Red Net | English Writes Massacre, Chinese Becomes 'Event' Independent Journalist Talks About New Zealand Chinese Community Self-Censorship: Criticizing the CCP = Anti-China

On July 1st, China's 'Promotion of Ethnic Solidarity and Progress Law' came into effect and was seen by the outside world as a legal cloak for the CCP to extend its ideological control globally. Five days later, political commentator Yabita was violently attacked in Taiwan, and the Mainland Affairs Council determined it to be cross-border suppression by the CCP, with preliminary investigations pointing to the Hong Kong triad 'Winsome'. The methods vary, from threat letters, stalking and monitoring, Deepfake sexual images to fists, but the goal is the same: to make you physically and mentally exhausted, socially isolated, and ultimately lose the ability to continue working. This special feature, through five cross-country in-depth interviews, starts with the case of Yabita being attacked by the underworld in Taiwan, and extends to the experiences of Hong Konger Liu Jiayin who fled to the UK, New Zealand Chinese independent journalist Mao Ke, Canadian MP Guan Huizhen, and senior consultant Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch Thailand, to see how pervasive the CCP's systematic suppression is and what these 'high-risk groups facing cross-border suppression' are facing. Beijing pressures to withdraw from the film festival and remove the Taiwan government LOGO. The Thai organizers firmly rejected it. Before China's 'Promotion of Ethnic Solidarity and Progress Law' (hereinafter referred to as the 'Promotion Law') came into effect, the CCP's actions of pressuring various countries had never stopped. Recently, at the 'Taiwan Documentary & Film Festival in Bangkok' held in Bangkok, Chinese diplomats from the Chinese Embassy in Thailand attempted to pressure the organizers to remove the name and logo of Taiwan's 'Ministry of Culture' from the festival's promotional materials, but the Thai side ultimately did not let China succeed. Sunai Phasuk, a consultant for the Thailand division of 'Human Rights Watch' (Human Rights Watch) in Asia, accepted an interview with the Wind Media English station and pointed out that the incident at the Taiwan film festival reflects the bullying behavior demonstrated by China through the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok, 'showing its disrespect and arrogant attitude towards Thailand. China just thinks it can do whatever it wants.' Sunai Phasuk, a consultant for the Thailand division of 'Human Rights Watch' (Human Rights Watch) in Asia, is very angry about the situation of cross-border suppression by China in Thailand. (Reproduced from the internet) From this controversy, it can also be seen that the attitudes of the Thai government and the public towards issues such as advocating freedom of speech and emphasizing human rights are vastly different. Sunai pointed out that this time the Taiwan film festival was able to withstand Chinese pressure because the political stance of the organizers was willing to support freedom of speech and democracy. Therefore, they were willing to withstand Chinese pressure, and Thai public opinion also stood on the side of the organizers, cheering for the organizers not to compromise and not to remove the logo of the Taiwan Ministry of Culture. However, if this film festival was organized by the government, he said regretfully: 'China would find it more convenient to intervene in government venues because the government has to please China...... the police or security units would arrive and try to shut down the activity.' Sunai once again emphasized that China's threats and cross-border suppression behaviors 'almost do not treat Thailand as a sovereign state, but as a province of China.' Once you cross the red line, human rights workers and journalists will be 'invited for tea' by the Chinese embassy. When asked if he had ever encountered obstacles or threats due to his work content touching the CCP's red line during his long-term involvement in the human rights movement, Sunai said that perhaps his high exposure in Thailand gave him some 'protection', but other human rights workers or news professionals were not so lucky. 'Other human rights workers have told me that when they reported the case of 40 Uighurs being deported to China last year, they were invited by the Chinese embassy to 'have a chat.' He pointed out that this 'carrot and stick' approach of combining rewards and punishments is very common in the way the Chinese authorities deal with Thai media. When the media reports news that the CCP does not like, the Chinese embassy will show active concern, but at the same time will also give sweet deals to the Thai media to maintain a friendly relationship with them, such as inviting Thai media organization staff to participate in luxurious Chinese inspection tours, all expenses paid, and exclusive visits to places that are usually difficult to enter. 