While I never claim myself as an expert on foreign diplomacy, what I have been noticing from afar with regards to the 2019 implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, they are essentially replacing the rule of law into the rule of the communist dictator, as if it was more than 300 years ago when the Manchurian Qing Dynasty once rule China, if not 200 years prior with the Ming Dynasty. All of that is intended to rule the entire nation with an iron fist, and force all Western nations into submission and become Chinaโs tributary states. However, in order for them to commit such acts in the future, assuming they would be victorious against the entire western community in the impending the third World War, they would need to commit an united front against anyone who would speak out against the dictatorship across the world, and Hong Kong was in their warpath since the British took over the city since 1842, and resumed control after the Pacific War had ended in 1945. Until the infamous handover on July 1, 1997, the verbal joust between pro-China and pro-democracy crowds often display their bitter discontents towards each other. So how did it all go down and what the future holds for all the local media in Hong Kong and China? This is the story of how Chinese Communist Party took over all of Chinaโs media, and even with one of Taiwanโs as well.
Before I begin this conversation, let me make myself crystal clear beyond the shadow of doubts, I have no love lost with the regime in China since birth, and the fact that I was a descendant of one of the escapees during the Great Leap โ@$$backwardsโ policy in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I have often pondered as to why China could never have produced talents in the domestic soil, and all the literates would flee beyond Chinaโs border and across the world in hopes of having a better living conditions. As it turns out, I donโt have to look far at all. My father, prior to bolting to Hong Kong due to his distrust towards the CCP for broken promises on a road-building project, yet his mind retained part of the brainwashing edict that the CCP deployed all those years ago. He is just a sample to what the CCP is capable of doing, especially now with the leadership of Xi Jinping, who was a byproduct, much less a โvictimโ of the Cultural Revolution, he is trying to not only replicate his predecessorโs policies, but also surpassed Mao Zedong by conquering the entire world with his brand of communism, which actually resembles more of a kingdom than just a nation.
So how did it all began? The brutal truth is that the history of the Communist Party of China coincided with the failed Second Revolution by the main influencer of the original revolution back in 1911, Sun Yat-sing, who led the likes of Zhou Yin-Lai and others into the Nationalist Party. Once they were accepted into the party, they began manipulating the entire organization and spreading the ideal of communism., and in spite of the best effort by Chiang Kai-Shek, those ideals and organization remain inside the Kuomintang to this day, to the point that during the last three elections in Taiwan, quite a few newly electorates who had previously not been candidates in the years prior joined in under the suspicious ties with the Chinese government, which unfortunately also tied into many trips made by former President of Taiwan, Ma Yin-Jiu, under the pretense of peaceful reunification. The efforts of united fronts doesnโt limit to just politicians, scholars, journalists, and businessmen alike are not immune from it, specifically with the chairman of WanWan, who also owns CTI, and many of their pundits had since crossed paths into the CCP punditry in due time.
However, it was the half-century struggle of control in Hong Kong that sparked the biggest challenge for all participants. Upon the British government regained control of Hong Kong following the end of the Pacific War during World War Two in 1945, both sides expanded their intelligence networks into the city by operating entertainment enterprises as a front, while the true purpose was to undermine the British regime at every turn, and a series of crackdown against both sides did little to quell tensions, this was extended to box office dominance for almost 20 years. The one exception, though, at least initially, was the television network, as Rediffusion took the initial lead in establishing the first television station in Hong Kong, albeit with a caveat that they had operated as the first generation of cable television. With a price of $25 HKD (which in todayโs money worth almost $281 with todayโs cable cost in 2023), not that many people who could afford to pay for the television set, let alone installation and so forth, and RTV enjoyed the first decade of success as a monopoly. Everything, including society at large, changed in 1967 when a series of events in the previous year that led to the infamous riot that year, the dye was cast between both sides with severe consequences, which included the death of a pro-HK radio pundit and his family, alongside a few local law enforcement officers and a number of violence committed by pro-China protesters in hopes of getting rid of the British authorities. During that period of time, a consortium led by the three major television networks from the United States government and British Broadcasting Company made a bid for the first terrestrial television in the cityโs history, which would become the foundation of TVB (Television Broadcasting Limited), before a businessman and movie producer by the name of Run Run Shaw took over the station by the end of 1970s; as for the pro-China protesters, however, not only the British stuck around for a few years longer,Zhou halted further protests and disowned those who were responsible for violent efforts as an agreement was struck between Downing Street and Beijing.
