Last Updated on June 23, 2020, 7:03 AM AST by Anthony Morris
The Trump administration has announced that it would designate four more Chinese media organizations as foreign diplomatic missions and added that they are under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.
The assistant secretary of the State Department for East Asia and Pacific affairs, David Stilwell, said on Monday that China News Service, China Central Television, the Global Times and People’s Daily would have to report the details of their US staffing and of their US real estate holdings to the State Department.
Stilwell said that these entities are not independent news organizations and that the Chinese Communist Party controls them; they are also known as propaganda outlets.
He added that the US action would increase the transparency on the control of information, not just among the state propaganda outlets but also among the legitimate news gatherings and journalists in China.
This is for the second time when the United States has designated Chinese media outlets as foreign entities and asked them to submit to the rules and regulations which cover the diplomatic missions.
With the next general election just about four months away, President Donald Trump’s reelection prospects uncertain and the global economy is in shambles because of the coronavirus pandemic; there is a push among the President’s Republican allies and inside the White House to shift the blame to China and stress on China’s failure to act quickly and transparently to prevent the lethal virus from spreading across the world and turning into a global pandemic.
The announcement regarding the four Chinese media outlets has come just days after the revelations from a new book by Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, who wrote in the book that Trump had approached China’s President Xi Jinping for assistance in winning the 2020 election.
Stilwell said that the Chinese Communist Party has tightly controlled China’s state news agencies.
He added that these outlets are doing more than just propaganda, and understanding precisely what that is we have to know who they are. It’s about understanding what’s going on inside your own country; we’re a free nation.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
