According to the statement, China Daily’s overall expenses from May 1 to Oct. 31 this year topped $4.4 million, of which around $3.1 million was spent on printing, advertising, and distribution, and about $1.3 million for payrolls and other operating expenses.
The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, and the Seattle Times were some of the notable recipients. The Los Angeles Times received $340,000 for advertisements and $111,501 for printing newspapers in that time frame.
Over the past few years, China Daily has spent millions running supplements—called “China Watch”—containing propaganda disguised as news in major U.S. media outlets. These supplements are inserted as advertisements in newspapers or paid programs online.
On Feb. 18, China Daily and four other media outlets from China were designated as foreign missions by the State Department, which on June 22 added another four Chinese news outlets to the list.
“[General Secretary Xi Jinping] said ‘Party-owned media must ... embody the party’s will, safeguard the party’s authority ... their actions must be highly consistent with the party,’ in short, while Western media are beholden to the truth, PRC media are beholden to the Chinese Communist Party,” State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement in June.
The Washington Post and The NY Times stopped running the advertising insert early this year. The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and the LA Times didn’t immediately respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment.
According to China Daily’s recent filing, for the past six months, its total subscription and advertisement income was $123,700.56. However, the “Fund from Headquarters Office” was $4,416,133.35, accounting for about 97 percent of total income.
China Daily, which is headquartered in Beijing, is owned by the Publicity Department, an internal division of the Chinese Communist Party.