China’s TV network hasn’t registered in US
English-language affiliate headquartered in Washington. CCTV America - recently rebranded as CGTN America - has been described as an attempt by China to spread its soft power globally.
ONGOING investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election have led to increased scrutiny of foreign outlets operating in the United States. The US Justice Department recently ordered RT, the Russian statebacked English-language news organisation, to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
But one of China’s biggest government- controlled news outlets has not registered its Washington operation as a foreign agent.
In 2012, China Central Television (CCTV), the Chinese state broadcaster, launched an English-language affiliate headquartered in Washington. CCTV America - recently rebranded as CGTN America - has been described as an attempt by China to spread its soft power globally.
Its coverage of US domestic issues is professional and not clearly slanted in one direction or another. But any Chinarelated reports strictly follow Chinese Communist Party media guidelines, presenting China as a positive, peaceful force whose geopolitical interests are righteous.
For example, in July 2016, China’s island-building in the contested South China Sea came under international scrutiny when a Hague-based international tribunal ruled against most of Beijing’s claims there; Washington has also urged Beijing to follow international law with respect to the disputed waterway. After the court issued its ruling, CGTN America referred to the ruling as a “socalled award” and presented the US position as hypocritical and aimed at containing China.
The network’s coverage of the Uighur ethnic minority in northwest China is especially telling. Human rights groups have expressed alarm at the Chinese government’s campaigns of extreme oppression and forced assimilation in the Uighur homeland of Xinjiang, where Beijing has rolled out a new regime of omnipresent digital surveillance involving ubiquitous video cameras, facerecognition technology, and a complete DNA registry of the entire population.
How does CGTN America portray the region? “There is a renewed focus on breaking down ethnic barriers and promoting a shared national identity and economic benefits,” goes one characteristic report. “Mandarin-instruction for all is seen as key.”
While CGTN America has not registered as a foreign agent, a public relations company that worked on behalf of the network’s US division has filed Foreign Agents Registration Act paperwork.
In late 2011, just ahead of the channel’s American launch, CCTV signed a US$ 15,000 ( RM63,0000)- a-month contract with Ogilvy Public Relations to “communicate to the American public that CCTV America will provide compelling, comprehensive, and balanced news programming from an Asian perspective that is relevant to a global audience.”
In forms filed with the Justice Department in 2012, Ogilvy said CCTV America was supervised, owned, directed, controlled, financed, and subsidised by a foreign principal. “CCTV falls under the supervision of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, which is in turn subordinate to the State Council of the People’s Republic of China,” Ogilvy said in its FARA filing. — WP-Bloomberg