Britons need to be aware of pro-Beijing news content that is helping to keep the diaspora under the grip of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), experts have said.
The call came amid concerns over disinformation on social media including Chinese video platform TikTok, and after Parliament passed legislation to prevent foreign powers from buying newspapers in the UK.
Besides state-owned media outlets that are directly controlled by the CCP, The Epoch Times has identified at least eight seemingly independent pro-Beijing news outlets targeting the Chinese diaspora in the UK, with five of them remaining active.
Foremost 4 Media, Creative Time Media, Chinese Weekly, Chinese Business Gazette, and the UK edition of Nouvelles D'Europe are currently active, while UK-Chinese Times, UK Chinese Journal, and Europe Commercial News appear to have been inactive in the past few years.
The outlets operate a constellation of various websites and social media accounts. They do not publish any content that would offend the CCP, and some regularly publish content from Chinese state media.
Their staff and leadership attend forums and training courses that are organised by state-owned China News Service (CNS) or the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, which is an alias of the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD)—an arm of the party responsible for influence campaigns in and out of China.
A China expert whose research showed that Chinese language propaganda has led to tension in the UK between Hongkongers and pro-Beijing elements, said organisations in the UK should be transparent if they collaborate with UFWD.
An intelligence expert said anything on WeChat—a Chinese social media platform that hosts digital versions of pro-Beijing newspapers—will have an element of CCP control, and called for education initiatives that can help de-programme the diaspora.
While there are fewer physical copies of newspapers available in Chinatowns, CCP-approved narratives continued to be churned out both by state-owned media and seemingly independent news outlets that routinely republish the propaganda.
The hard news contents are also accompanied by matrices of soft content pages across various platforms, such as Wechat and Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of X.
According to a 2022 report published by U.S. think tank Freedom House, which examined Beijing’s influence on the global media landscape, the CCP’s influence efforts in the UK were “very high.”
The report also identified eight pro-Beijing media outlets. The list is almost identical with The Epoch Times’ list, but it included Propeller TV instead of Chinese Business Gazette.
Researchers found no content in their publications that “would be deemed off-limits by the CCP.”
“When reporting on local news, the coverage focused on racism against Asian communities or debates about Brexit. News coverage of Chinese political issues aligned with Beijing’s narratives, with the Chinese embassy or the Foreign Affairs Ministry serving as the main sources,” the report said.
China analysts Angeli Datt and Sam Dunning, who authored the UK country report, also wrote that members of exile and ethnic diaspora groups who might be interviewed by British media during their coverage on China, including former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law, “have also faced online trolling and Chinese state-led intimidation in the UK.”
UFWD
Most of the outlets mentioned are members of a Chinese state-backed union or participant of state-controlled training programmes.UFWD is the main organiser of the Overseas Chinese Media Advanced Training Course and World Chinese Media Forum.
Personnel from Chinese media outlets around the world, including the UK, are invited to conferences and tours and to discuss how to promote the Belt and Road Initiative and tell “China’s story.”
Telling “China’s story” is part of the CCP’s “United Front” strategy that involves promoting CCP narratives with creative and palatable means. It came from a speech given by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who told party members to “do well in telling China’s story and spreading China’s voice.”
The effort is spearheaded by the UFWD, but non-party members can also be coopted, willingly or unwillingly, to help with implementing the wider strategy.
The report on the 11th World Chinese Media Forum forum in 2023, by co-organiser CNS, said almost 300 outlets from 59 countries were in attendance, without naming the countries.
But a list of attendees of the 10th forum in 2019 published in media reports included senior leaders from eight of of nine outlets mentioned in this report, with the exception of Chinese Business Gazette.
The list also included UK representatives UK Property Weekly and a number of other outlets that do not seem to be registered in the UK.
By May 2023, the Overseas Chinese Media Advanced Training Course had held 24 sessions, with representatives from the UK in attendance.
A Separate “Pursuing the China Dream: Overseas Chinese Media Advanced Training Course,” which had held eight sessions by last month, is organised by All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, a so-called NGO that has a seat at the National Committee For the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Chinese Business Gazette has not been reported as a participant in CCP-backed training programmes, but its one of the Chinese publications around the globe that signed a deal with CCP mouthpiece People’s Daily in 2016 to promote the latter’s content overseas.
In 2014, its senior leaders have also attended a forum organised by UFWD and local government branches in Tianjin.
Philip Ingram, a former British Army intelligence officer who now runs his own media company, said he believes people and the authorities in the UK should be aware of it.
Anything on WeChat “will have an element of control by the Chinese Communist Party and therefore is being used to push messages out,” he said.
The “Chinese language newspapers are clearly focused on the Chinese people that are living in the UK, then there should be some form of oversight to make sure that what is not being put into Chinese language papers is pure propaganda. It is providing a balanced news view.”
Transparency and Education
Asked whether pro-Beijing media outlets operating in the UK should be required to register their activities under the upcoming Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, Mr. Dunning, who’s now director of UK–China Transparency, said in an email to The Epoch Times, “If UK organisations collaborate or work jointly with the Chinese embassy or the United Front Work Department of the CCP, then they should be transparent about this and expect to face public scrutiny.”Mr. Ingram said it’s ultimately “up to the readership to understand who it is that is behind the news that they are taking in and reading” and it’s difficult to regulate media outlets without undermining the freedom of speech.
He believes the best way to deal with it is “to have education programs that ... let people know that what they’re getting is not necessarily the whole truth, it’s something that has been spun for a particular effect by the Chinese government.
Mr. Ingram said it’s “very important” to have other media outlets, including the BBC’s World Service, so people can “get an alternative view and make their minds up.”
