Thread by @JoshJPhilipp

Thread:

The Trump administration took a strong move combat Chinese propaganda operations in the U.S. yesterday — and this could impact several U.S. news outlets that have for years been running paid Chinese propaganda. (1)

Full article here: theepochtimes.com/state-departme…

The U.S. Department of State will force Chinese agents who have been working as journalists in the United States to reveal their identities to authorities and will also force state-run Chinese news outlets to reveal their real estate holdings. (2)

These measures could help the U.S. government get a stronger grasp on how deeply the Chinese regime’s disinformation arms have penetrated the U.S. media landscape. (3)

This new requirement will place the Chinese regime’s main state-run news outlets under the Office of Foreign Missions designation, which will identify them as official foreign missions by the U.S. State Department. (4)

This is notably different from a FARA, or the “Foreign Agents Registration Act,” designation.

Rather than just making them register as foreign agents, it will instead designate the outlets and their employees as official arms of the Chinese state. (5)

The move was revealed during a press briefing of the U.S. Department of State on Feb. 18, and was given on background by two senior State Department officials. (6)

state.gov/senior-state-d…

The Chinese media now under the foreign missions designation are Xinhua News Agency, CGTN under China Central Television, China Radio International, China Daily Distribution Corp, and Hai Tian Development USA, which distributes the People’s Daily. (7)

The reasoning for this move was simple. One of the officials explained, “each one of these entities meets the definition of foreign mission under our Foreign Mission Act, which is to say they are either substantially owned or effectively controlled by a foreign government.” (8)

The official added, “we think it’s altogether appropriate that we basically call these entities what they are, which are organs of the Chinese one-party state propaganda apparatus.” (9)

Taken in its broader context, the timing of this move is significant. (10)

It comes less than two weeks after a group of 35 Republican senators and representatives wrote a Feb. 6 open letter to Attorney General William Barr requesting that the DOJ investigate China Daily for repeated violations of FARA. (11)

hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/…

They state, “The Chinese Communist Party committed $6.6 billion dollars to foreign propaganda efforts in 2009, and according to FARA receipts, has spent over $35 million on China Daily since 2017." ... (12)

... "China’s massive financial commitment speaks to the seriousness of their effort to sway foreign sentiment.” (13)

And more significantly, they note that “China Daily has paid over 30 independent newspapers to host four to eight-page ‘China Watch’ inserts.” (14)

They note China Daily has violated its FARA designation by not providing the required information to the Department of Justice on these inserts, including which outlets run them and how much money these American news outlets are paid to run them. (15)

Among the news outlets that have run China Daily’s China Watch inserts are the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. (16)

The China Watch page on the New York Times website states, “This content was paid for and created by China Daily, People’s Republic of China.” (17)

nytimes.com/paidpost/china…

China Daily is owned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party, and the request for investigation into it notes that while some of the articles in its China Watch inserts in major U.S. publications appear harmless ... (18)

... some articles “serve as cover for China’s atrocities, including its crimes against humanity against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region and its support for the crackdown in Hong Kong.” (19)

And they note, as does the recent designation of China Daily and other outlets as foreign missions, that the Chinese regime has placed heavy importance on controlling foreign perceptions.

This has included taking strong actions for censorship. (20)

The open letter notes “This summer’s NBA boycott and the arson of the Epoch Times headquarters in Hong Kong show the lengths China will go to protect its international image. And China’s financial commitment to foreign propaganda outlets is the proof in the pudding." ... (21)

... "Propaganda that seeks to obfuscate communist atrocities deserves to be counteracted. But the United States has been puzzlingly slow to respond.” (22)

It’s unclear how the designation will affect outlets that have accepted cash from state-run news outlets including China Daily, but its requirement that outlets reveal real estate holdings and information on their employees can help lift the veil from their operations. (23)

It will also mean U.S. news outlets that continue their relationships with Chinese state media will be officially accepting money from a foreign government to run its propaganda and disinformation. (24)

/End/ of thread for now.

I'll have a video up tomorrow about this on my new channel, The China Report, along with some additional analysis.

Be sure to subscribe: youtube.com/channel/UC9yul…

I have a video of this online now. I also go into analysis at the end: