British company found to be making slick propaganda films for China

A British film company has been producing slick propaganda videos praising the leadership of China's president Xi Jinping, the Telegraph can reveal.

Meridian Line Films is UK-registered and was majority-owned by a propaganda organisation directly controlled by the Chinese government for at least four years, a Telegraph investigation has found. 

Films made by the company include a three-part series, “China: Time of Xi,” a polished production that presents China as a cutting-edge nation under Mr Xi’s stewardship.

Noticeably absent from the film is any criticism of Mr Xi’s policies or mention of controversial issues such as China’s human rights abuses.

Meridian Line’s films are produced under the patronage of the China Intercontinental Communication Center, an outfit directly controlled by the Chinese government that publishes propaganda for a foreign audience. CICC, however, is not listed in film credits.

Such projects underscore the degree to which Beijing is seeking to influence global public opinion about the rise of China.

“This is potentially very effective,” said David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project, which tracks Chinese media. “A viewer in Singapore coming across a slickly-produced documentary like ‘China: Time of Xi’ will probably not realise the motivations and values behind it.”

Mr Xi has long stressed the need to “tell China’s story well” in efforts to counter the negative views of China that Beijing has long felt is being spread by global news outlets.

Part of that comes via Chinese state media, which must uphold the “correct guidance of public opinion” and focus on “positive propaganda,” according to paraphrased remarks from Mr Xi in 2016.

Another part of that comes from companies like Meridian Line. Co-productions are common in the film and movie industry, which allow the Chinese government to mask its involvement.

“China has invested a great deal in the building of its own networks overseas, including CGTN,” said Mr Bandurki, referring to China’s English-language state broadcaster.

“But it is extremely difficult to make credible and really influential media, particularly when the internal culture at state run media remains rather inflexible and subject to direct propaganda controls.”

CGTN was banned in the UK last year after the independent regulator found that it broke fairness and impartiality rules as the ruling Chinese Communist Party maintained editorial control.

“Co-production arrangements like this enable China to make documentaries and other programming with producers who better understand the demands of audiences and networks outside China,” said Mr Bandurski.

Instalments in Meridian Line’s “China: Time of Xi” are hosted by three foreigners – American designer Danny Forster, Australian biomedical engineer Jordan Nguyen and British anthropologist Mary-Ann Ochota. Ochota has in the past contributed to the Telegraph.

The presenters explore everything from fields being sprayed by robot drones to boarding schools for Tibetan children, which human rights groups have criticised for separating youths from their families and ‘sinicising’ them.

The third episode goes so far as to extol Mr Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, which may indeed have ousted misbehaving officials but has also served as cover for eliminating political rivals.

It also seeks to paint China’s Belt and Road Initiative as benefitting the world, although the program has been criticised as debt bondage.

Meridian Line, in partnership with Chinese government entities, has also produced “Living on the Roof of the World,” a travelogue shot in Tibet Autonomous Region that looks at how residents survive in a high-altitude, extreme environment, with no mention of human rights abuses.

“For the past year, we’ve travelled deep into Tibet and into the lives of the people who make their home on the highest land on Earth,” Ms Ochota says in the trailer.

The film’s promo touts “exclusive access to Tibet” and Meridian Line’s website boasts of being “one of the few foreign teams allowed to film the local festivities to celebrate Tibetan New Year.”

Such unprecedented access indicates Meridian Line had official government sign-off. Foreigners need special government permission to enter Tibet even as tourists; individual approvals are almost never granted to foreign journalists.

In practice, foreign journalists are typically only allowed to visit Tibet on highly-orchestrated government-run press tours, with Beijing hand-selecting which journalists and news organisations are allowed to attend, and overseeing all ‘interviews’ with Tibetans. The Telegraph, for instance, has not been granted access despite repeated requests in recent years.

The Chinese government's CICC international propaganda arm is under the purview of the State Council, China’s cabinet, and even shares an address with the government’s foreign propaganda office in the heart of Beijing, a looming white office building flanked by military guards at the front.

Nobody answered the door when the Telegraph recently visited a separate address in a commercial office block listed on CICC’s website in west Beijing.

The link between Meridian Line and CICC is often mentioned in government announcements posted online and in state media coverage when films debut. Some of those webpages have been taken down since the Telegraph began investigating last autumn.

The films are also posted on social media accounts of state-controlled news organisations, such as YouTube. Foreign social media sites are blocked by government censors; thus, posting the film on these websites indicates interest in targeting an audience abroad rather than one at home.

From 2015 to 2019, China International Communication Center – used interchangeably with ‘China Intercontinental Communication Center’ – also owned a majority stake of 85 shares in the company, according to Companies House filings.

Remaining shares were held by Briton Elizabeth Helen McLeod, co-founder of Meridian Line and the executive producer on the firm’s projects with CICC.

Three Chinese nationals – Jing Shuiqing, Wang Yuanyuan, and Chen Zhiguo – were appointed company directors for about two years each during that same period.

All three individuals hold senior executive positions with CICC, the group under Chinese government control. Mr Jing is listed on Chinese government websites as the deputy director of CICC and Ms Wang as creative director. Mr Chen has been described in state media as CICC’s head of movie and drama.

Ms McLeod continues to be listed as a director of the company, and has been since 2011; company filings indicate she holds all the shares as of 2019.  

Meridian Line’s films have been praised in Chinese state media, are broadcast on Chinese government channels as well as foreign networks, such as National Geographic, and remain available to stream for free via government websites.

One film – “World’s Biggest Birthday Party,” which celebrates the 70th anniversary of the ruling Communist Party in 2019 – was described by Chinese state media as “an international co-production,” listing CICC, National Geographic and Meridian Line as partners.

“China has a long history and rich culture that could spawn many inspirations for quality documentaries,” Ms Wang told state media in 2019 about the film. “Through cooperation with our US and British partners, we could make Chinese tales more appealing to overseas audiences.”

“China: Time of Xi” first aired in 2017 on Discovery Channel’s Asia arm and Chinese state television networks in 38 countries and regions, reaching hundreds of millions, according to a press release, just as a twice-a-decade Communist Party congress elevated Mr Xi’s authority to that of Chairman Mao.

Interviewees are high-profile, including former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd and Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London, and a former British diplomat in Beijing.

“The strategic thinking behind cooperation with foreign producers and with outlets like the Discovery Channel is to use existing avenues to reach broader foreign audiences,” said Mr Bandurski.

It also “helps project the illusion of distance between the Chinese state and the production process, such that the ‘independence’ of documentaries like China: Time of Xi can be taken seriously despite obvious alignment with state propaganda messages,” he wrote in a paper in 2018.

The Telegraph approached Meridian Line Films, Ms McLeod, Mr Forster, Ms Ochota, Mr Nguyen, National Geographic, Discovery Channel Asia Pacific and the CICC for comment.