China syndromeU.S. Designates Chinese Media Outlets as “Foreign Missions”

The State Department on Tuesday announced it was designating five state-run Chinese news organizations as “foreign missions.” The move aims to tackle what State Department officials describes as China’s “propaganda news apparatus.”

The New York Times reports that the designation applies to China’s official Xinhua News Agency; China Global Television Network; China Radio International, and two newspaper distribution agencies.

The concern in the United States over the influence of foreign media has increased as the two parties get their candidate selection process under way, and with the presidential election looming.

The memories of Russia’s effective 2016 influence campaign to help Donald Trump win the election are still fresh, and the U.S. intelligence community has been warning that, in 2020, Russia will not only repeat its social media effort, but add to it a much more robust campaign to hack voting machines in order to influence the election and sow distrust in the election process itself.

Moreover, U.S. intelligence agencies have warned that China and Iran will try to emulate Russia’s successful 2016 media effort to influence the election results.

China’s influence campaign differs in its methods from that of Russia, as it relies more heavily on traditional media, rather than social media, and is focused more on portraying a positive image of China, and on the confluence of interests between China and the United States. Russia’s influence campaign relies heavily on social media, and its aim is to undermine and weaken Western democracies by supporting far-right, populist movements and deepen societal and political conflict and polarization.

U.S. officials are concerned about the influence of foreign media organizations on public opinion, and are especially worried that Chinese journalists working for state media are not truly journalists, but propaganda agents controlled by Chinese government agencies. The U.S. intelligence community has evidence that these so-called journalists are sent to the United States to carry out the agenda of the Chinese government. 

The State Department said that a designation of an organization as a foreign mission requires the organization – in this case, media outlets — to register the locations of any properties they own or rent in the United States, obtain permission to acquire more property, and disclose the identities of their employees working in the United S, including U.S. citizens.

The requirements are similar to the requirements on diplomats and official foreign government entities operating in the United States – except that the designation, in and of itself, does not entitle the designated organizations to a diplomatic status.

“There is no dispute that all five of these entities are part of the [Chinese] party-state propaganda news apparatus and they take their orders directly from the top,” a State Department official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

“We all know these guys have been state-controlled forever, but that control has gotten stronger over time, and it’s far more aggressive,” he added.

Designation of media operations as foreign missions is not new: During the Cold War, most Soviet media organizations operating in the United States were designated as foreign missions. A couple of years ago the State Department designated the Vietnam News Agency as a foreign mission.