Coming to Canada: China Spy TV?

TV Exec Arrested in U.S.; Station Applying for Canadian Broadcast Rights

By Jan Jekielek Epoch Times Toronto Staff

Nov 11, 2005

A founding executive of Phoenix TV's North America operations was arrested on Oct. 28 for smuggling secret military technology to China. The network, which has strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party and has consistenly echoed propaganda from the communist regime, portrays itself as an independent television station and is now applying for broadcaster rights in Canada. (Logo from Phoenix TV website, modified by The Epoch Times)

Reports surfaced this month that four Chinese-Americans arrested on October 28 had managed to funnel secret U.S. military technology to Communist China for as long as 15 years. One of the four is a top executive of the North American division of Phoenix TV, the purportedly independent Hong Kong-based Chinese network that is now applying for broadcasting rights in Canada.

That man, Tai Wang Mak, had planned to fly from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China with his wife on October 28. They were arrested at their home before they could make the journey. Maks brother and his wife were also arrested. The intelligence breach said to have led to their arrests was described by some officials quoted in a Washington newspaper as the most damaging in 20 years.

Mak is Broadcast and Engineering Director for Phoenix in Los Angeles, but investigators suspect that he doubles as a courier or spy handler with China's Ministry of National Security, or the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), according to reports. In a statement on the arrest, Phoenix was quick to distance itself from Mak, saying it discovered the news from other media, and that Mak was acting on his own.

Phoenix has not touched the topic of the spy-ring arrests in its programming.

A Phoenix spokesperson at the stations North American headquarters in Los Angeles who spoke with The Epoch Times evaded comments on Maks role in the publicly-traded company.

When asked Maks official title at Phoenix, she replied, Its confidential. The spokeswoman, who declined to be named, also said that the number of Phoenix staff in North America was confidential and the identity of the head of Phoenixs North American operations was confidential.

Government Connections

However, newspaper reports say that Wu Xiaoyong, the son of Chinas former Vice Premier, Wu Xueqian, heads the stations North American operations. Both Wu and Phoenix Chairman and CEO Liu Changle previously held posts in Chinas official mouthpiece radio station, China National Radio.

Liu, a military officer during the Cultural Revolution, started his journalism career with the PLA. A report in the Washington Post says he gained favour with Communist Party leaders by producing extensive propaganda singing the praises of Mao Zedong and the like.

In the late 1980s, Liu moved on from his military appointment (having gained a rank of colonel) to start work at a state oil firm. Making use of high-level connections, Liu amassed business assets worth an estimated $USD 500 million. He used this fortune to build his media empire.

Censorship Is Central

Liu's close relationship with the Chinese government has not faded as he has set out on the road to building the independent Phoenix. According to the Washington Post, Phoenix donated a 10 percent stake in the company to CCTV (China Central Television). It was a symbolic gesture to show we wouldn't oppose the Communist Party, Liu said. This friendliness with the Communist Party is immediately apparent in the station's coverage.

Take for example the Chinese government's efforts in 2003 to push through the Article 23 legislation in Hong Kong intended to restrict freedoms. Half a million Hong Kong people took to the streets on July 1 of that year to protest the proposed legislation, making it the top story in the Toronto Star and many other newspapers. The (Hong Kong-based) Phoenix, however, did not report the protest at all and instead aired news of a small gathering that supported the Mainland government's stance.

It is telling that Phoenix is virtually the only non-government run TV station with permission to broadcast into China. The station offers the impression of an outside, free medium, when in reality its reports on key issues do not stray from the party line.

So, how is it that Phoenix is now making way into Western countries? A big reason is Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which owns nearly 40 percent of Phoenix's shares and has been aggressively courting the Chinese media market over the last decade. Liu owns 37.5 percent. With his stake so large, Murdoch has dedicated resources to making sure Phoenix flies in North America, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interests have come along with it.

Phoenix now has an application before the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission with the backing of Canadian cable companies.

A Fight For Free Press

Though Phoenix was able to enter the U.S. market, the station has not been welcomed everywhere.

Phoenix's application for a satellite broadcast permit in Taiwan was rejected several years ago by the Department of Broadcasting Affairs of Taiwan's Government Information Office. The office deemed Phoenix's reporting on the relationship between Taiwan and China too biased, according to a November 5 report by Taiwan's Liberty Times.

There is also a swelling resistance against Chinese state-controlled media in Canada.

Last week, a popular Chinese radio station, Toronto First Radio, hosted a call-in show about the control the CCP exerts over affairs in Canada, including the content of Chinese-language media, the Chinese community and our politicians. Show co-host, Dr. Kengchit So, a veteran of Chinese-language press in Canada and Hong Kong, said because of record listener response the station has planned two more shows on the same topic.

It is not only Phoenix that is a concern. Media in Canadian-Chinese communities have faced significant pressure financial and political to toe the communist line, in Canada.

Beijing's four-pronged strategy for controlling overseas Chinese media was clearly documented in a November 2001 issue of China Brief, a publication by the U.S.-based NGO Jamestown Foundation. First, direct control through complete or majority ownership of media outlets; second, influencing the content of independent media through pressuring its economic ties with China; third, purchasing print space or buying air time to broadcast obvious propaganda content of Chinese communist authorities; fourth, planting state personnel in independent media operations in order to exert pro-Beijing influence from within.

Dr. So told The Epoch Times, Don't think Canada is a free and democratic society that we could avoid the shadow of the Communist Party. The influence by foreign countries forces of media [in Canada] is a very serious matter.