Vision China Times

Vision China Times Australia is a Chinese language newspaper owned by the Vision Times Media (Australia) Corporation Pty Ltd. Vision China Times Australia was established as a weekly newspaper in Australia in July 2006, based on a widely-read overseas Chinese news website, secretchina.com, which was launched in 2001 in the United States and is known as Kanzhongguo.

Vision China Times
General managerMaree Ma
Websitewww.visiontimes.com.au

Distribution, features and history

Reporting a readership of over 120,000 readers,[1] the Vision China Times Australia newspaper is CAB audited as the largest distributing free weekly Chinese newspaper in Australia with distributions in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Gold Coast. The newspaper is also distributed in Perth on a fortnightly basis in a magazine style.

The newspaper covers Australia news, mainland China news, Hong Kong and Taiwan news, international news, current affairs, forum and discussions, feature topic, entertainment, finance, property, car guide, lifestyle, travel, cuisine, health. The focus is on bringing relevant information to the Australia Chinese diaspora. The newspaper aims to "serve the Australian society by truly connecting the Chinese community with the Western mainstream through balanced reporting, promotion of both Australian and Chinese traditional cultures and values, and communicating the policies and views of the Australian government to the Chinese community in an unbiased way".[1]

Editorial stance

As trade relations between Australia and China grow, so has the debate on China's soft power and influence on the Australia way of life.[2][3] This includes influence on businesses,[4] politicians,[5] universities[6] and the Chinese language media in Australia.[7] The Vision China Times Australia stood out as one of the last remaining independent Chinese language media that was not bought or influenced by the Chinese government.

"The Chinese government’s growing influence on local Chinese language media reinforces viewpoints that become even more entrenched over time, making it more difficult for Chinese readers to accept alternative perspectives," the chief editor of Vision China Times Australia Yan Xia wrote in an article for The Quadrant. "Recent disharmony within the Chinese community and dissatisfaction with the Australian government are manifestations of the extent of China’s influence on local Chinese media ...we consider it our duty to provide impartial news helping to bridge the cultural and political divide between the East and West. This duty cannot be shirked, but Beijing’s manipulation and meddling makes it no easy task."[8]

Opposition from China

In 2019, a joint Fairfax and Four Corners investigation found that the Chinese Consulate-General in Sydney pressured the Georges River Council to withdraw Vision China Times Australia's sponsorship for a local community event.[9][10]

Vision China Times told the South China Morning Post that Chinese state security agents had pressured one of its China-based advertisers into pulling its contract with the paper.[11]

At a Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference in Beijing, the newspaper was described as "Falun Gong-backed media". The newspaper responded, "We are an independent Chinese media company with no financial affiliation to any religious or political organisations."[12]

Vision China Times told the Sydney Morning Herald that it had lost more than 90 percent of its mainland Chinese website traffic in one day in August 2019 and suspected that the Chinese government had blacklisted its site.[12]

Relationship to Falun Gong

In 2020, a Australian Broadcasting Corporation investigation said it found evidence that Vision China Times "is closely affiliated with the religious group Falun Gong, a new religious movement that seeks to bring an end to the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)", that it was sharing a "business address with Decode China, a Chinese language news website established under a funding arrangement by the U.S. State Department", and that it operates under an annual financial contract with the global Vision Times network, "whose president is also the spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association in New York, and the chair of another Falun Gong organisation called Quit the CCP." The report also said that "Falun Gong's founder Li Hongzhi refers to Vision Times as 'our media.'" David Brophy of Sydney University described Vision China Times as "pushing an extremely conservative right-wing viewpoint on global politics, a very black and white view of the world in which China represents evil, America represents all that is good and essentially the source of human freedom," and questioned its motives and independence: "There's clearly a question as to the nature of this publication, its independence, its relationship to a religious and political organisation". In response, Vision China Times told ABC that "We are not a FLG media", and that apart from a payment for yearly news sources, it had no operational or financial deals with secretchina.com or Falun Gong.[13]

The U.S. government said on August 6, 2020, that it had ended its relationship with Decode China. Vision China Times’ general manager, Maree Ma, was listed as secretary of Decode China in company records.[14]

References
  1. Vision Times Media (Australia) Corporation Pty Ltd. visiontimes.com.au.
  2. Professor John Fitzgerald (27 September 2016). "Beijing's guoqing versus Australia's way of life".
  3. Chongyi Feng (24 August 2016). "Culture, free speech and celebrating Mao down under".
  4. Philip Wen (14 April 2016). "China's patriots among us: Beijing pulls new lever of influence in Australia".
  5. Anna Henderson (5 September 2016). "Sam Dastyari backs Labor policy on South China Sea amid ongoing donations row".
  6. China steps up university influence effort
  7. Chinese language newspapers in Australia: Beijing controls messaging, propaganda in press
  8. Beijing’s Running Dogs in Australia
  9. "The newspaper in Australia that China wants to silence". NewsComAu. 9 April 2019. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  10. Interference, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 8 April 2019, retrieved 10 August 2020
  11. Post, South China Morning (16 May 2019). "China could be influencing the Australian election via WeChat and local Chinese-language media". Business Insider Australia. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
  12. Koslowski, Max (11 October 2019). "Chinese-Australian newspapers say advertisers withdrawing due to China pressure". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
  13. "Government body meant to boost relations with China has been 'tortured and unspectacular', according to former chair". www.abc.net.au.
  14. "US pulls plug on Chinese-language news site for Australia". South China Morning Post. 7 August 2020. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
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