The State Department designated six Chinese state media and propaganda outlets as foreign missions in a Wednesday press release.
"Over the past decade, and particularly under General Secretary Xi Jinping’s tenure, the Chinese Communist Party has asserted greater control over China’s state-backed propaganda outlets while trying to disguise them as independent news agencies," the press release from State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus reads. "The decision to designate these entities does not place any restrictions on what these organizations may publish in the United States. It simply recognizes them for what they are—PRC-controlled propaganda outlets."
Yicai Global, Jiefang Daily, Xinmin Evening News, Social Sciences in China Press, Beijing Review, and Economic Daily now join the nine other Chinese media outlets designated as foreign missions in February and June.
Chinese state media push often-false narratives to benefit the Chinese Communist Party. Some outlets, such as China’s Global Times, also regularly call for military action against the United States and its allies. State media also have a consistent record of either downplaying, deflecting, or outright denying the ongoing genocide of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
While primarily aimed at a domestic audience, Chinese media have also influenced American political discourse leading up to the election.
Prominent Democrats, such as former Colorado governor and Senate candidate John Hickenlooper and former Obama ambassador to China and Biden surrogate Max Baucus, have appeared on Chinese media in the past. And one of the integral talking points of Chinese propaganda—that the United States is engaging in "McCarthyism" as it rids many of its key institutions of Chinese influence—is one that has made its way into Democratic rhetoric.
Chinese media have also repeated Joe Biden’s own talking points. A bureau chief for China Daily compared Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels in September, only days after Joe Biden himself compared Trump to Goebbels.