Chen Guangbiao’s Chinese Soft-Power Circus Comes to New York

Chinese recycling tycoon Chen Guangbiao recently made headlines when he announced his “plans” to buy the New York Times. I put “plans” in quotation marks because the newspaper’s owners had expressed neither knowledge of any such deals in the works nor interest in selling it to anyone, least of all to a nationalistic Chinese businessman seeking to make the paper’s coverage more favorable to China. Chen expressed a desire to make the paper’s coverage of China more “fair and objective” and to bring more “positive images” of China to its readers. Anyone familiar with mainland Chinese double-speak knows what that means: pro-China coverage, bought and paid-for with the almighty renminbi.

Chen then flew to New York this week to implement his “plans” to buy the New York Times. Upon his arrival, Times owners declined not only to sell the paper to him but even to meet with him. Rebuffed by the Times, Chen then said that he would set his sights on the Wall Street Journal, telling an interviewer: “I am very good at working with Jews.” So we’ll see how that goes. If for some reason WSJ doesn’t work out, then there’s always the Washington Post. For all his stateside wheelings and dealings, Chen must have brought along plenty of copies of his business card, which has been madly circulating online:

Events then took a darker turn at a news conference held by Chen at a hotel ballroom in New York, but not before Chen sang “My Chinese Dream” (written of course by Chen himself), an ode to President Xi Jinping’s new mantra for the country, “The Chinese Dream.” Sang Chen, “The whole world will witness my Chinese dream!” I’m sorry I couldn’t find video of Chen’s singing performance, but I’m sure it must have been lovely. After his song, Chen told reporters that the New York Times should be “more authentic and objective” in its coverage of China, and warned Americans not to trust the Japanese, who are currently involved in territorial disputes with China in the East China Sea.

As I said, however, things then took a darker turn. Chen had two disfigured women from his entourage, claiming to be Falun Gong self-immolation victims, display their burns as evidence of the evil of Falun Gong practice. According to Chen, the mother and daughter were with him in New York for restorative surgery at his expense.  If this is true, then Chen deserves at least to be applauded for his charity. Many, however, believe that this was nothing but a crude exercise in Chinese “external propaganda.” This is what “soft power” amounts to in the minds of China’s rulers: party propaganda to mold the thinking of foreign audiences, just as “internal propaganda” molds the thinking of audiences at home. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda also frequently goes beyond mere “spin” to include outright lies.

U.S.-based Chinese network New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV) called Chen a “CCP pimp” and his appearance with the women “a cheap propaganda coup” in which Chen “exploits two vulnerable, badly disfigured women.” In question is not only Chen’s use of the women but whether they are self-immolation victims at all. Suicide or any other form of violence is not part of Falun Gong practice, and there are many doubts surrounding official Chinese reports on the 2001 self-immolation of which the women are alleged victims. These doubts date to a 2001 investigation in China by Washington Post reporter Philip Pan, and are further elaborated by NTDTV in its 2002 documentary, “False Fire.” In short, NTDTV and others believe, the women who appeared with Chen are not Falun Gong self-immolation victims, but victims of a Chinese government hoax carried out to justify its repression of Falun Gong practitioners. Sarah Cook of Freedom House has also urged skepticism on this and other incidents of “extremism” or “terrorism” reported by the Chinese government and state-run media.

If these charges are true, one hopes at least that the restorative surgery promised by Chen for the two women is not also a hoax. In any case, as NTDTV observes, the women who appeared with Chen could not have done so without CCP cooperation, since they have reportedly been under house arrest in China since 2001. This, in turn, would implicate the CCP leadership in Chen’s entire U.S. venture, which does not reflect well on Beijing’s understanding of “soft power.”