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Sen. Ted Cruz is targeting China’s Communist Party in legislation that he introduced aimed at a government-owned television station.
The Texas Republican will be unveiling the bill which will close existing loopholes in U.S. law and was brought on by a radio station connected to Chinese government-owned Phoenix TV broadcasting propaganda into America through a tower in Mexico.
Communist propaganda being produced by Phoenix TV is being beamed via a broadcast tower in Mexico by the radio station, which was purchased in 2018 by “an investment group with ties to China,” the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Phoenix TV has been described as a “quasi-official” news outlet connected to China’s Ministry of State Security by the Hoover Institution, a Stanford University public policy think tank.
The bill being introduced by Cruz would ban the granting of licenses by the Federal Communications Commission if the language of the station will be changed. Affiliates of Phoenix TV applied for an FCC license and switched from Spanish to Chinese-language programming once the new owners took over the radio station, which is only operating under a temporary license.
According to the Free Beacon:
Phoenix TV has been exploiting an FCC loophole that permits content produced in the United States to be broadcast back into the United States by radio towers more powerful than those located within the country. Phoenix TV, which is headquartered in California, produces its content domestically and then uses the powerful Mexican station to ensure it reaches American ears in California.
“China should not be able to set up shop in Mexico and blanket America with propaganda,” Cruz told the Free Beacon.
“Every year, the [Chinese Communist Party] spends billions of dollars purchasing news outlets and waging information warfare to extend the reach of its propaganda and whitewash the unflattering and politically inconvenient truths about its totalitarian regime,” he said.
“We are seeing this play out right now as news outlets across the country parrot Chinese talking points about the coronavirus pandemic—a pandemic that could have been prevented,” Cruz added. “I look forward to introducing this legislation when Congress returns and closing FCC loopholes that allow China to wage their information warfare from across the border in Mexico.”
The Texas lawmakers and other Republicans condemned the White House for granting press credentials to a Phoenix TV reporter who questioned President Donald Trump during a coronavirus task force press briefing earlier this month. In the same week, another reporter with ties to the Chinese Communist Party attended the daily briefing and asked Trump a question.
Another reporter reportedly linked to CCP attends Trump’s briefing, dodges when asked where he’s from https://t.co/mNymouleEi
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) April 10, 2020
Cruz unloaded in a series of tweets following the incidents in early April, maintaining that the reporters should not have been allowed at a White House press briefing.
“Phoenix TV has been waging information warfare in the US for yrs,” Cruz wrote on Twitter. “They are nominally private but actually state owned. In 2018 I led effort to block them from using cutouts to spread propaganda. MSM should NEVER have given them seat at WH press conference.”
8/x So to recap, the WH Correspondents Assoc gave a seat at the WH press briefing to an employee of the Chinese Communist govt, to ask globally televised Qs to POTUS, at the same time China is waging a propaganda campaign to hide their culpability & coverup of the Wuhan virus?!? pic.twitter.com/lJYjdqqEFe
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 7, 2020
Phoenix TV’s U.S. broadcasts would basically be shut down with the new legislation Cruz intends to introduce.
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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