Two Republican senators have urged nine media outlets, including the South Florida Sun Sentinel, to halt the contract printing and distribution of the China Daily, claiming the media groups are “disseminating (Chinese Communist Party) propaganda to an American audience.”
“Despite mounting evidence of the CCP’s attempts to harass and intimidate American citizens, spy on sites of national security importance to the U.S., and influence our elections, your outlet has chosen not to cut ties with China Daily,” Marco Rubio of Florida and Charles Grassley of Iowa said in the Monday letter, which was addressed to David Karabag, a Sun Sentinel vice president.
Besides the Sun Sentinel, the senators sent letters to the Seattle Times, Houston Chronicle, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, TIME, USA Today, Financial Times and Chicago Tribune, which along with the Sun Sentinel is owned by Tribune Publishing.
The Sun Sentinel’s commercial printing operation prints about 3,000 copies of the China Daily once a week and has done so since 2016. The plant in Deerfield Beach prints 2 million copies per week, including 15 daily newspapers such as the New York Times, USA Today and Miami Herald, making it one of the largest commercial printing operations in Florida.
It was not immediately clear what triggered the initiative by Rubio and Grassley to demand that the media groups should stop printing the China Daily now. It did not cite any federal laws that would prohibit the media firms from doing business with the Chinese publication.
The press secretaries for both senators did not immediately respond to emails Tuesday seeking clarification.
China Daily Distribution Corporation has been registered with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agent Registration Act since April 1983.
In 2020, the Trump administration said the parent company of China Daily and four other organizations were considered “foreign missions” and required them to register personnel and property with the government. In 2018, Rubio pushed the DOJ to require Chinese state-controlled outlets in the U.S. to register as foreign agents.