[Epoch Times, August 27, 2021]On August 23, the US version of Sing Tao US (Sing Tao US) had to write the “Foreign Agent Registration Act” (FARA) on the registration documents. Tick the column “owned by foreign governments, foreign political parties or other foreign clients”; and admit that more than half of Sing Tao’s US content was purchased from a Chinese company called Star Production (Shenzhen) Limited; despite the fact that Both the Dao Daily and the CCP denied that he was an agent of the CCP.
“Sing Tao Daily” is the first Hong Kong media to be “forced” to register as a foreign agent in the United States. The outside world has noticed that this move by the US Department of Justice coincides with the CCP’s suppression of the Hong Kong media.
For example: On May 28, the total sentence of Li Zhiying, the founder of Hong Kong One Media Group, was increased to 20 months; on June 17, the Hong Kong police arrested One Media and others on suspicion of “conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security”. Five senior executives of Apple Daily have frozen the assets of three related companies totaling 18 million Hong Kong dollars; on June 24, Hong Kong Apple Daily, which has been reporting for 26 years, published the last issue of the newspaper.
“An era is over”-“The New York Times” reported. This is a tragedy in Hong Kong, and even more a tragedy in China. The CCP is destroying the freedom of the press in Hong Kong on the basis of completely blocking the freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press in Mainland China.
However, the CCP’s crimes and conspiracies do not stop here, but have permeated the United States, Western society and the world over a long period of time. The CCP not only wants to control the news that Americans and the international community see, but also wants to influence the thinking of Americans and the international community. For this reason, the CCP has spent huge sums of money to build a “big foreign propaganda” for many years, which is called the “national strategic communication system.”
The US’s vigilance in this regard is concentrated in the concept of “sharp power.” Sharp power refers to the ability of a country to divide/mislead the public opinions of the target country, or cover/divert the attention of the target country’s public to its negative information, and manipulate the information in the target country’s news media and education system. Sharp power is different from soft power. Soft power is an attractive policy (such as exchanging students, sponsoring cultural and sports activities) that projects a positive image for the country; sharp power is also different from hard power, which is a mandatory goal of a country The country’s ability to change its decisions, such as wars, economic sanctions, and diplomatic threats. Sharp power is regarded as an aggressive and subversive foreign policy adopted by a totalitarian government, so it is not accepted by the United States and the international community.
In November 2017, the National Foundation for Democracy of the United States mentioned “sharp power” for the first time in an article in “Diplomacy” magazine, taking the Confucius Institute as an example of the CCP’s sharp power, pointing out that the CCP does not necessarily have to “win another country.” The heart and mind of the country” (this is the goal of soft power), but it will certainly distort the information that the country is exposed to to manipulate its target audience.
Since then, the term “sharp power” has been widely adopted by academic circles, political circles, and the media. It is worth mentioning that on November 29, 2018, the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and the American Asia Society Center for U.S.-China Relations jointly released a report entitled “China’s Influence and American Interests: Raising Constructive Vigilance”. They cited a series of lobbying actions taken by the CCP against U.S. companies, media, think tanks, and students, warning Americans that they should realize that the CCP’s “infiltration and influence” in the U.S. is posing a growing threat. What is particularly interesting is that the authors of the report are a group of US experts on China who have been actively advocating for the United States to increase contacts with Beijing for a long time.
“Sharp power” is an ideological weapon that recognizes the penetration of the CCP, which had a certain impact on the Trump administration at that time. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) strengthened the implementation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). In 2017, China’s “Xinmin Evening News” registered a foreign agent in the “Xinmin International” established in the United States. In September 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered Xinhua News Agency and China Global Television Network (CGTN) to register as “foreign agents.” CGTN implemented this requirement in 2019, and the Chinese state media Xinhua News Agency only began to implement it in 2021. In 2020, the publishing company of China Daily, the official English-language newspaper of the Communist Party of China, which had registered as a foreign agent as early as 1983, submitted a supplementary registration statement to the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the situation from 2017 to 2020. .
