Red Infiltration: The Reality of China’s Global Media Expansion (Part 2) 

This is the second part of a translation from the original 紅色滲透─中國媒體全球擴張的真相, an excerpt of the book by He Qingilian (何清漣), a Chinese economist and author. Originally published by Voicettank. Translation by Tim Smith.

Part 1 can be found here. 

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“Sponsored content” 

According to the Jamestown Foundation’s article “How China’s Government Is Attempting To Control Chinese Media In America,” China primarily uses four methods to infiltrate Chinese language media overseas: 1) Use full investment or controlling-shareholder stakes to directly control newspapers, news stations and TV channels; 2) Use economic means to influence businessmen and their connections to independent media; 3) Buy out the broadcast time and advertising of independent media and use these independent media outlets to promote content that is clearly written by the CCP; 4) Allow government agents to be employed by independent media and give them an opportunity to influence and peddle CCP views. These manipulative methods are also being used in Taiwan.

Yet, this report was written at the beginning of 2001. Since then there have been massive changes in internet usage and norms. CCP-influenced media groups in Taiwan have used more methods since then to control public opinion, namely what professor Chang Chin-hua concluded in the last line of her work, “Six-part Study on Controlling Public Opinion,” (“輿論控制六部曲”): hacker attacks and psychological warfare.

In November of 2010, Taiwan’s Control Yuan committee member Frank Wu (吳豐山) confirmed that the Chinese government was buying sponsored content in Taiwanese newspapers following more than six months of investigations. In the report filed as a reprimand against the Mainland Affairs Council, Wu pointed out that seven articles on August 3rd and 8th (of 2010) in a feature about Hunan Province were actually paid for by the Deputy Secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee Mei Kebao, who has led a purchasing delegation to Taiwan.

Similarly, when Acting Governor of Shaanxi Province Zhao Yongzheng came to Taiwan during September 2010, China Times published many articles from September 13th through the 17th on Xi’an, with special reports on Shaanxi Province also embedded into the newspaper, including “Shaanxi Province, the Place for Food, Drinks and Fun;” “Thousand-Year-Old Monuments and Rare Treasures Unique to the World;” and “Strong Scientific and Technological Strength, Shaanxi Primed for Investments.”

Frank Wu also presented a contract between China and the Taiwanese media, pointing out that Want Want China Times had set up shop in Beijing, and was specifically soliciting Chinese government advertising jobs to turn around and give to other media groups in Taiwan. The payment price was often twice the amount or higher than the going market rate. The contract between the China Times and United Daily News states that “payment methods are paid by remittance,” which proves the fact that Chinese officials are buying news with money.

The profits brought by selling journalism to China are causing media partners to “self-regulate” (self-censor). In comparing newspaper coverage before and after Hunan’s vice-secretary and Shaanxi’s Acting Governor’s visits to Taiwan, Dr. Flora Chang, a professor with National Taiwan University’s Media Research Center, discovered that aside from publishing articles about Hunan and Shaanxi provinces, nearly all negative coverage of China had disappeared from their newspapers.

Chang believes that this kind of “buy-out” of Taiwanese media is an issue of national security. She warned that “When this kind of fake news is so good at creating a positive image of China, people in Taiwan will believe China and the Chinese government are attractive, but not realize the serious human rights issues and environmental degradation in China. And if a few people do point out China’s reality, many more will think those people are crazy. Slowly, we become less vigilant, even to the point where many people have fantasies about China.” This potentially leads to China annexing Taiwan “without a single soldier” or “without a drop of blood.” This undoubtedly presents a dual-threat to Taiwan’s democratic government and national security.

According to statistics from the Foundation of the Advancement of Media Excellence, advertising from China for the entire year of 2010 reached up to 119 pieces, with the majority of them being written as news articles. This report also cited a statement from October of 2010 made by National Security Bureau Director Tsai Teh-Sheng in a closed meeting in the Legislative Yuan: “although purchases by Chinese firms have a business goal in mind, there’s also a United Front component.” The “primary and secondary goals” should be distinguished. The report also pointed out that Chinese advertisers had nearly all been commissioned as “business news” sponsored by regional governments in China, essentially the same as the government buying news itself.

Not only can news-buying by China hurt the independent nature of Taiwan’s media and obstruct the Taiwanese public’s right to know, the economic and political motives behind the news-buying clearly violates the principles of truth and transparency we expect from the media.

On January 12th, 2011, the Legislative Yuan hastily amended the budget regulations to prohibit Taiwan’s own government from budgeting for buying sponsored content. Flora Chang believes that although this is a move in the right direction, it still shows that “even in Taiwan where we like to think we enjoy a certain level of democracy, our government was engaged in buying the news. We just stopped doing something that was wrong to begin with. It’s hard to say it’s ‘progress.’”

