Democracy dies in piles of blood-soaked cash.
The Chinese government has, for decades, paid major American newsrooms, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, to publish propaganda produced by China Daily, the official mouthpiece of the communist regime, according to an investigative report by the Washington Free Beacon.
In the process, China has also circumvented federal law requiring that foreign entities provide a full accounting of all stateside expenditures and activities.
“China Daily has run more than 700 online ads designed to look like news articles and purchased 500 print pages in six American newspapers over the last seven years,” according to the Washington Free Beacon, which reviewed all of the physical copies of pro-China ads filed with the U.S. Department of Justice as well as those that were not submitted. “China Daily uses its large war chest to purchase hundreds of ads in the print and online versions of the Times, Post, and Journal. Ad spending peaked in 2016, when it took out ads in more than 140 pages in American outlets.”
The report adds, “These propaganda articles frame state oppression in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong in a positive light and run alongside actual news stories produced by reporters at the Post, Times, Wall Street Journal, and other outlets.”
An ad that ran in the Wall Street Journal in March, for example, described the incarceration of an estimated one million Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang concentration camps as a “law-based campaign of de-radicalization.” Other ads that have run in the Washington Post describe China’s occupation of Tibet in positive terms, including a 2013 article titled, “Harmony rules in Tibet’s Catholic town.”
China Daily registered as a foreign agent in 1983. However, it would be 29 years before it formally disclosed its business ties to American newsrooms.
“Even after [China Daily] began acknowledging its relationship with the papers, the regime mouthpiece continued to violate federal disclosure requirements,” according to the report. “China Daily has failed to provide breakdowns of spending activities and withheld copies of online ads, among other omissions that violate federal law, according to experts who reviewed years of its [Foreign Agent Registration Act] filings.”
Federal law requires that foreign entities provide the Justice Department with copies of all propaganda materials “disseminated or circulated among two or more persons” in the United States. In many cases, China Daily did not do this, according to the report. Moreover, even though the communist ads published by American newsrooms contain the legally required disclaimers notifying readers that they were prepared by a Chinese entity, there is nothing to indicate that the ads were prepared specifically by the official propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
As of November, China Daily continues to ignore U.S. federal law, according to the Washington Free Beacon. A review of the Chinese outlet’s most recent filing shows it “illegally lumps together all expenditures under two vague categories: ‘Total Cost of Goods Sold’ and ‘Operation Expenses.’ China Daily should have broken down its expenditures, detailing how much money it paid to each outlet for each ad purchase,” the report notes, citing two experts on the matter.
The Washington Post has published China Daily ads for “more than 30 years,” a spokesman for the American newspaper said. A representative for the Washington Post also defended its history of publishing Chinese agitprop, saying it gives “wide latitude” to advertisers so long as they don’t run afoul of the law.
A spokesman for the Wall Street Journal said in a statement to the Washington Examiner, “We accept a wide range of advertisements, including those with provocative viewpoints. We require all ads to be clearly and properly identified as such, and, if an ad is advertorial, we add additional labeling to make clear the newsroom was not involved in its content or creation. The varied and divergent views expressed belong to the advertisers.”
A spokeswoman for the New York Times defended its promotion of China Daily ads, telling the Washington Examiner that it “covers China thoroughly and aggressively, and at no time has advertising influenced our coverage.”
“In fact,” the person added, “the publication of this story in 2012 on the hidden wealth of the family of China’s prime minister resulted in the Times being blocked on all platforms in mainland China, which continues to this day.”
“We’re committed to reporting on China, and fund our Chinese-language site and bureaus in Beijing and Shanghai (as well as Hong Kong) at a significant cost,” she continued. “We also continue to cover China fearlessly. Our recent investigation based on more than 400 pages of leaked internal Chinese documents provided an unprecedented look into the government’s crackdown on ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region.”
Representatives for the Post did not respond to requests for comment.
