Through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) system, we found that the North American bureau of Xinhua News Agency, which registered as a “foreign agent” last week, has spent more than $10 million in the past 14 months, all of which came from Beijing. Of that, more than $5.3 million was spent on staff salaries and more than $3.3 million on rent for a total of eight properties in the United States. Another $500,000 was spent on legal fees and other administrative costs.
Our reporter checked the database of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of the U.S. Department of Justice and found that the registration information submitted by the North American branch of Xinhua News Agency for the first time last Wednesday (5) disclosed in detail the expenses and payments received by the agency in the U.S. from March 18 last year to May 4 this year.
Of the total expenses of more than $10 million, more than half, or about $5.37 million, went to salaries. Its second largest expense was rent, at approximately $3.37 million. Other expenses, including lawyers’ fees, including utilities, communications, transportation, equipment and other administrative costs, also cost more than $500,000.
According to the documents, from March last year to April this year alone, China’s Xinhua News Agency paid a total of $8.64 million to its North American branches, including its New York headquarters, Los Angeles branch, San Francisco branch, Washington branch, Houston branch and Chicago branch.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency was classified as a “foreign mission” by the U.S. Department of State in February of last year. The U.S. Department of Justice says the Foreign Agents Registration Act is designed to ensure that the American public knows the source of media content.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited sources, the U.S. Department of Justice asked Xinhua News Agency to register as a “foreign agent” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as early as 2018.
In addition, U.S. authorities announced in March last year that they would impose a staffing cap on Chinese media outlets such as Xinhua News Agency and China Global Television Network (CGTN), which would require the number of Chinese employees in the U.S. to be cut from 160 to 100.
The Department of Justice’s information does not currently show the total number of employees (i.e., Chinese and foreign) at Xinhua’s North American bureau.
The Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank, published an article last month entitled “Xinhua Infiltrates Western Electronic Media,” in which it noted that Chinese official media have been placing advertisements in major U.S. newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, under the headlines China Watch or China Focus. China Watch or China Focus. In recent years, it has shifted to electronic media, with its English-language subsidiary China Daily repackaging content. A search of Foreign Agents Registration Act documents by the Foundation revealed that China Daily received $91.91 million from its parent company from November 2019 to October 2020 to assist with Xinhua’s print paper and place online ads.
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