Whenever I go to Chinatown in different cities or to Asian restaurants, I often see Epoch Times. It seem ubiquitous in these neighborhoods. I always figured it was simply news about China. Given the Chinese-American population, especially the immigrant population, naturally people are interested about what's going on back in China.
On reading it more closely, many of the articles are highly critical of China. And some are just subversive. The most recent article I read was a leak about a program from their intelligence agency regarding how they keep information on US citizens. I mean this is not minor stuff- but the kind of Snowden like leak that compromises a government in serious ways.
The article claimed it was from a defector on the project, but seemed to quote on the record a private consulting firm (white-run) and US intelligence off-the-record that validated the information. How would they know? It seems perhaps the primary information was not from a defector. The whole thing seemed suspicious.
The editor/publisher of Epoch Times is white (its on the newspaper masthead). Apparently, it was started by members of Falun Gong; but let's be realistic. The paper started in 2000 and by 2003, it became one of the largest Chinese-interest papers and now has well over 1M distribution. How do you get that big that fast? I'm somewhat familiar with the publishing industry; and having this rate of growth is insane.
It may well have been founded by Chinese people but I wouldn't be surprised if they received a serious injection of capital to grow it - to the point it's now in 35 countries and 21 languages on the web.
Further the paper is distributed for free. That is costly. You typically need upfront capital to cover your costs and this model takes time for advertisers to buy into- because who knows exactly how many actually read your paper. You can distribute it to restaurants and they just sit there. The rate of growth of Epoch Times is bizarre. You cannot scale that quickly.
What I'm hinting at is that I don't think "Falun Gong" started this paper. I think FG is a convenient pinata for anti-Chinese white Americans against the Chinese government; and it is being bankrolled by these people. Possible connections to the US govt or intelligence agencies although obviously something like this can't be proven. It's aim seems to be to tarnish China to Chinese-Americans and given its massive distribution, it may be succeeding.
The kind of criticism Epoch Times is not merely fresh air amidst Chinese censorship. It seems to go way beyond to damaging revelations; that perhaps the owners think will contaminate the minds of Chinese-Americans and filter back to those in China.
__
Take a look at this; I did some sleuthing:
Ben Kaminsky
Current Deputy Editor in Chief at Epoch Times Israel, Editor, Reporter at The Epoch Times
And do these people look Asian to you?
https://www.linkedin.com/title/editor-at-epoch-times
An unusual focus on Chinese intelligence operations:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-philipp-a08b867
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