Some of the same media that remains suspiciously silent over communist China’s detention of Uyghurs have cried foul because Trump questioned a Phoenix TV reporter during tonight’s press conference:

False:

From the Free-Beacon:

Phoenix TV has been identified by U.S. intelligence agencies as a major overseas outlet used to spread propaganda and promote the policies of the communist government in Beijing. The Hong Kong television station also has close ties to China’s intelligence service and military.

[…]

Former Chinese insider and billionaire businessman Guo Wengui said Phoenix TV was established under Chinese leader Jiang Zemin in the early 1990s specifically as a government and intelligence tool for overseas influence operations.

All Phoenix personnel are required to undergo some MSS intelligence training, Guo said.

“Phoenix TV is very close to the MSS and Chinese military intelligence,” said Guo, who was once close to MSS Vice Minister Ma Jian before breaking with Beijing several years ago.

Sarah Cook, a Chinese expert at Freedom House, said in recent congressional testimony that Phoenix TV is the second most widely viewed Chinese-language cable channel in the United States, and an example of a Chinese propaganda outlet not directly owned by the Beijing government.

“Owned by a former military officer with close ties to Beijing officials, Phoenix TV’s coverage is typically favorable to the [Communist Party of China],” Cook told the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission.

Hasson adds:

Phoenix TV is partially owned by Liu Changle, a former “reporter” for communist China’s state-run media and financially, he benefitted handsomely from his close ties to Beijing:

Phoenix is the only private television network in China allowed to broadcast news in Chinese, a privilege that reflects the warm relationship Liu has cultivated with party leaders. But on the phone that day in January, he defied the authorities and quickly approved the Zhao story, recalled the reporter, Rose Luqiu.

While the government barred its own radio and television stations from reporting Zhao’s death, Phoenix led its evening newscast with her brief report. Then the station’s commentators began discussing Zhao’s legacy and whether his death might prompt new calls for political reform.

Almost immediately, one after another, provincial governments began cutting off the Phoenix signal. Alarmed, Liu flew back to Beijing, smoothed things over with the authorities — and stopped his journalists from pushing the Zhao story any further.

Throughout the article Changle presents himself as an unfortunate soul wedged between the economic reforms China began slowly adopting to benefit the CPC and the nonexistent freedoms due to communist rule. If his goal after the death of Zhao Ziyang was to slowly help move China towards the a western-style democracy, he’s failed to contribute it, if his reporter’s blatant propaganda is anything to judge by. Changle has dropped from favor in recent years because he reportedly picked the wrong side in an inter-party squabble within the CPC. Trump was right to grill the Phoenix TV reporter at the presser.

China is working hard to spread its communist propaganda around the globe and many in our media are perfectly happy to aid them. Americans are apparently nothing more than collateral damage in the left’s and the media’s vendetta against Trump.