The Distorted Reporting by Pro-China Media

The mess in Taiwan’s media landscape has seriously damaged the media’s credibility and image, and it’s seen as a bad influence on society as a whole. In November of 2006, Commonwealth Magazine conducted a survey of parents and teachers of elementary and middle-school aged children. The results showed that the three foremost harmful effects towards the ethics of elementary and middle school students were politicians, news media, and TV programming.

Prior to 2014, much of the fear of China’s infiltration into Taiwan’s media landscape originated from the media itself and intellectuals. But during the Sunflower Movement, CTiTV (中天電視) and other media under Chinese investment and control often distorted the grassroots movement, and launched a smear campaign against the supporters of the movement, leading to the alarm of the Taiwanese public..

The Sunflower Movement was completely influenced by the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong. The Chinese authorities’ use of violence and underhanded tactics in dealing with the Occupy Central movement allowed a generation of Taiwanese youth to see what Taiwan under Chinese control looks like. The Taiwanese youth realized that if the CCP’s infiltration was continuously ignored, Taiwan’s democracy and freedom would be in imminent danger.

The Sunflower Movement had garnered support from 17 countries and 49 cities around the globe, as well as coverage by global mainstream media in multiple languages. But within Taiwan’s own media, the movement was cast in a less positive light. Compared to the moral support given by foreign media, the pro-China media in Taiwan focused on isolated incidents such as things missing from Legislative Yuan offices after protesters occupied them, or student protesters getting drunk, or security guards getting hit. Benla Kuang (管中祥), a long time media reform activist and academic, said in a post: “As usual, most news channels treat civic movements with bias, distortion, smearing, trivialization and ridicule; isolated incidents are the main news. There is only conflict, but no debate; only confrontation, but no context. It’s as if the media put on blinders and picked up a sharp machete, and just started hacking away at civic activists.”

There were also reports that “after 17 days of students occupying the Legislative Yuan in opposition to the service trade agreement [with China], we found that “specific media groups” had gotten impatient, and started to carry out personal character attacks of highly visible members of the protest in an attempt to damage the morale of the Sunflower Movement.” The smears by pro-Chinese media was early on resisted and confronted by an unsatisfied public who didn’t appreciate such actions. Outside of the Legislative Yuan, TVBS and CTiTV News’s reporter vans were constantly pasted with protester stickers, and even graffitied. There was even one piece of graffiti sprayed on the top, saying, “Thank you TVBS for giving my mom and dad fake news,” and “CCP Pilgrimage News Channel.”

Even more Taiwanese use Facebook, BBS and other large social media as important platforms for disseminating information within Taiwan. Many citizen-journalists, internet media outlets, and journalism students held the view that “if the media won’t report the truth, we will.” They conducted live interviews and reported first hand information around the clock, which allowed the public to clearly see the truth about the protest, without being manipulated or distorted by traditional media.

NTU professor Cheng Hsiu-ling painstakingly spent many months to finish an “Analysis of the Impact of Cross-Strait Trade Agreements on China,” providing professional insight on the substantive issues for the public. Young professional IT workers and students then spread Cheng’s publication through video, PTT (a native Taiwanese forum-thread platform), and other methods throughout Taiwan’s internet space.

Since the onset of Chinese investment into Taiwan’s media landscape, pro-China media outlets continue to unscrupulously carry out pervasive campaigns to manipulate public opinion. During the Sunflower Movement, they wanted to express to China’s government that “we are strong outside of China,” but they didn’t expect to be defeated by the Taiwanese people using more advanced means of communication.

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He Qinglian is a media personality as well as a scholar of politics and economics. Born in Zhaoyang, Hunan Province, China in 1956, she first graduated from Hunan Normal University and Shanghai’s Fudan University, then went on to study economics at the Hunan Institute of Economcs [SIC], and took up teaching at Guangzhou Jinan University. Following her tenure at the Guangzhou Jinan University, she went to work for the Shenzhen Legal Gazette, but fled China following government persecution in 2001. She currently lives in the United States and is a columnist for Voice of America.

Other publications by the author include “Population: China’s suspended sword”; “China’s Trap,” (later renamed as “The Trap of Modernization,” after it was censored, winning the Changjiang Literary Prize in 1999); “China in the Fog: the Leaking of Mainland China’s Media Control Policies,”; “China: Collapse Without the Collapse,” and other works. Her works have been translated into Japanese, English, German, Korean and several other languages.

Title: Red Infiltration – The Reality about China’s Global Expansion in International Media
Author: He Qinglian
Publisher: Gusa Publishing
Time of Publishing: March 2019