A veteran radio journalist has raised concerns about the effect propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is having on Chinese-speaking Australians after he discovered that state-sponsored propaganda had been hitting the airwaves for over twenty years in Sydney.
Nick Wong, a former Wellington-based Chinese newspaper publisher, as well as a former member of the New Zealand Parliamentary Press Gallery, said he was concerned about the security implications of multicultural radio programming in Australia after working at 2tripleO 98.5vFM in Burwood, New South Wales.
Wong is an outspoken critic of Beijing and was once detained and tortured in China for going back to his home country without a valid visa.
Programs Taken Directly from Beijing
2TripleO 98.5FM, which identifies as a multicultural language radio station, has been using five hours of prime time every day to broadcast programs from China Radio International (CRI), the CCP’s state-owned international radio broadcaster, to the New South Wales community.
CRI has been identified in an ASPI report in late 2020 as a vehicle for the CCP to expand its media influence overseas “The influence environment, A survey of Chinese-language media in Australia,” an ASPI report in late 2020.
“The CCP has proactively expanded its media influence overseas by establishing more external propaganda outlets to make China’s voice heard. This has involved using both modern methods, such as social media, and traditional methods, such as newspapers, radio and television, ” reads the report.
“One traditional method has been China Radio International (CRI), which is a state‐owned radio broadcaster used to promote CCP‐produced content in 44 languages to nearly 70 affiliate radio stations globally.”
Wong said he listened carefully to the CRI program, which can be heard live on the station’s website, from Nov. 24 to Nov. 28, during the CCP’s 20th National Congress—an event held every five years.
“The Mandarin programme from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. fully propagated the CCP’s 20th National Congress and the leader Xi Jinping’s speech, and some news stories attacked Taiwanese democratic society,” he told The Epoch Times. “One or two Chinese community leaders in Australia were interviewed to support and promote the Congress.”
Wong believes that this poses a tremendous security concern, as the CCP uses programming to influence Chinese people overseas and penetrate into Australian society, especially the majority Chinese Australian population in the Greater Sydney area.
“We do not have any system to educate the Chinese migrants to understand the Australian values,” he wrote in an email to Prime Minister Albanese, which has been viewed by The Epoch Times.
“As a result, there are many Chinese migrants who have been living in Australia for more than three decades and now receive benefits or retirement payments from our Centrelink but hold China’s flag at the stadium in Sydney for the international cup of women’s basketball game between the Australian team and China’s team about a month ago.”
“A big percentage of those people believe the CCP = China. They still keep the stage of brainwashing as patriots of China or CCP and nationalism of China or CCP,” he said. “If a war happens between Australia and China, some of those Chinese migrants can take guns towards the Australian army, I believe.”
The Epoch Times listened to the CRI programs on the station’s website during different time slots and confirmed that a large portion of the station’s radio programming lent heavily towards pro-Beijing programs.
However, Inoke Huakau, managing director of 2TripleO, told The Epoch Times that the station has been broadcasting the CRI program for 20 years and did not see the programs as harmful. Rather the stations believe that the programs fill a growing community need for Sydney’s increasing Mandarin-speaking community. The radio station also noted that they were qualified in accordance with the reporting guidelines of the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.
“We do not treat this program as a Communist Party program as you referred to, but China in their national language, which is Mandarin. This program has a wide listenership in the fast-growing Chinese community of NSW,” he said in an email to The Epoch Times.
“Our CRI mandarin together with our seven hours locally produced program per week [were] qualified in accordance with the reporting guidelines of the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme of the Australian Attorney General’s Department.”
However, The Epoch Times could find no mention of the radio station on the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme register, which is publicly available, and 2TripleO did not respond to further inquiries on the issue.
The Attorney General’s Department told The Epoch Times in an email that it does not comment on the application of the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 to specific individuals or entities but confirmed that 2TripleO is not registered.
