Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua has registered as a foreign agent under U.S. law, more than two years after the Justice Department (DOJ) reportedly ordered it to do so.
Xinhua’s U.S. division was registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) on May 5, according to the DOJ’s online FARA database (pdf). This makes Xinhua the third Chinese state-run media organization to register as a foreign agent, after CGTN, the international arm of the Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television, and China Daily, an English-language newspaper overseen by the regime’s propaganda department.
In September 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that the DOJ had ordered Xinhua and CGTN to register under FARA. CTGN did so in February 2019.
FARA was passed in 1938 to combat Nazi propaganda efforts and influence campaigns in the United States. It requires foreign governments, political parties, and lobbyists they hire in the United States to register with the Department of Justice. While registration doesn’t affect a media outlet’s editorial content, it does require the organization to disclose its annual budget and expenditures.
The FARA filing shows that Xinhua’s Beijing headquarters paid its North American bureau more than $8.6 million in operating expenses from March 2020 to April 2021. Xinhua’s North American bureau has eight offices, in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and San Francisco.
Xinhua has leased a giant screen in Times Square since 2011, dubbed the “China screen.” In February, the electronic billboard played ads urging unity in the fight against the pandemic, while promoting Beijing’s efforts to combat the CCP virus worldwide. This was around the same time the regime was drawing criticism over its lack of transparency as WHO investigators were probing the origins of the virus.
Expenses associated with the billboard’s hire weren’t included in the FARA filings. The documents, however, show that Xinhua paid more than $130,000 in unspecified “communication fees” between March 2020 to May 2021. It doesn’t indicate who the fees were paid to.
BY CATHY HE
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