Justice Department national security spokesman Marc Raimondi and FCC spokesman Neil Grace declined to comment. “Ed” Wilson Jr., a former senior White House and Treasury Department official.ĬRI headquarters in Beijing and the Chinese embassy in Washington declined to make officials available for interviews or to comment on the findings of this article. “I would make a serious inquiry under FARA into a company rebroadcasting Chinese government propaganda inside the United States without revealing that it is acting on behalf of, or it’s owned or controlled by China,” said D.E. Chinese-American business partner and his companies haven’t registered as foreign agents under the law, called the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. law also requires anyone inside the United States seeking to influence American policy or public opinion on behalf of a foreign government or group to register with the Department of Justice. Said former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt: “If there were allegations made about de facto Chinese government ownership of radio stations, then I’m sure the FCC would investigate.” stations, but it does have a majority share via a subsidiary in the company that leases WCRW in Washington and a Philadelphia station with a similarly high-powered signal. parent corporation of a station.ĬRI itself doesn’t hold ownership stakes in U.S. Under the Communications Act, foreign individuals, governments and corporations are permitted to hold up to 20 percent ownership directly in a station and up to 25 percent in the U.S. law enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prohibits foreign governments or their representatives from holding a radio license for a U.S. officials said federal authorities should investigate whether the arrangement violates laws governing foreign media and agents in the United States.Ī U.S. But American officials charged with monitoring foreign media ownership and propaganda said they were unaware of the Chinese-controlled radio operation inside the United States until contacted by Reuters. Corporate records in the United States and China show a Beijing-based subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned radio broadcaster owns 60 percent of an American company that leases almost all of the station’s airtime.Ĭhina has a number of state-run media properties, such as the Xinhua news agency, that are well-known around the world. The network reaches from Finland to Nepal to Australia, and from Philadelphia to San Francisco.Īt WCRW, Beijing holds a direct financial interest in the Washington station’s broadcasts. Three Chinese expatriate businessmen, who are CRI’s local partners, run the companies and in some cases own a stake in the stations. Many of these stations primarily broadcast content created or supplied by CRI or by media companies it controls in the United States, Australia and Europe. WCRW is just one of a growing number of stations across the world through which Beijing is broadcasting China-friendly news and programming.Ī Reuters investigation spanning four continents has identified at least 33 radio stations in 14 countries that are part of a global radio web structured in a way that obscures its majority shareholder: state-run China Radio International, or CRI. Instead, an analyst explained that tensions in the region were due to unnamed “external forces” trying “to insert themselves into this part of the world using false claims.”īehind WCRW’s coverage is a fact that’s never broadcast: The Chinese government controls much of what airs on the station, which can be heard on Capitol Hill and at the White House. Located outside Washington, D.C., WCRW radio made no mention of China’s provocative island project. As media around the world covered the diplomatic clash, a radio station that serves the most powerful city in America had a distinctive take on the news. (This story can be read with video, graphics and photos here)īEIJING/WASHINGTON, Nov 2 (Reuters) - In August, foreign ministers from 10 nations blasted China for building artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea.
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