Bby the time the 1970s came along, the United Nations declared the past practice of colonialism ceased the practice, and many of the former colonies began absolving from the colonizers and declared their independence. Unfortunately, not all efforts resolved peacefully as the likes of Rhodesia and Ethiopia engaged in decades-long civil wars and violent clashes. For Hong Kong and its neighboring city of Macau, though, the negotiations of peaceful handover began, however, the negotiations of Hong Kong, neither sides budged in key details, including the prospect of holding free elections and keeping Chinese authorities from interference. Meanwhile, Rediffusion paid dearly for rejecting the proposal of becoming the first terrestrial television station upon their arrival in 1973 as they played second fiddle to their rival network, TVB, constantly and they have never really recovered from it despite producing some of the best dramas and shows that gave the struggling network a short-term boost. But what brought down the British network was a failed investment by operating laundromats in Canada, and they were forced to sell off their station in Hong Kong to a consortium led by Deacon Chiu, who was once an investor of TVB before venturing into his own, and decided to rebrand the station into what is synonymous to the local community as Asia Television, a name that remains to this day, albeit in a online streaming service nowadays, which Iโll elaborate later on. While not everyone from the old regime would stick around for the ride, one individual who was once part of the pro-China protester back in 1967, had his service retained during that period, his name is Lee Sil Hong, son of director Lee Sun-fung.
As frugal as ATV could have been, the long term negative financial impacts lingered from the days of their predecessor led the Chiu selling off the assets that he had rebuilt to another investor. This development drew former TVB executive and former chairwoman of Hong Kong Travel Association, Celina Chow, and the chairman of Lai Sun Group, Lim Por-yin, into the picture. While the former Rediffusion station enjoyed some early success back in the period of three years from 1979 to 1982, their production values werenโt quite as consistent as once had upon their rival station, TVB, began producing other programs almost immediately after halting their failed productions and made a tremendous recovery. But Limโs leadership showed that it was possible to produce quality shows when given enough budget support, and they were willing to spend money to attract from rival stations and discover new talents of their own. Having said that, the one show that caused the most political disruption soon drew the attention of the Liaisonโs Office of the Peopleโs Republic of China, and the show was called โThe Dragon Gateโ (no joke as the Chinese name of the title literally defines as such: ้พ้้ฃ). Originally intended to be a politician debate show in a time of the handover was drawing closer, some of the comments made by the hosts towards their guests left them feeling rather so uncomfortable that Beijing began worrying about if those perceptions could impact the handover process. Despite the constant pressures from the Liaisonโs Office, Lim never compromised the contents of the show even once; however, upon hearing that Beijing would want to replace Lim as the sole ownership of the station, the debate show ended prematurely and six of those who had involved with the news division were, allegedly, dismissed abruptly and publicly. This, as it turns out, was just the beginning.
