Sec. 3136. Supporting independent media and countering disinformation
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/bill/117/hr/4521/eas/section-3136A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress makes the following findings: The PRC is increasing its spending on public diplomacy including influence campaigns, advertising, and investments into state-sponsored media publications outside of the PRC. These include, for example, more than $10,000,000,000 in foreign direct investment in communications infrastructure, platforms, and properties, as well as bringing journalists to the PRC for training programs. The PRC, through the Voice of China, the United Front Work Department (UFWD), and UFWD’s many affiliates and proxies, has obtained unfettered access to radio, television, and digital dissemination platforms in numerous languages targeted at citizens in other regions where the PRC has an interest in promoting public sentiment in support of the Chinese Communist Party and expanding the reach of its misleading narratives and propaganda.
Even in Western democracies, the PRC spends extensively on influence operations, such as a $500,000,000 advertising campaign to attract cable viewers in Australia and a more than $20,000,000 campaign to influence United States public opinion via the China Daily newspaper supplement. Radio Free Asia (referred to in this subsection as RFA ), a private nonprofit multimedia news corporation, which broadcasts in 9 East Asian languages including Mandarin, Uyghur, Cantonese, and Tibetan, has succeeded in its mission to reach audiences in China and in the Central Asia region despite the Chinese Government’s— efforts to practice media sovereignty, which restricts access to the free press within China; and campaign to spread disinformation to countries abroad.
In 2019, RFA’s Uyghur Service alerted the world to the human rights abuses of Uyghur and other ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Gulchehra Hoja, a Uyghur journalist for RFA, received the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Award and a 2019 Magnitsky Human Rights Award for her coverage of Xinjiang, while the Chinese Government detained and harassed Ms. Hoja’s China-based family and the families of 7 other RFA journalists in retaliation for their role in exposing abuses.
In 2019 and 2020, RFA provided widely disseminated print and digital coverage of the decline in freedom in Hong Kong and the student-led protests of the extradition law. In March 2020, RFA exposed efforts by the Chinese Government to underreport the number of fatalities from the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan Province, China. The United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and affiliate Federal and non-Federal entities shall undertake the following actions to support independent journalism, counter disinformation, and combat surveillance in countries where the Chinese Communist Party and other malign actors are promoting disinformation, propaganda, and manipulated media markets:
Radio Free Asia
(RFA)shall expand domestic coverage and digital programming for all RFA China services and other affiliate language broadcasting services. USAGM shall increase funding for RFA’s Mandarin, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Cantonese language services. Voice of America shall establish a real-time disinformation tracking tool similar to Polygraph for Russian language propaganda and misinformation. USAGM shall expand existing training and partnership programs that promote journalistic standards, investigative reporting, cybersecurity, and digital analytics to help expose and counter false CCP narratives. The Open Technology Fund shall continue and expand its work to support tools and technology to circumvent censorship and surveillance by the CCP, both inside the PRC as well as abroad where the PRC has exported censorship technology, and increase secure peer-to-peer connectivity and privacy tools. Voice of America shall continue and review opportunities to expand its mission of providing timely, accurate, and reliable news, programming, and content about the United States, including news, culture, and values. The networks and grantees of the United States Agency for Global Media shall continue their mission of providing credible and timely news coverage inclusive of the People’s Republic of China’s activities in Xinjiang, including China’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity with respect to Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, including through strategic amplification of Radio Free Asia’s coverage, in its news programming in majority-Muslim countries. There is authorized to be appropriated, for each of fiscal years 2022 through 2026 for the United States Agency for Global Media, $100,000,000 for ongoing and new programs to support local media, build independent media, combat Chinese disinformation inside and outside of China, invest in technology to subvert censorship, and monitor and evaluate these programs, of which— not less than $70,000,000 shall be directed to a grant to Radio Free Asia language services; not less than $20,000,000 shall be used to serve populations in China through Mandarin, Cantonese, Uyghur, and Tibetan language services; and not less than $5,500,000 shall be used for digital media services— to counter propaganda of non-Chinese populations in foreign countries; and to counter propaganda of Chinese populations in China through Global Mandarin programming. Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter for 5 years, the Chief Executive Office of the United States Agency for Global Media, in consultation with the President of the Open Technology Fund, shall submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees that outlines— the amount of funding appropriated pursuant to subsection
(c)that was provided to the Open Technology Fund for purposes of circumventing Chinese Communist Party censorship of the internet within the borders of the People's Republic of China; the progress that has been made in developing the technology referred to in subparagraph (A), including an assessment of whether the funding provided was sufficient to achieve meaningful penetration of People's Republic of China's censors; and the impact of Open Technology Fund tools on piercing Chinese Communist Party internet censorship efforts, including the metrics used to measure that impact and the trajectory of that impact over the previous 5 years. The report required under paragraph
(1)shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex. The Secretary of State, acting through the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and in coordination with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, shall support and train journalists on investigative techniques necessary to ensure public accountability related to the Belt and Road Initiative, the PRC’s surveillance and digital export of technology, and other influence operations abroad direct or directly supported by the Communist Party or the Chinese government. The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor shall continue to support internet freedom programs. There is authorized to be appropriated to the Department of State, for each of fiscal years 2022 through 2026, $170,000,000 for ongoing and new programs in support of press freedom, training, and protection of journalists.