[Continuing]
In June 2019, the New York State Senate passed a resolution naming Oct. 1—the founding date of the communist regime in 1949—the state’s “China Day,” so as to commemorate the contributions of ethnic Chinese to New York. A PRC foreign ministry spokesperson praised the move as a “positive” development.
At an evening reception hosted that Sept. 16 by the New York Chinese Consulate to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the PRC’s founding, Consul-General Huang Ping delivered remarks praising “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and condemned the ongoing trade war for hurting the economic prospects of both countries. Many New York politicians, entrepreneurs, and representatives from the local Chinese diaspora were in attendance.
Reshaping the Media Environment and Society
As late as the mid-1980s, the most prominent Chinese-American organizations in New York were those aligned with Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China (ROC). But as mainland China came to dominate the economic and diplomatic landscape, the ROC’s Blue Sky with a White Sun flag began to disappear from the local Chinatowns, replaced by the five-starred red flag of the PRC.
Beijing’s growing influence was felt across the Chinese-American community as the CCP deployed its propaganda machine to sway overseas Chinese worldwide. PRC-funded organizations like the Confucius Institute were set up in U.S. colleges and schools, helping the Party cement its preferred take on Chinese identity, culture, and language in the minds of many young Americans.
CCP organizations in New York have established links with the local triad gangs, and sometimes even allow the Party to project its political repression into the United States.
In 1999, the CCP launched an all-out persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice and its tens of millions of adherents. The deadly campaign continues to this day.
Groups linked to the extralegal Communist Party commission tasked with overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong have been peddling hate speech against the practice in New York’s Chinatowns for over a decade. Individual members of these groups have been prosecuted for physically assaulting local Falun Gong practitioners.
Since the early 1990s, when the state-linked Chinese-language daily China Press was founded to serve overseas Chinese audiences, the CCP’s international propaganda efforts have ballooned into a multi-billion-dollar operation, officially termed the “Great External Propaganda Plan.”
In 2010, Xinhua News Agency launched a round-the-clock English-language TV channel, CNC World. In August 2011, Xinhua ran an advertisement worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in Times Square. Brian Turner, the president of Sherwood Outdoor Advertising Co., said at the time that he hoped leasing the screen space to Xinhua would encourage other Chinese brands to advertise in Times Square.
Since 2011, both Xinhua and the People’s Daily Online, another CCP mouthpiece, have had offices in Manhattan, with the latter operating out of the 30th floor of the Empire State Building.
This February, the U.S. State Department designated Xinhua and four other PRC-controlled media in the United States as “foreign missions” to reflect their role in Beijing’s external propaganda strategy.
Taken In by the Party Line
The effectiveness of the CCP’s propaganda offensives among overseas Chinese is readily observed. Thousands of Chinese residing abroad have purchased plane tickets back to China, convinced by the Party’s latest narrative that the United States, not the Chinese “motherland,” is the new epicenter of the virus.
Having long served as the gateway to America for immigrants and shipping, New York seems uniquely susceptible to the spread of the pandemic. On March 25, Gov. Cuomo said that New York “has more cases than other U.S. states … because we welcome people from across the globe, and we live; move; commune, and do so many other things close to one another.”
But in the CCP virus pandemic, globalization isn’t the only factor to blame.
Due vigilance and realistic views of the mainland Chinese regime, as demonstrated by the people of Taiwan and Hong Kong, provide no small measure of inoculation against the medical crisis. Despite their proximity to, and extensive trade ties with, mainland China, these two regions did not delay measures to stop the virus. As of April 3, the number of infections in either territory has remained in the hundreds.
In South Korea, the authorities were slow to cut down on trade and travel with China. However, knowledge of the epidemic and its seriousness rapidly spread among the public. In January, videos exposing the bleak situation in the virus epicenter of Wuhan were widely viewed and shared by Koreans. Millions of people criticized President Moon Jae-in for placing business above national health.
While South Korea had one of the worst early outbreaks outside China, the combination of public awareness, popular pressure, and civic cooperation seems to have brought the virus under control.
Yet the same vigilance appears sorely lacking in the Empire State, even as the CCP promotes its supposed success in controlling the disease in China, and painting the U.S. response as the epitome of administrative incompetence. The narrative is reinforced by many foreign media outlets, in large part because they tend to report the PRC’s official numbers of confirmed cases and deaths at face value.
On March 18, the New York Times published an article titled “Its Coronavirus Cases Dwindling, China Turns Focus Outward.”
The article’s subhead echoes the CCP’s propaganda: “Beijing is mounting a humanitarian aid blitz in countries struggling with their own outbreaks. In doing so, it’s stepping into a role the West once dominated.”
A March 19 editorial by the Washington Examiner criticized the Times report as perhaps “the most shameful piece of Chinese disinformation published by any newsroom in the United States since the COVID-19 outbreak first became a story.”
“The article parrots China’s claim that its daily coronavirus cases have dwindled ‘into the single digits,’” the Examiner notes. “No attempt is made to verify these numbers. … With the media acting like this, who even needs the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China?”
Leo Timm contributed to this article.
