Yaoyaojiang: Born Surnamed Party, How Did Colonel Liu Changle Build Phoenix TV?

This episode examines the background of Phoenix TV founder Liu Changle and his deep ties to the CCP system. It analyzes how this institution, branded as a Hong Kong commercial television station, leveraged unique political permits, advertising agencies, and news operations to serve as a specialized propaganda tool both domestically and abroad, while also exploring its historical transformation following the full takeover by state-owned capital after 2021.

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Hello everyone, I am Yao Yao Jiang, who loves to think and values logic. In 2021, Liu Changle sold all his shares in Phoenix TV, and the central state-owned enterprise Bauhinia Culture became the largest shareholder. Many people said that from this day on, Phoenix finally had the Party surname. This judgment was exactly twenty-five years too late. If Phoenix were just an ordinary Hong Kong commercial satellite TV station, why was it able to broadcast in mainland China? Why would the Premier personally promote an overseas TV station that had only been on air for two years during a nationally televised press conference? "Take care of Ms. Wu Xiaoli from Phoenix TV; I really like watching her broadcasts." Why was it able to interview provincial Party secretaries and governors, enter war zones, and even gain access to televised confession scenes controlled by state security personnel? All these questions ultimately point to the founder, Liu Changle, a PLA colonel who worked in the Military Department of China National Radio. Why was he suddenly sent to Houston for oil trading, only to enter Hong Kong with massive wealth while simultaneously gaining the trust of Beijing, CCTV, and media tycoon Rupert Murdoch? Is this truly the personal miracle of a businessman, or was it a move in a game of chess played by the CCP before and after the handover of Hong Kong? Today, we will start from Liu Changle's mysterious first pot of gold, the rumored two million dollars in funding from state security, and the repeated special permits Phoenix received, to search for the CCP's fingerprints on this so-called "Hong Kong media."

On the night of March 31, 1996, the original STAR Chinese Channel in Hung Hom, Hong Kong, replaced its logo with a golden phoenix. It stood high above, as natural as the air. Standing in front of the camera were several faces that would later become very familiar to Chinese audiences: Wu Xiaoli, Chen Luyu, Xu Gehui, Dou Wentao, and Li Hui—later jokingly referred to as the five great stars of Phoenix. At the time, mainland TV stations still used a formal broadcasting tone; the hosts sat upright, and every sentence of the news script sounded like reading a document. Phoenix, however, let the hosts dress more beautifully, speak faster, and smile more naturally. What the audience saw was a new TV station from Hong Kong, but the equity documents told a different story. When Phoenix launched, it had three shareholders: Today Asia, controlled by Liu Changle, held 45%; STAR TV, under Murdoch, held 45%; and the remaining 10% belonged to Huaying International. This was not an ordinary Hong Kong company; it was an affiliate of CCTV. Liu Changle later explained to The Washington Post that giving this 10% to CCTV was a symbol, indicating that Phoenix would not oppose the Communist Party. This statement is very important: Phoenix did not grow large in the market and then bow to Beijing under pressure; it declared its political stance to Beijing before it was even born, and it allowed CCTV to enter its equity structure directly.

Why did Murdoch need Liu Changle? In the early 1990s, Murdoch acquired STAR TV and was eager to enter China. In 1993, he publicly stated in London that satellite television posed a threat to totalitarian regimes around the world. After hearing this, Beijing did not debate him; instead, it directly tightened regulations on private satellite receiving equipment. Murdoch soon realized that while satellite signals could cross national borders, China could simply prevent them from landing. Having satellites did not equate to having the Chinese market; he also needed a Chinese partner trusted by Beijing. What Murdoch needed was not an ordinary Chinese businessman, but someone who could navigate Beijing to open the Chinese market for his satellites. What Liu Changle needed was Murdoch's satellite channels and Hong Kong platform. The 10% stake held by CCTV was merely a superficial relationship; the real question is, why did Murdoch choose Liu Changle specifically? What made him believe that Liu could obtain permission and cooperation from Beijing? The answer lies not in the 1996 board meeting, but in Liu Changle's resume from the previous decade.

II. The First Pot of Gold
Liu Changle was born in 1951. At nineteen, he joined the People's Liberation Army and spent ten years in the military. He wrote articles for the military newspaper on studying Mao Zedong, Marx, and Engels. Later, he entered the Beijing Broadcasting Institute and then worked in the Military Department of the Central People's Broadcasting Station, serving as a reporter, editor, commentator, and administrator. The Military Department of the Central People's Broadcasting Station was not just an ordinary business unit within a party media outlet. After 1979, he was included in the military establishment, receiving dual leadership from the broadcasting system and the PLA General Political Department; military reporters were active-duty soldiers. The Washington Post later interviewed Liu Changle's colleagues and friends, and the consensus was that by the late 1980s, Liu Changle was still a rising star in the military system, with a rank equivalent to a colonel. In other words, he was not an ordinary reporter covering the military; he was already a member of the military propaganda system, and later gained access to military and high-level officials through state-level media.

