In an internal announcement, Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television (Phoenix) has made a change in its top management, with Sun Yusheng, a deputy director of the Communist Party’s CCTV, appointed as executive vice president of Phoenix Satellite Television, reporting to its chief executive officer. The Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Phoenix is still Liu Changle.
Caixin.com reported the above, citing an internal circular dated Feb. 24, which reads “Important personnel appointment” and was issued by Liu Changle.
Hong Kong 01 reported on Feb. 9 that Phoenix TV’s key executives had been replaced – Xu Wei, secretary of the CPC Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, became Phoenix TV’s chairman, and Sun Yusheng, deputy director of CCTV, became Phoenix TV’s general manager. Phoenix founder Liu Changle and his Family members have all withdrawn, and Liu will later serve as honorary chairman of the board.
However, according to the announcement issued yesterday, Liu is still the chairman of the board and CEO of Phoenix TV.
Sun Yusheng is a member of the editorial board of China Central Radio and Television (CCTV) and the deputy director and senior editor of CCTV.
According to Caixin.com, Sun Yusheng will be responsible for Phoenix’s program planning, program style, program content, program production and coordinating the management of the channels, and his work will be accountable to the chief executive officer, according to the transfer.
According to management practices, the executive president is the de facto control of corporate operations of the real power position. The Caixin report also quoted informed sources as saying that Sun Yusheng is expected to be the CEO of Phoenix TV in the future.
In a public talk he gave at a Chinese online media forum in September 2020, which has been circulating online, Sun Yusheng boasted about the ratings performance of the Communist Party’s official media, which “really told the story of the fight against the Epidemic” during the epidemic.
Radio Free Asia reports that in contrast to the situation of most independent media, scholars, citizen journalists or ordinary citizens who were suppressed and disappeared when they questioned the truth during the epidemic, Sun Yusheng’s speech was consistent with the official Communist Party’s caliber and served as the Party’s mouthpiece in another parallel Time and space.
The Radio Free Asia report quoted Princeton China Society executive chairman Chen Kuide as analyzing, “By transferring (CCTV’s deputy director) there now, we are basically tearing down all the pretense of the past and swearing that Phoenix is directly under the management of the CCP.”
Hu Ping, editor-in-chief emeritus of the U.S.-based Chinese political commentary magazine Beijing Spring, said the change at Phoenix is also linked to further direct control by the CCP in Hong Kong. “The CCP used to be indirect (in its control of Hong Kong) because it was still considering one country, two systems and retaining Hong Kong’s tradition of the rule of law and freedom of speech, but now it’s going bare bones.”
Publicly available information shows that Phoenix TV was founded in Hong Kong in 1996 and opened a branch in the U.S. in 2001, with founder and board chairman Liu Changle, a former Communist Party military officer and member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, who also worked for the Communist Party’s Central Broadcasting Company.
When Phoenix was first established, its shareholders were Hong Kong Satellite Television Limited, Asia Today Limited, which is controlled by Liu Changle, and Huaying International Limited, a subsidiary of the CPC Central Television, with 45%, 45% and 10% of the shares respectively. CCTV ceded its stake in Phoenix to the Bank of China in 1999.
An anonymous commentator revealed back in 2005 that Liu Changle told his guests at a banquet in Shenzhen in 1998 that the CCP’s Ministry of State Security had given him $2 million to build a television station.
Zhang Weiguo, a former editor and reporter for Shanghai’s World Economic Herald, said that Liu Changle, a former Communist Party colonel, retired from the army due to a sex scandal and returned to the mainland six months later, where he began to work in the oil business through military connections and the care of the Communist Party’s State Security Department and the General Staff Intelligence Department.
According to Radio Free Asia, Phoenix is more like a Chinese news organization in terms of its business model, editorial approach to news reporting, and staff.
For its part, however, when challenged by outsiders, Phoenix will say that it is a private sector company in Hong Kong.
On April 6, 2020, at a press conference with Trump, Phoenix correspondent in Washington, D.C., Wang mentioned Chinese companies such as huawei and Alibaba sending medical supplies to the U.S., and the call by CCP Ambassador Cui Tiankai for U.S.-China cooperation in fighting the epidemic.
Trump immediately said, “That sounds like a statement, not a question.” He also asked Wang, “Are you working with the Chinese Communist Party? Who are you working for? The Chinese Communist Party?”
Wang replied that she worked for Phoenix TV. Trump asked her, “Who owns it (Phoenix)? The Chinese Communist Party? Is it owned by the state?” Wang said, “No, it’s not, it’s a private company.”
On the same day, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted, “Phoenix has been waging information warfare in the U.S. for several years. …… They claim to be private (media), but are actually state-owned (by the Chinese Communist Party).”
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