A state-backed Chinese newspaper paid more than $1.6 million for advertising in Western media outlets with a presence in the United States over the last six months, according to disclosure forms filed Tuesday.
The cash China Daily forked over included $272,000 to The Los Angeles Times; $291,000 to Foreign Policy; $371,577 to the British Financial Times; $329,898 to the Canadian Globe and Mail; and $700,000 to TIME Magazine. The figures were included on disclosure forms the Chinese newspaper filed on Tuesday under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires foreign agents to register with the federal government.
The Chinese newspaper frequently pushes controversial claims, and sometimes misinformation, promoted by the Chinese government. It carried a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman’s claim last year that the U.S. started the AIDS crisis, and in January, argued that China’s concentration camps for Uighurs helped women to become more than “baby-making machines.”
The latest figures come after several large publications — including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post — ended advertising agreements with the newspaper last year. The new disclosures also indicate China Daily also paid a slough of American newspapers more than $1 million to print its publication in their cities. Some of the publications on that list included The Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, Boston Globe, and Miami’s Sun Sentinel.
A group of congressional Republicans asked the Justice Department last year to investigate whether the payments violated federal laws that require foreign agents to disclose their activity. That move came after a Washington Free Beacon report found China Daily failed to disclose advertising purchases earlier than 2012 — even as a Washington Post spokesperson noted that paper had been running the ads for “more than 30 years.”
The Post, along with The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, ceased running ads for China Daily last year.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/chinese-state-media-paid-1-6-million-for-advertising-from-american-media-outlets-including-time-magazine-la-times-financial-times/
