China Buys U.S. News Outlets

According to two sources of news last week, China purchased a U.S. company G&E Studio which, in turn, leased stations and airtime in Washington D.C.,Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston.  [ The Reuters Investigation, SPECIAL REPORT-Exposed: Beijing's covert global radio network is at http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-radio/ and has much more detail ]Those are big markets  where the news has a lot of competition, but these stations carried stories China wanted to slant their own way.  Gordon Crowitz at the Wall Street Journal, wrote an opinion piece today about it [China's Soft Power Exposed]

Key to all of this, from my viewpoint, is the Chinese are not just willing to control their own press in their own country;  they want to control ours too - and a few outside the U.S.  The Reuters article includes this statement:

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has chafed at a world order he sees as dominated by the United States and its allies, is aware that China struggles to project its views in the international arena.

“We should increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative and better communicate China’s message to the world,” Xi said in a policy address in November last year, according to Xinhua.

C&E Studio produces shows in Chinese and English and is one of 33 stations purchased covertly by
China Radio International.  It coverage extends from the western suburbs of Washington to the Chinese embassy.  That includes where I live.

Funny that Reuters had to tell the FCC that this was going on.