans multiple entities and is difficult to describe due to frequent reorganizations and fluctuating department titles. In addition to state-owned news agencies, multiple independently owned media outlets exist. Despite how some have operations registered overseas, they all remain loyal to the CCP and the spread of its doctored news and disinformation.

At the top of China’s overseas media empire is the CCP’s Ministry of United Front Work Department. Directly subordinate to this entity is the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, which includes China News Service (CNS). The latter is the CCP’s main propaganda organ targeting overseas Chinese. CNS has offices in many countries, including the United States. In 1990,  CNS personnel were dispatched to the United States to establish SinoVision (Chinese TV) television network and The China Press (Qiao Bao) newspaper to counter negative perceptions of the Chinese regime following the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests and massacre.

The CCP also indirectly controls Hong Kong’s international Sing Tao Daily newspaper, Tencent’s WeChat social media group, and its multiple Qiao Bao internet channels across the globe.

The proportion of mainstream American newspapers that appeal to the Chinese immigrant community is tiny. Former New York City Council member Peter Koo used an example to illustrate that in the Chinese and Korean gathering areas of the New York City neighborhood of Flushing if a Western mainstream English newspaper sells one copy, the local Chinese-language newspapers combined can sell “200 copies a day,” which is 200 times that of the English-language newspaper.

These factors enable the CCP to influence American politics in ways that U.S. government officials do not easily understand. To understand the corrosive and harmful nature of the CCP on American society, policymakers must understand the Chinese media environment to better address its interference and impact on the Chinese American community in the United States.

‘Borrowing a Ship to Sail into the Ocean’

Although it is well known that China’s Xinhua News Agency is a proxy for the CCP regime, labeling it a “foreign agent” in the United States is not enough to deter its propaganda spread. Xinhua does not simply publish the news directly to Chinese readers in the United States but does so through local partners under content-sharing agreements. This two-tier distribution strategy allows the CCP’s narrative to be transmitted to American readers through a third party, shielding Xinhua from accusations it is distributing official propaganda.

The CCP calls this strategy “borrowing a ship to sail into the ocean.” In the New York Chinese community, at least three “ships”— Chinese TV (SinoVision), Qiao Bao, and Sing Tao Daily— pave the way for disseminating Xinhua News Agency and other CCP mouthpieces.

Qiao Bao, the only Chinese-language daily newspaper in the United States that uses simplified Chinese characters and has a news center in Beijing, was founded in New York in January 1990. When its president, You Jiang, discussed the newspaper’s “opportunities and challenges” in a 2015 article, he admitted that the newspaper’s opportunity lies in being “an important supplement to China’s overall overseas propaganda,” and the CCP regime increasingly values it.

The Hoover Institution’s 2018 report “Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance” pointed out that Qiao Bao was established by personnel (Xie Yining) dispatched by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and the China News Service to the United States to reverse the negative view of the CCP regime after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Qiao Bao is officially owned by the Asian Culture and Media Group, which also owns Chinese TV (SinoVision). Chinese TV and Qiao Bao operate in the same location and belong to the same group.

Strictly speaking, Qiao Bao and Chinese TV are “ships” the CCP directly created outside China. However, since Qiao Bao is officially registered in the United States as a company owned by Americans and operates as such, it has yet to be registered as a foreign agent by the U.S. State Department.

WeChat Account of Qiao Bao Versus United Front Work Department of the CCP

The Epoch Times found that the WeChat account of the New York-based Chinese-language newspaper Qiao Bao, “nyqiaobao,” is certified and operated by Beijing Zhongxin Chinese Technology Development Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of China News Service (CNS). CNS is one of the CCP’s main propaganda organs targeting overseas Chinese communities.

The core business of Beijing Zhongxin Chinese Technology Development Co. is to provide technical information support to overseas Chinese-language media in the United States, France, Brazil, Australia, and other countries. The support includes content management systems, multimedia content management, video publishing, e-newsletter publishing, app development, public opinion investigation, big data influence analysis, and socialized smart communication systems.

This “full-media public opinion monitoring system” demonstrates how the CCP integrates and coordinates overseas Chinese media with official media within China to create a large-scale surveillance network.

In 2018, the United Front Work Department’s functions were expanded, and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office was incorporated into its leadership. This move directly placed CNS under the United Front Work Department. Through CNS, the United Front Work Department owns or controls many overseas Chinese-language media and their WeChat accounts, including Qiao Bao in the United States.

The overseas Chinese community is well aware of the nature of Qiao Bao. For a long time, advertisements from pro-CCP organizations in New York and for the turnover of associations have only been published in Qiao Bao because the CCP directly controls it. Advertising in Qiao Bao is meant for the attention of the Chinese consulate and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. For example, on May 24, 2020, Qiao Bao published a full-page advertisement on page B03 supporting the Hong Kong version of the “National Security Law” by the United Chinese Association of Eastern U.S. and its 221 affiliated associations.