By the late 1990s into early 2000s, Lim was embroiled in a scandal alleging that he had been bribing one Taiwan official in 1997, and the trial forced him to sell the company to a Chinese national (for the first time in history that someone with little or no knowledge of Hong Kongโs unique cultural identity running a television company), as a result which took a toll on his health and passed away in 2005. This was the beginning on how the CCP would place a stranglehold on Hong Kongโs media, at first, they had slashed the budget for domestic drama productions by 2/3, which forced a number of talents one of five possibilities: operate their own studios, stayed in the station with reduced salaries while increasing Chinese-produced contents, joining a rival station that may or may not have the same statures as those from within, leave behind completely by either joining the movies productions, or leaving the entire entertainment industry altogether. Those who had stayed on to ATV, letโs be honest, the exposure decreased significantly as fewer shows meant fewer viewers; some of those who joined TVB, for instance, had actually become a bigger star but the work rate increased drastically; some who operated their own studios ended up collaborating with ATV while others went up north and applied their acting chops with the mainland media, which was especially true with some of them who found better success in China than staying in Hong Kong. However, the local audience soon realized that the quality of the domestic productions could never measure up with the northern neighbor, and a fatigue soon developed when TVB essentially dominated their rival progressively, and the news division increasingly leaned in favor of the CCP. That and the interferences of the mainland Chinese ownership began tightening the grips of the news division, and it came ahead in 2010 with the unverified reports on the death of former CCP president Jiang Ze-min circulated, and despite the objections of the news director, Leung Ka-wing, ATV News reported that false report regardless and the network immediately suffered the heaviest setback as the ratings sunk to the bottomless depths since forever, and the networkโs reputation forever tarnished beyond recognition.
Yet, the CCP kept going in the years since with the conformity by infiltrating other media with the โsuccessโ of tearing down the old Hong Kong media, and they expanded their propaganda by spreading falsehoods about the pro-democratic movements as โdetrimental to societyโ or โdisrupting the peaceful development of the economyโ and so forth, and such actions splintered the movement into three or more more political units: traditional Democratic parties, grassroots, and so-called โpro-independence.โ By 2017, it was obvious that the handiworks of the CCP had carved up the democratic movement into dysfunctional participants, to which the CCP could absolve each of them progressively. Two years later, the real crackdown began after the anti-extradition bill protest, and Apple Daily was a primer target for CCPโs true agenda: unit all Hong Kong medias into under same umbrella, and two of the online media were also targeted – all because the CCP, under the leadership of Xi Jinping, has outright rejected any forms of discords whatsoever and now targets the Western powers by assaulting the very cultures that we have enjoyed outside of China, and their influences continue on by using most, if not all, of the local Chinese media into turning everyone into pro-China lapdogs. Unfortunately, there is just one problem, while mainstream media have been accused of being biased towards โsocialismโ or what not, one major difference between the right-wing medias such as Newsmax, One American Network, and FOX News is that truth matters to the former while the rights are akin to the lies similar to CCP. This is going to be one legitimately huge culture war and we, as people who live in the USA and Europe must not allow propaganda ever exists again, and those who wants and still wants Donald Trump be their โpresidentโ will destroy this nation by surrendering to them for no reason other than โfed up with the notions of doing things right.โ
In conclusion, it is important to know that, despite not as perfect as they could have been, the mainstream media in America are not clairvoyant, nor could they foresee any deceptions until too late. At the same time, we must bear in mind that not all stories presented in the conservative media can tell facts from fiction, particularly when propaganda or suspicion of propaganda are involved, they are more susceptible to spread misinformation and falsehoods that contains little or zero evidence of truths whatsoever. This is why the CCP has been successfully spreading lies, propaganda, and falsehoods, as well as conspiracy theories that falsely accuses the government and anti-authoritarians for โdestabilizing peaceful livingโ or what not. At one point in time, Hong Kong could have sustained the moral ethics in journalism for many generations, but when infiltration from the likes of the founder of MyRadio.HK, Wong Yuk Man, and former co-host of a online television called MiHK Henry Lau Ching (ๅๆญฃ), the later of whom has been a thorn to a former Hong Kong columnist Martin Oei (้ปไธๆพค) as the former has been making a series of slanderous claims about Oei without any evidence whatsoever. This is exactly the reason why all journalists should keep the reporting be as factual and informative as possible, and steer away with rumors, innuendos, and conspiracy theories with a ten-foot poll, or become a victim of misinformation campaigns made by the CCP.
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