China’s state-run media agency, China Daily, has spent millions in the past six months to publish articles in prominent American media outlets such as Time magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and Foreign Policy.
The Washington Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross reported that Time has a $700,000 advertising campaign deal with China Daily, and has published articles defending the Chinese government and critical of the American government – particularly the Trump administration while President Donald Trump was still in office. While Time discloses that China Daily pays the magazine to publish its articles, the disclosure does not include information about China Daily being affiliated with the Chinese government.
The partnership between China Daily and Time began last year. So far, Time has published 75 online articles from the Chinese outlet, the first “an article championing the Chinese Communist Party’s recent five-year plan. The article blamed the United States for “escalating” tensions with China by threatening to ban WeChat and TikTok, two phone apps that U.S. officials believe have ties to Chinese intelligence,” Ross reported.
Another article published by Time came one week after the Trump administration placed China’s largest drone manufacturer, DJI, on a blacklist due to concerns the company would use its drone to spy on American citizens. There have also been reports that China uses DJI drones to spy on Uyghur Muslims, a minority population targeted by the Chinese government. Millions of Uyghurs currently sit in concentration camps, and are subjected to regular abuse and torture. The Time article about DJI touted its drones and suggested they could be used for agricultural work, “helping farmers improve efficiency and increase the use of intelligent agricultural equipment.”
“The last article published by Time is a China Daily story from April 26 in which retired diplomat Chas Freeman marvels at China’s economic progress in the 50 years since he worked as Richard Nixon’s interpreter during the president’s 1972 visit. Freeman is affiliated with the isolationist Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a controversial think tank whose scholars have defended China from claims that it is committing genocide against Uyghurs,” Ross wrote. “The article is a prime example of the kind of content that China Daily places in American media outlets. Several articles quote prominent Americans calling for closer cooperation between Washington and Beijing, praising China, or criticizing the U.S. government.”
As Ross reported, other major news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, all ended their partnerships with China Daily last year. When the Journal was partnering with the Chinese outlet, it disclosed its connections to the Chinese government.
The partnerships are another example of Chinese media’s attempts to control the American government. As The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra reported, another state-run Chinese media outlet, the Global Times, reportedly warned that China should prepare for nuclear war with the United States. The warning came after President Joe Biden asked the U.S. Intelligence community to increase efforts to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, which started in China.