In 1987, Yang Shangkun, then Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, visited the United States. Liu Changle wanted to join the delegation to report on the trip and asked his colleague Wu Xiaoyong for help. Wu Xiaoyong's father was the then Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian. Wu later recalled that Liu Changle established a good relationship with Yang Shangkun during that visit; Yang Shangkun liked him, and the Yang family's children also became his friends. The following year, Yang Shangkun became the President of the State. Later, an executive at a state-owned oil company wanted Liu Changle to write a report promoting their company. Liu agreed, but set a condition: give him a job. Soon, he was smoothly sent to Houston, USA, to engage in oil trading. This career jump was highly unusual, as his previous job was still as an active-duty soldier doing military propaganda at the Central People's Broadcasting Station, while his next job placed him at the center of the global oil industry, participating in cross-border commodity trading. Liu Changle's public resume shows no training in oil, finance, shipping, or international trade. Furthermore, he did not enter just any private enterprise where one could afford to make mistakes, but rather the oil trading system where the state controlled resources, approvals, and foreign exchange. Why would a promotional report allow a military reporter from the Central People's Broadcasting Station to suddenly leave the military propaganda system and be sent to Houston to engage in oil trading? This was by no means as simple as a state-owned oil company taking a liking to a reporter. A company can provide a position, but it is very difficult for it to unilaterally transfer a ranked military reporter out of his original unit, and then parachute someone who does not speak English and has no international trade experience into the United States, allowing him to enter the state-strictly-controlled cross-border oil trade. This involved personnel relations within the military system, exit approvals, state-owned oil resources, and overseas postings; it could not have been initiated and accomplished by a corporate executive on a whim. So, who exactly approved this cross-system transfer? Who was willing to hand over the overseas business of a state-monopolized industry to Liu Changle? This was not an ordinary job application, but rather looked very much like an identity transformation arranged by the organization. Liu Changle only stayed in Houston for one year before leaving the state-owned oil company and moving to Hong Kong. Houston was not his first pot of gold, but it was the springboard to it; it allowed a military reporter to acquire the status, channels, and overseas resume of an oil trader.

Liu Changle himself only said that he made his first sum of money by exporting refined oil, but he never clearly explained the funds, contracts, or the transaction process. When The Washington Post pursued this experience in 2005, they could only say it was a mystery. Later, Wu Xiaoyong, who was in charge of Phoenix's US operations, explained the money-making method of that year quite clearly. He said that in China in the late 80s and early 90s, there was a difference between planned prices and market prices for oil products. It was not difficult to make millions of dollars by obtaining crude oil at state prices for refining and then exporting it at market prices. Wu Xiaoyong explained why this business was so profitable, but he did not explain why Liu Changle was qualified to enter this business. The dual-track pricing system of the late 80s and early 90s first occurred within China. Obtaining crude oil at the planned price was a privilege that only a few could attain. After obtaining the crude oil, it had to be handed over to domestic refineries for processing, and then export quotas for refined oil had to be obtained before it could finally be transported to the international market for sale. The problem is that by this time, Liu Changle had long left the Central People's Broadcasting Station, had only done oil trading in Houston for one year, and was subsequently operating as a Hong Kong businessman. He had no publicly visible refineries, nor a resume of long-term domestic oil operations. So, how did he reach from Hong Kong into China's planned resource system to obtain low-priced crude oil, refinery capacity, and export permits? The dual-track pricing system explains where the money came from, but it does not explain who opened the door for him.

What was truly mysterious about Liu Changle was not whether he understood the oil business, but why, after leaving the system, he could still mobilize resources that only the inside of the system could allocate. Military propaganda, overseas oil trading, and Chinese-language television targeting the mainland were all politically highly sensitive areas. A single transition of identity might rely on connections, but several in a row could not be a coincidence. Clearly, Liu Changle was not a Hong Kong businessman who achieved success outside the system and was later co-opted by Beijing; perhaps he was someone cultivated by this very system from the beginning. Calling him Beijing's agent in Hong Kong might even understate the closeness between the two, because an agent implies that someone originally belonged to the outside and later accepted a commission from Beijing, whereas Liu Changle stepped out from the interior of the Chinese Communist Party's military and propaganda systems, and then returned to the media sector in the capacity of a businessman. His identity could be that of a journalist, a businessman, or a media professional, and the form of his profession could constantly change, but what remained unchanged was his political affiliation. In Hong Kong, he subsequently entered industries such as highways, ports, real estate, hotels, and hospitals, quickly becoming a multi-millionaire. In 1993, he also funded and participated in a 12-episode documentary about Deng Xiaoping produced by CCTV, and appeared in the ending credits as a producer. A businessman who had recently left China National Radio quickly acquired wealth from state-owned oil trading, and then participated in producing an official documentary about the top political figure. Three years later, he contributed 45 percent of Today's Asia's equity to co-found Phoenix with Murdoch and CCTV.