“Broadly, individuals and entities are required to register if they conduct a registrable activity (parliamentary lobbying, general political lobbying, communications activity or disbursement activity) on behalf of a foreign principal for the purpose of federal political or governmental influence, and no exemption applies,” a spokesperson of the Department said in an email to The Epoch Times.
Chinese Programs Far Outweigh Other Languages
Another allegation by Wong is that the Chinese programs of 2TripleO, a multicultural language radio station, far outnumber programs in other languages.
In an email to Wong, which has been viewed by The Epoch Times, Inoke Huakau, the radio station manager and board committee president, confirmed that the company would maintain its “One Language One program/Broadcasting Group Policy.”
“Over the years, our policies were designed to maintain cohesion among our culturally diverse members of the company,” reads the email. “The licensee company MCRA Ltd. operates in accordance with the Broadcasting Act 1992, as directed by the ACMA (Australian Communication Media Authority) policies and regulations.
However, besides China Radio International (CRI), the station broadcasts another Mandarin program that runs from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., which is controlled by Zhou Yitai (Michael Zhou), a Convenor for the Chinese Community Broadcasting Group in the station.
In comparison, other languages’ programs are very limited and at an off-peak time. For instance, the Korean program runs only one hour a week at 4 p.m. on Thursday, based on a “real schedule” offered by Wong.
“Therefore, there are at least two programs in the same language, Mandarin, with the radio station,” said Wong, who alleged that the station used the policy to drive out his radio programme in Cantonese and Mandarin.
Wong also showed The Epoch Times a broadcast schedule that is not completely consistent with the one on its website. The CRI occupies more time than the one Wong provided.
The Epoch Times listened to the radio on Wednesday. During time scheduled for programs in Urdu and Thai, music is played instead.
However, Huakau, in his communications with The Epoch Times, defended the station’s programming and attributed this phenomenon to “COVID restrictions.”
He noted that prior to the pandemic, the station had greek language programming, but this had stopped due to restrictions.
“Most of the programs have continued broadcasting, and a few have not continued to do so,” he said in an email to The Epoch Times. “For those programs that have not started broadcasting, their airtime is reserved, and world music is produced as the current content until they confirm their intention.”
Industry Body Maintains Foreign Register
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which is an independent statutory authority within the Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and Arts portfolio, told The Epoch Times in an email that radio stations in Australia must abide by the industry codes of practice.
The Codes include seven points such as not broadcasting material that would ‘incite for its own sake violence or brutality, mislead or alarm listeners by simulating news or events, present as desirable the use of illegal drugs, the misuse of tobacco or alcohol as well as other harmful substances, and glamorise, sensationalise, or present suicide as a solution to life problems.
Additionally, radio broadcasters are also barred from “broadcasting material that is likely to stereotype, incite, vilify, or perpetuate hatred against, or attempt to demean any person or group, on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, race, language, gender, sexuality, religion, age, physical or mental ability, occupation, cultural belief or political affiliation.”
Any alleged breaches of the code can be investigated, ACMA said, “where it is desirable to do so.”
They also noted that they had not in the past three years looked into or assessed Mandarin or Cantonese programs created by the Chinese Communist Party.
“In the past three years (1 July 2019 to 30 June 2022), the ACMA has not assessed complaints about Mandarin and Cantonese programs provided by the Chinese government,” Naazbano Schonberger, the media advisor for ACMA, said.
However, Schonberger noted that ACMA does maintain a register of foreign owners of media assets called the FOMA register.
Under the scheme, a foreign stakeholder—someone who holds 2.5 percent or more in an Australian media company (AMC) who owns either a commercial radio broadcasting licence, a commercial television broadcasting licence or a newspaper that is listed in the ACMA’s Associated Newspaper Register, is required by the foreign ownership of media assets scheme to notify ACMA about their interests.
Meanwhile, the Department of Home Affairs said they would “endeavour to respond as soon as possible” to The Epoch Times’ inquiry over the CCP’s influence on the Chinese media in Australia.
The Epoch Times also reached out to the Minister of Communications Michelle Rowland but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.
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