With Myriad Links to Chinese Regime, New York Is Now America’s CCP Virus Epicenter
In June 2019, the New York State Senate passed a resolution naming Oct. 1—the founding date of the communist regime in 1949—the state’s “China Day,” so as to commemorate the contributions of ethnic Chinese to New York. A PRC foreign ministry spokesperson praised the move as a “positive” development.
At an evening reception hosted that Sept. 16 by the New York Chinese Consulate to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the PRC’s founding, Consul-General Huang Ping delivered remarks praising “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and condemned the ongoing trade war for hurting the economic prospects of both countries. Many New York politicians, entrepreneurs, and representatives from the local Chinese diaspora were in attendance.
Reshaping the Media Environment and Society
As late as the mid-1980s, the most prominent Chinese-American organizations in New York were those aligned with Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China (ROC). But as mainland China came to dominate the economic and diplomatic landscape, the ROC’s Blue Sky with a White Sun flag began to disappear from the local Chinatowns, replaced by the five-starred red flag of the PRC.
Beijing’s growing influence was felt across the Chinese-American community as the CCP deployed its propaganda machine to sway overseas Chinese worldwide. PRC-funded organizations like the Confucius Institute were set up in U.S. colleges and schools, helping the Party cement its preferred take on Chinese identity, culture, and language in the minds of many young Americans.
CCP organizations in New York have established links with the local triad gangs, and sometimes even allow the Party to project its political repression into the United States.
In 1999, the CCP launched an all-out persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice and its tens of millions of adherents. The deadly campaign continues to this day.
Groups linked to the extralegal Communist Party commission tasked with overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong have been peddling hate speech against the practice in New York’s Chinatowns for over a decade. Individual members of these groups have been prosecuted for physically assaulting local Falun Gong practitioners.
Since the early 1990s, when the state-linked Chinese-language daily China Press was founded to serve overseas Chinese audiences, the CCP’s international propaganda efforts have ballooned into a multi-billion-dollar operation, officially termed the “Great External Propaganda Plan.”
In 2010, Xinhua News Agency launched a round-the-clock English-language TV channel, CNC World. In August 2011, Xinhua ran an advertisement worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in Times Square. Brian Turner, the president of Sherwood Outdoor Advertising Co., said at the time that he hoped leasing the screen space to Xinhua would encourage other Chinese brands to advertise in Times Square.
Since 2011, both Xinhua and the People’s Daily Online, another CCP mouthpiece, have had offices in Manhattan, with the latter operating out of the 30th floor of the Empire State Building.
This February, the U.S. State Department designated Xinhua and four other PRC-controlled media in the United States as “foreign missions” to reflect their role in Beijing’s external propaganda strategy.
Taken In by the Party Line
The effectiveness of the CCP’s propaganda offensives among overseas Chinese is readily observed. Thousands of Chinese residing abroad have purchased plane tickets back to China, convinced by the Party’s latest narrative that the United States, not the Chinese “motherland,” is the new epicenter of the virus.
Having long served as the gateway to America for immigrants and shipping, New York seems uniquely susceptible to the spread of the pandemic. On March 25, Gov. Cuomo said that New York “has more cases than other U.S. states … because we welcome people from across the globe, and we live; move; commune, and do so many other things close to one another.”
But in the CCP virus pandemic, globalization isn’t the only factor to blame.
Due vigilance and realistic views of the mainland Chinese regime, as demonstrated by the people of Taiwan and Hong Kong, provide no small measure of inoculation against the medical crisis. Despite their proximity to, and extensive trade ties with, mainland China, these two regions did not delay measures to stop the virus. As of April 3, the number of infections in either territory has remained in the hundreds.
In South Korea, the authorities were slow to cut down on trade and travel with China. However, knowledge of the epidemic and its seriousness rapidly spread among the public. In January, videos exposing the bleak situation in the virus epicenter of Wuhan were widely viewed and shared by Koreans. Millions of people criticized President Moon Jae-in for placing business above national health.
While South Korea had one of the worst early outbreaks outside China, the combination of public awareness, popular pressure, and civic cooperation seems to have brought the virus under control.
Yet the same vigilance appears sorely lacking in the Empire State, even as the CCP promotes its supposed success in controlling the disease in China, and painting the U.S. response as the epitome of administrative incompetence. The narrative is reinforced by many foreign media outlets, in large part because they tend to report the PRC’s official numbers of confirmed cases and deaths at face value.
On March 18, the New York Times published an article titled “Its Coronavirus Cases Dwindling, China Turns Focus Outward.”
The article’s subhead echoes the CCP’s propaganda: “Beijing is mounting a humanitarian aid blitz in countries struggling with their own outbreaks. In doing so, it’s stepping into a role the West once dominated.”
A March 19 editorial by the Washington Examiner criticized the Times report as perhaps “the most shameful piece of Chinese disinformation published by any newsroom in the United States since the COVID-19 outbreak first became a story.”
“The article parrots China’s claim that its daily coronavirus cases have dwindled ‘into the single digits,’” the Examiner notes. “No attempt is made to verify these numbers. … With the media acting like this, who even needs the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China?”
Leo Timm contributed to this article.
With Myriad Links to Chinese Regime, New York Is Now America’s CCP Virus Epicenter