'This trick is very effective! Most Thai media take Beijing very seriously and do not want to challenge any improper behavior or bad behavior of the Chinese embassy.' Control the release of news information and ensure that the message is 'Beijing approved'. In addition, Sunai mentioned that the CCP is very sensitive to 'alternative news sources', so now the CCP, through a memorandum signed between Thailand and China, allows Thailand to only adopt news from communication agencies approved by Beijing, including Xinhua News Agency and other three communication agencies, to ensure that Thailand obtains information about China that are all 'Beijing approved'. Sunai said: 'The meaning is to not listen to anyone else, only listen to the [official media] news, do not listen to independent media, do not listen to this kind of news that pursues the root cause.' The academic community is also deeply influenced by China, relying on the infamous Confucius Institutes and various scholarships and cooperation, which operate very successfully in Thailand. In order to better understand the influence of the CCP on foreign media organizations and the phenomena it has caused, the Wind Media English station also specially focused on New Zealand, which also has a large Chinese community, and interviewed Portia Mao, an independent Chinese journalist who has been deeply involved there for more than 20 years. She pointed out that since she started her career in the early 2000s, the Chinese media ecology in New Zealand has undergone obvious changes. Portia gave an example, in the past New Zealand also had Chinese newspapers advocating democracy and anti-communism, but they all did not survive in the end. The nationalist propaganda of China has been successful, and the Chinese media in New Zealand is conservative. She said that when she first started writing Chinese news, she did not feel any red lines and did not feel that it was difficult to publish critical articles about China. 'At that time, the relationship between China and the world was relatively friendly, and China's national power was not as strong as it is now.' But as China's national power and influence increased, the scope of interference became wider and the red lines became tighter and tighter. Portia said that in 2006, Taiwan's Cultural and Economic Office in New Zealand held a Double Ten National Day celebration, inviting local politicians and party leaders, and she was invited as a journalist and even took a group photo. 'At that time, everyone thought it was normal, but last year's participants in Taiwan's Double Ten Day activities were criticized by the Chinese government...... It was something that everyone could accept at that time, something that the CCP seemed not to care about, but now suddenly they care, the influence is increasing, and the pressure is coming with it.' She commented on this matter in her LinkedIn post, saying that last year the Chinese ambassador to New Zealand criticized the members of parliament who attended the Taiwan National Day (Double Ten Day) activities, with a style that was quite 'wolf warrior', which was completely different from the era when Hu Jintao was the Chinese president and Wen Jiabao was the prime minister, following Deng Xiaoping's 'hide your strengths and bide your time'. Portia pointed out that the Chinese media in New Zealand is conservative and tends to echo the CCP's rhetoric. 'The expansion of China's national power and influence', 'China is New Zealand's most important trading partner' and 'The New Zealand government is friendly with China' are reasons that cannot be ignored. In addition, these immigrant Chinese communities also bring their original thinking to New Zealand, so there is a contradictory phenomenon: they dare not criticize the Chinese government, but they feel it is natural to criticize the New Zealand government and politicians. She said: 'Because China's nationalist propaganda is very successful, many people think that loving the country is to love the party. New Zealand Chinese criticizing the New Zealand prime minister and politicians feel it is natural, but you criticize the Chinese government, then it is not allowed, then you are anti-China, the hat is put on you, this is very split, many people have this idea.' Downplaying the event or choosing not to report it, even the Chinese department of public media is self-censoring. In the Chinese community in New Zealand, WeChat and its overseas version WeChat are the largest social media platforms, and almost all Chinese media rely on WeChat or WeChat for dissemination. The 'censorship mechanism' of this social platform itself will filter out opinions and information that are not allowed by the Beijing authorities. Portia said: 'WeChat plays a decisive role in this...... WeChat must have its own censorship authority, and everyone will unconsciously self-censor when posting. Of course, if reported, it will be deleted.' This feature of news dissemination through social networks also means that media and news content that do not conform to the CCP's rhetoric are less likely to be exposed in the Chinese community (Chinese community). But what she found most heartbreaking was that even the Chinese news of the national public broadcaster 'Radio New Zealand' (Radio New Zealand, RNZ) could not escape self-censorship. She pointed out that when RNZ established its Chinese department in 2024, she had expectations and even participated in the promotion work, but in the end she found that the Chinese department would choose not to report when it came to sensitive news about China. If it was reported, it would mostly adopt the official perspective of the CCP, or use language that downplayed the event. She criticized that for RNZ as a public media, she said frankly: 'RNZ's Chinese department has the lowest standard in Western countries', criticizing that the media did not fulfill the responsibility that public media should fulfill. Portia gave an example, Auckland holds a small-scale June 4th memorial activity every year, and she goes to interview every year, but one year she found that the journalist sent by RNZ's Asian department was an Indian journalist, and no Chinese journalists were present. 'The speakers of course all speak Chinese, and the Indian journalist does not understand Chinese, I do not understand why they sent an Indian journalist.' In addition, she later found that the Indian journalist used the word 'massacre' when writing the English article, but after RNZ's Chinese website translated it into Chinese, it became the Tiananmen 'event' instead of the Tiananmen 'massacre'. She also gave an example, previously an article about Jimmy Lai, the founder of Hong Kong's Apple Daily,