A group of Chinese investors are in the process of buying a Mexican radio station in Tijuana, which is popular in southwest California.
XEWW AM 690, which has an outpost in Burbank, California, is being purchased by H&H Group USA, which is known to have ties to a pro-Beijing TV network
H&H is owned by Vivian Huo, a US citizen who runs the investment firm H&H Capital Partners and has been linked to Phoenix Satellite Television, which is a subsidiary of the pro-Beijing Phoenix TV in Hong Kong.
In the past, Phoenix TV has been banned from buying US radio stations over fears that any such acquisition could allow China to blast propaganda to American audiences.
The 77,500-watt station is located about 10 miles from the US border and there are concerns that the station will begin blasting propaganda to 600,000 Chinese Americans living in Southern California.
In its application to change ownership, GLR, the Mexican company which previously owned the station, described how it would flip from being a Spanish-speaking station to a Mandarin-speaking network.
It said the new station would provide 'a full range of Mandarin Chinese programming on station XEWW-AM including music, entertainment, weather report, local (LA) traffic report, and local Chinese community news.'
The new owners plan to produce programming in Los Angeles and transfer to programs to XEWW through the internet for broadcast by the radio's transmitters.
Other Chinese-speaking radio stations which currently exist in the US have complained to the FCC about the sale.
KQEV, a Los Angeles radio station that broadcasts in Chinese said: “If the programming of XEWW-AM is tainted by, or worse controlled by, the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese American community of Southern, California could be indoctrinated with CCP propaganda, and the American political and economic community could be damaged. An investigation of this issue is necessary.”
Huo insisted that she is not affiliated with Phoenix TV and said the sale was entirely independent.
'We purchased the radio station ourselves and there is nothing to do with Phoenix,' she said.