Democrats in the New York and San Francisco metropolitan areas have continued to cut checks to a Chinese Communist Party-linked media outlet even after the Department of Justice designated it as a foreign agent in August 2021, the Washington Examiner has learned.
Federal, state, and local Democrats have paid Sing Tao News Corporation roughly $800,000 for advertising services since it was forced to register as a foreign agent in 2021, according to public records. At least five out of seven of Sing Tao’s board members are part of the CCP’s United Front Work Department, a global network of party loyalists that the Chinese government has tasked with gathering intelligence and exerting influence, Newsweek reported in May 2024, citing the company’s website, Chinese government documents, and Chinese state media. Two of the company’s directors also serve on the committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a government advisory body.
“It’s a fairly open secret that it is an underground CCP organization,” a former assistant editor-in-chief at a pro-China newspaper told Radio Free Asia in 2021. “Based on my understanding of the CCP system and Sing Tao, I can say with certainty that some people who have taken on the functions of the United Front Work Department also do United Front work among the Chinese community in the United States.”
Indeed, Sing Tao — which has an influential network of Chinese-language media operations in New York and California — has published articles for its American audience praising the CCP’s rule over Hong Kong, commending the United Front Work Department, and criticizing American efforts to root out Chinese influence. Such coverage has led media watchdogs to label Sing Tao as biased toward the CCP.
Despite this, American politicians are happy to send money to Sing Tao — thus funding its influence operations — in exchange for political gain.
Big names who have paid Sing Tao for advertising since it registered as a foreign agent include recent New York mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo (D), San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie (D), former New York Mayor Eric Adams (D), former San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Some lawmakers, confronted previously over their payments to Sing Tao, have claimed ignorance.
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) previously told the Washington Examiner that he “unknowingly” advertised with the Chinese conglomerate.
“If I’m a congressman and I didn’t know about it, think about what’s happening to regular citizens on a regular basis,” he said.
To the congressman’s point, Sing Tao’s most recent foreign agent disclosure documents indicate that it pulled in nearly $5 million in advertising income from sources in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco between March and August of this year. The precise sources of this income, however, were not disclosed.
Other politicians have shown seemingly less concern than Suozzi about their payments to Sing Tao.
“Sing Tao is a major news outlet for Chinese speakers in the Bay Area,” a spokesperson for Evan Low, a candidate for Congress in 2024, told the Daily Caller News Foundation after it reported on his payments to the Chinese conglomerate. Low did not address Sing Tao’s links to the Chinese government.
While political patrons of Sing Tao have been overwhelmingly Democratic, they haven’t been exclusively so. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) and recent New York City mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa (R) have also paid out thousands of dollars to the Chinese media venture in exchange for advertisements.
HOW THE CCP’S PROPAGANDA MACHINE USES WESTERN ELITES TO BOLSTER ITS LEGITIMACY
Sing Tao’s links to the Chinese government were known long before the DOJ forced it to register as a foreign agent. A report published by the Jamestown Foundation in 2001 found that the Chinese government provided a financial bailout to Sing Tao in the late 1980s and that the conglomerate helped the CCP establish Xinhua Online, an online information service, in 2001. The Kaisa group, which owns a large share of Sing Tao, has been described by Chinese media insiders as a cover operation for the CCP’s media operations.
Media reports have, in recent years, identified a trend of CCP-linked actors accruing influence in major American cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, sparking concern among national security advocates.