A survey of Chinese-language media in Australia
What’s the problem?
In the past two decades, Australia’s Chinese-language media landscape has undergone fundamental changes that have come at a cost to quality, freedom of speech, privacy and community representation. The diversity of Australia’s Chinese communities, which often trace their roots to Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and Taiwan as well as the People’s Republic of China, isn’t well reflected in the media sector.
Persistent efforts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to engage with and influence Chinese language media in Australia far outmatch the Australian Government’s work in the same space. A handful of outlets generally offer high-quality coverage of a range of issues. However, CCP influence affects all media. It targets individual outlets while also manipulating market incentives through advertising, coercion and WeChat. Four of the 24 Australian media companies studied in this report show evidence of CCP ownership or financial support.
WeChat, a Chinese social media app created by Tencent, may be driving the most substantial and harmful changes ever observed in Australia’s Chinese-language media sector. On the one hand, the app is particularly important to Chinese Australians and helps people stay connected to friends and family in China. It’s used by as many as 3 million users in Australia for a range of purposes including instant messaging.1 It’s also the most popular platform used by Chinese Australians to access news.2 However, WeChat raises concerns because of its record of censorship, information control and surveillance, which align with Beijing’s objectives. Media outlets on WeChat face tight restrictions that facilitate CCP influence by pushing the vast majority of news accounts targeting Australian audiences to register in China. Networks and information sharing within the app are opaque, contributing to the spread of disinformation.
Australian regulations are still evolving to meet the challenges identified in this report, which often mirror problems in the media industry more generally. They haven’t introduced sufficient transparency to the Chinese-language media sector and influence from the CCP. Few Australian Government policies effectively support Chinese-language media and balance or restrict CCP influence in it.
What’s the solution?
The Australian Government should protect Chinese-language media from foreign interference while introducing measures to support the growth of an independent and professional media sector. WeChat is a serious challenge to the health of the sector and to free and open public discourse in Chinese communities, and addressing it must be a core part of the solution.
The government should encourage the establishment and growth of independent media. It should consider expanding Chinese-language services through the ABC and SBS, while also reviewing conflicts of interest and foreign interference risks in each. Greater funding should be allocated to multicultural media, including for the creation of scholarships and training programs for Chinese-language journalists and editors. The government should subsidise syndication from professional, non-CCPcontrolled media outlets.
On WeChat, the government should hold all social media companies to the same set of rules, standards and norms, regardless of their country of origin or ownership. As it does with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, the government should increase engagement with WeChat through relevant bodies such as the Department of Home Affairs, the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the eSafety Commissioner, the Australian Electoral Commission and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. The aim should be to ensure that WeChat is taking clear and measurable steps in 2021 to address concerns and meet the same sets of rules, standards and norms that US social media platforms are held to. This effort should be done in tandem with outreach to like-minded countries. If companies refuse to meet those standards, they shouldn’t be allowed to operate in Australia.3
The government should explore ways to amend or improve the enforcement of legislation such as the Broadcasting Services Act 1995 and the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 to increase the transparency of foreign ownership of media in any language, regardless of platform.
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17 Dec 2020
final report, ACCC, June 2019
Author
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank John Fitzgerald, Danielle Cave, Louisa Lim, Michael Shoebridge, Peter Jennings and several anonymous peer reviewers who offered their feedback and insights. Audrey Fritz contributed research on media regulation and censorship.
Funding: The Department of Home Affairs provided ASPI with $230k in funding, which was used towards this report.
What is ASPI?
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non-partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally. ASPI’s sources of funding are identified in our annual report, online at www.aspi.org.au and in the acknowledgements section of individual publications. ASPI remains independent in the content of the research and in all editorial judgements.
ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber, emerging and critical technologies, issues related to information and foreign interference and focuses on the impact these issues have on broader strategic policy. The centre has a growing mixture of expertise and skills with teams of researchers who concentrate on policy, technical analysis, information operations and disinformation, critical and emerging technologies, cyber capacity building, satellite analysis, surveillance and China-related issues.
The ICPC informs public debate in the Indo-Pacific region and supports public policy development by producing original, empirical, data-driven research. The ICPC enriches regional debates by collaborating with research institutes from around the world and by bringing leading global experts to Australia, including through fellowships. To develop capability in Australia and across the Indo-Pacific region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises for the public and private sectors.
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First published December 2020.
ISSN 2209-9689 (online),
ISSN 2209-9670 (print)
Cover image: Illustration by Badiucao.