The Curious Case of the Epoch Times
Why did a publication founded to combat China’s abuse of minorities become a mouthpiece for an American president who told China’s authoritarians that it was fine to abuse minorities?
1. Benjamins
I’ve never understood the Epoch Times.
The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 as an arm of Falun Gong, the quasi-religious dissident Chinese meditation movement. The idea was to have an English-language paper in the United States that would criticize the Chinese government at a time when engagement was official U.S. policy and American businesses were pouring money into China.
Then, starting in 2016, the Epoch Times became a propaganda outlet for Donald Trump. This evolution made no sense.
Trump was and is openly friendly to the Chicoms. He admired the Tiananmen Square massacre. He told Xi Jinping that he had no problem with Xi putting ethnic/religious minorities into detention camps. He told a Republican senator that if China invaded Taiwan the United States would do nothing about it.
If you were an outlet founded to oppose China’s repression of minorities, then supporting Trump ran counter to your goals. Trump wanted a trade war with China. He had absolutely no interest in destabilizing, weakening, or containing China’s authoritarian government.
So why did the Epoch Times become Trump’s Pravda?
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