U.S. Congress urged to require Chinese
journalists to register as agents
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[November 15, 2017]
By David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A report to the U.S.
Congress released on Wednesday accused Chinese state media entities of
involvement in spying and propaganda and said their staff in the United
States should be required to register as foreign agents.
The annual report of the U.S. China Economic and Security Review
Commission said that while China had tightened restrictions on domestic
and foreign media, Chinese state media had rapidly expanded overseas.
The commission, created by Congress in 2000 to monitor national security
implications of U.S.-China trade relations, said China's state media
expansion was part of a broader effort to exert greater control over how
China is depicted globally, as well as to gather information.
The report highlighted the rapid growth of the Xinhua news agency and
noted that it had offices at the United Nations in New York, Washington,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and San Francisco.
"Xinhua serves some of the functions of an intelligence agency by
gathering information and producing classified reports for the Chinese
leadership on both domestic and international events," the report said.
It quoted testimony to the commission by the U.S. Government-funded
rights organization, Freedom House, as saying it was a "loophole" that
individuals working for Xinhua and China's People's Daily newspaper were
not covered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
FARA, first passed in 1938 in the lead up to World War Two to combat
German propaganda efforts, requires foreign governments, political
parties and lobbyists they hire in the United States to register with
the Department of Justice.
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Chinese and U.S. flags fly along Pennsylvania Avenue outside the
White House in Washington January 18, 2011. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The China Daily, an English-language newspaper owned by China's
government and ruling Communist Party, is already registered under
FARA but only its top executives are required to individually
disclose working for the publication.
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is working to overhaul FARA
after Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for President Donald
Trump, and a business associate were indicted for failing to
register under the law.
The reform, backed by powerful Senate Judiciary Committee chairman
Chuck Grassley, could provide an opportunity for Congress to act on
the commission recommendations.
On Monday, the Kremlin-backed television station RT America
registered under FARA after U.S. intelligence agencies in a report
in January called it a "state-run propaganda machine" that
contributed to the Kremlin’s campaign to interfere with last year's
U.S. presidential election.
Under the act, RT will be required to disclose financial
information. Moscow has said it views the action against RT as an
unfriendly act.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, additional reporting by Ginger
Gibson; Editing by David Gregorio)
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