Chapter 08 Infiltrate the United States as the Enemy (4)

The China Press is directly controlled by the Chinese Communist government, funded by the Beijing Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and its main editors and managers are appointed by the Chinese Communist Party. The paper is referred to as a “party newspaper” by overseas Chinese. The newspaper also has local editions in the West and some major cities in the United States and is one of the four largest Chinese newspapers in the United States.

Founded in Hong Kong, the New York edition of Sing Tao Daily was sold to a pro-communist businessman in the 1990s. The owner of Sing Tao Daily had become a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in 1998, and his political stance was aligned with Beijing, and Sing Tao Daily had been one of the four major Chinese newspapers in the United States, with a large readership in Hong Kong, Guangdong and China.

The World Journal is sponsored by the United Press of Taiwan and its reporting position is relatively independent and objective. However, because the Taiwanese owner wants to develop business in mainland China and has advertising interests involved, the editorial position of the World Journal has changed. It avoids touching the sensitive nerves of the Chinese Communist Party in international reporting and commentary on the U.S.-China relations and Taiwan-Mainland relations. On the surface, it is not very obvious, relatively hidden and not easy for readers to notice. The World Journal is still the number one Chinese language newspaper in the United States.

Ming Pao, one of the four major Chinese newspapers in the United States, is popular with immigrants from Hong Kong and Guangdong but is also controlled by Beijing. Ming Pao receives funding from the Chinese Communist Party but is still operating at a loss and has ceased publication.

How much money do the major newspapers receive from the Chinese Communist Party? Xu Jiatun (former director of the Chinese Communist Party’s Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong), who fled to the United States at the end of 1989, said that he had directly financed the pro-Communist newspaper Zhong Bao, which was published in Hong Kong and the United States, to the tune of $30 million in the 1980s. The newspaper was completely abandoned by its readers because of its owner’s support for the June 4 incident in 1989, when the Chinese Communist Party suppressed the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement, and companies withdrew their advertisements.

In addition to the four major Chinese newspapers in the United States, the Chinese Communist Party has not spared any other media in the United States and 90% of the Chinese media in the United States have fallen into its trap because they cannot withstand the financial lure. “Literature City, a popular Chinese comprehensive website, was founded by a mainland student in 1997 and after it was handed over to a Chinese American from Taiwan in 2000, the new director went to the mainland to look for investment opportunities, cooperated with the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic media, found more advertisers at home and abroad, and developed mainland readers. “In 2011, Lin Wen, CEO of Literary City, said publicly that most of Literary City’s news reports were written by the China News Service and most of the articles came from the official media in China. There are rumors that Literary City received a US$1 million subsidy from the CCP propaganda department.

“For many years, Dovetail was an independent Chinese language media outlet in the United States but in 2009 it was acquired by a Hong Kong businessman who had substantial business interests in mainland China. The businessman also founded the Center for U.S.-China Relations at Tsinghua University and wrote his own pro-communist articles on the South China Sea and Dovi is now based in Beijing.

The backchina.com, the fifth-ranked Chinese website in the U.S., was once an independent media outlet like Dovetail but in 2017 it too fell into the arms of the Chinese Communist Party and after the organizers attended the 9th World Chinese Media Forum organized by the China News Service and received funding from the CCP, Backchina’s China coverage became increasingly positive.