In 2020, the United States and China also engaged in a media war. On February 18, based on the values of freedom of the press in the United States, the US State Department released Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network (CGTN), China Radio International (China Radio International), China Daily Distribution Corp (China Daily Distribution Corp), and the publication of “People Five organizations including the US Haitian Development Corporation in the overseas edition of the Daily News are recognized as “foreign missions” and are regarded as part of the Chinese Communist government; in June, four more were added to the list of “foreign missions”: CCTV, China News Service (China News Service), “People’s Daily” and “Global Times”. On June 22, a station under Phoenix Satellite TV was asked to stop broadcasting in the United States. The then Assistant Secretary of State David Stillwell told reporters that the move was to clean up the door, “we are cleaning up broken glass that we didn’t pay much attention to before.”
The CCP retaliated by expelling 11 American journalists based in China from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. The U.S. requires the CCP’s official media agencies in the U.S. to reduce 60 Chinese employees and restrict visas for Chinese journalists. David Stillwell explained that the U.S. measures are self-defense, and the CCP government is acting arbitrarily in order to conceal negative news. U.S. policy as an excuse.
It is true that the CCP strictly restricts foreign news at home, but it uses the openness of foreign countries to actively promote its political ideas, creating serious inequality. Take Xinhua News Agency as an example. In 2016, a huge screen was rented in Times Square, New York, and a 3-minute promotional video was played 120 times a day. The content continuously emphasized the sovereignty of disputed areas in the South China Sea.
At the same time, the CCP’s penetration of the United States has reached an alarming degree. In April 2020, the White House criticized the Voice of America for propaganda for the Chinese Communist government for the first time in history, but the Voice of America is a news organization funded by the US Congress.
However, the Trump administration’s counterattack against the “sharp power” of the CCP has been severely hampered by domestic political disputes. The most prominent example is that President Trump nominated conservative film producer Michael Pack as the chief executive of the United States International Media Service (USAGM), who was put on hold by the Senate for more than two years before taking office in June 2020. Parker said frankly that in order to deal with “false information from foreign countries” and “promote American ideas”, news reports with a clearer and firmer viewpoint are now needed, “especially for China (the Chinese Communist Party).” The day before Parker took office, he carried out a “major purge” of the leadership of its subsidiaries. The “top leaders” of the five organizations under the jurisdiction of the International Media Agency, including “Radio Free Europe”, were dismissed. Unfortunately, Parker’s drastic reforms were strongly resisted and came to an abrupt end when the Biden administration came to power.
Therefore, the fight against the sharp power of the CCP during the Trump administration was generally considered to be an encounter, and did not become a battlefield. ?” article).
However, President Trump has awakened the United States after all. Michael McCaul, the chief Republican member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and chairman of the China Task Force of the House of Representatives, came forward and believed that it was necessary for the U.S. to restart the Active Measures Working Group against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Measures Working Group), and develop a long-term strategy to disrupt the CCP’s propaganda offensive.
On August 4, 2020, McCall launched two bills to counter the evil influence and propaganda of the CCP in the world, and to further strengthen the strategic competition between the U.S. and the CCP. One is the “Countering Chinese Communist Party Malign Influence Act” (Countering Chinese Communist Party Malign Influence Act) No. 7937, which authorizes US$300 million to be allocated to the “Countering Chinese Influence Fund” each fiscal year from 2020 to 2024 to fight against The CCP’s evil activities on a global scale have instructed the Secretary of State to appoint a senior official to manage the use of funds. Another motion is the “US Information Abroad (USIA) for Strategic Competition Act” (US Information Abroad (USIA) for Strategic Competition Act). publicity.
On January 20 this year, the government changed. Biden became the President of the United States and comprehensively reviewed China’s policy. How the Biden administration counters the CCP’s sharp power and counterattacks the CCP’s fake news and information warfare has attracted attention from all walks of life.
Sing Tao Daily’s identification as a foreign agent this time is a single incident, or is it a signal that the Biden administration will make a big punch? It is difficult to judge for a while and still needs to be observed. However, on August 23, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) submitted a report to Congress that Chinese state media agencies were engaged in “espionage and propaganda” activities in the United States, and urged Congress to require relevant journalists and staff to register. As a “foreign agent”. This shows that we still maintain a high degree of vigilance against the CCP.
If the measures and spirit of the aforementioned two bills of Mr. McCall can get the attention of the U.S. government and the public, then it will be difficult for the Chinese Communist Party to use any tricks of its sharp power. On February 4 this year, the British Communications Authority (Ofcom) revoked the broadcasting license of the Chinese Communist Party’s major foreign propaganda agency China Global Television Network (CGTN) in the UK, which can be used as a reference for the United States.
The Epoch Times
Editor in charge: Gao Yi#
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