Radio transmissions with a pro-China slant are being sent out around the world, backed by the Chinese state-run broadcasting company China Radio International (CRI) – a little-seen power behind a global web of radio stations.
In America, the Chinese government controls a majority of the content broadcast on WCRW, which is located outside Washington DC and is one of a growing number of stations across the world through which Beijing is broadcasting China-friendly news and programming. Reuters say in their report “The Chinese government controls much of the content broadcast on a station that is blanketing the US capital with pro-Beijing programming.”
A 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: CRI. Many of these stations mainly broadcast content created or supplied by CRI or by subsidiary media companies that it controls in the United States of America, Australia and Europe.
Chinese State-run media properties such as Xinhua are well-known for their propaganda. However, American officials charged with monitoring foreign media ownership and propaganda said that they were unaware of the Chinese-controlled radio operation inside the US until Reuters contacted them.
A United States law enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prohibits foreign governments or their representatives from holding a radio license for a US broadcast station. 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 US parent corporation of a station.
Interestingly, at WCRW, Beijing holds a direct financial interest in the Washington station’s broadcasts. In fact, records show a Beijing-based subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned radio broadcaster owns 60% of an American company that leases almost all of the station’s airtime. The company, along with other subsidiaries in the US, are being investigated by the Justice Department and the FCC for possible violations of foreign ownership laws. Public records show that CRI’s US Chinese-American business partner and his companies have not registered as foreign agents under the law, called the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.
To report this story, 39 Reuters reporters pulled corporate and regulatory filings in 26 countries to identify a web of radio stations connected to three Chinese expatriates and the CRI. The reporters monitored broadcasts in many of these countries, programming distributed primarily in English and Chinese, but also in local languages, including Thai, Italian and Turkish. In the US, reporters reviewed scores of regulatory, zoning, property, tax, immigration and corporate records, including radio station purchase contracts and lease agreements.
Reuter’s ground-breaking report has revealed the existence of a possible covert radio network,claimed by the outlet as broadcasting“China-friendly news and programming” in more than a dozen American cities, including Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, San Francisco and Washington, DC. Moreover, the radio web is run by Chinese expatriate businessmen, who are CRI’s local partners. They run companies in the host countries and lease airtime or own stakes in the stations.
The Reuters report says that the 33 radio stations backed by CRI broadcast in English, Chinese or local languages and offer a mix of news, music and cultural programmes. Newscasts are peppered with stories highlighting China’s development, such as its space programme, and its contribution to humanitarian causes, including earthquake relief in Nepal.
“We are not the evil empire that some Western media portray us to be. Western media reports about China are too negative. We just want to improve our international image. It’s self-protection,” said a person close to the Communist Party leadership in Beijing who is familiar with the CRI network.
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