Extrapolating to this point, the true meaning of Murdoch choosing to partner with Liu Changle gradually becomes clear. Capital, satellites, and television talent could all be found, but political permission to enter the Chinese market could not be purchased. It was not that Murdoch discovered a Hong Kong businessman with Beijing connections, nor was it that Murdoch first discovered a Hong Kong businessman with Beijing connections and then persuaded the CCP to accept him; Liu Changle was one of Beijing's own trusted people, and Murdoch only subsequently took a fancy to this trust. First came Beijing's choice, and then came Murdoch's choice. Thus, Murdoch provided the satellite channel and international brand, while Beijing provided political permission through Liu Changle. Murdoch did not choose a Hong Kong businessman who could get close to Beijing, but rather someone Beijing had long since chosen. So, from the military propaganda system to Houston, and then from a Hong Kong oil merchant to a Phoenix founder, was this merely Liu Changle catching the opportunities of the times several consecutive times, or was it a well-planned move by the CCP around the time of Hong Kong's handover to prepare an overseas Chinese-language television station for itself?

Rumor has it that when Liu Changle founded Phoenix Television in Hong Kong, he once received 2 million USD from the Ministry of State Security. One of the public sources where this claim can currently be traced is an article published by overseas media in 2005. The article cited a commentator as saying that Liu Changle personally boasted at a dinner party in Shenzhen in 1998 that the Ministry of State Security had given him 2 million USD to help him establish Phoenix Television. This is merely a rumor, and no MSS allocation documents or bank records have been found in public materials, but why has this rumor not disappeared for more than 20 years? Because it and the special treatment Phoenix later received can be said to explain each other. The 2 million USD in 1996 was not a huge sum sufficient to independently establish a global satellite television network; what Phoenix took over were the channels and platforms left behind by卫视中文台 (Satellite Television Chinese Channel). Murdoch's side controlled the satellite resources, and Today's Asia needed startup capital and Beijing's credit. If this money did indeed exist, its political significance would outweigh its financial significance, and the person who provided the money was equivalent to telling other departments that this was a project that could be given the green light. Of course, no one knows whether Murdoch knew about this rumor or exact information, and the state security system would not hang its sign on the television station's door.

What can better judge the nature of Phoenix than the rumor of the 2 million USD is what power he acquired, what tasks he accomplished for whom, and why he could always get into places where ordinary media could not enter. Phoenix's most core asset was not its studio hosts, nor even Murdoch's satellites, but the fact that Beijing allowed it to exist. At that time, China banned ordinary households from privately installing satellite dishes, and overseas television entering the mainland was strictly restricted, yet Phoenix managed to enter foreign-related hotels, universities, certain government offices, and high-end residences. Later, local cable television systems directly rebroadcast Phoenix's signal, and many households also privately installed satellite receivers. The Washington Post stated that Phoenix was the only private television network permitted by the Chinese government at the time to broadcast news in Chinese. This word "only" explains a lot; for a truly independent overseas Chinese-language television network, the first thing Beijing would do is block it, yet what Phoenix faced was a set of negotiable internal management methods. In 2001, Phoenix InfoNews Channel was launched, which was a 24-hour live news channel. Initially, even foreign-related hotels were prohibited from broadcasting it, and InfoNews Channel lost more than 10,000 USD a day. Shareholders demanded the closure of the channel, but Liu Changle insisted on continuing the broadcast, and 2 years later, he finally persuaded Beijing to lift the restriction. This was neither normal market competition nor the automatic extension of Hong Kong's freedom of the press to the mainland; it only demonstrated that there existed a channel for negotiation, explanation, and gaming between Phoenix and the regulatory authorities.

When Zhao Ziyang passed away in 2005, this channel's approach became even clearer. Phoenix TV reporter Luqiu Luwei entered the hospital where Zhao Ziyang died, filmed the empty ward, and requested to report on it. Liu Changle, who was in Paris, approved the broadcast. As soon as it went on satellite, some provinces immediately cut off the Phoenix signal. Liu Changle rushed back to Beijing to negotiate with the relevant departments, while simultaneously ordering the editorial department not to continue reporting on the Zhao Ziyang topic. This scene is often used to prove that Phoenix dares to speak, but it also proves that Phoenix knows who holds the red line and knows who to turn to for solutions when the signal is cut. It can report for a few minutes first to establish a reputation for being more open than CCTV; when local authorities start cutting the signal, the boss returns to Beijing to handle it, and the reporting stops immediately. The audience gets the impression that Phoenix is broadcasting, while Beijing does not lose control over the subsequent agenda. This is not a loss of control, but a carefully calculated flexibility. Phoenix must say a little more than CCTV, otherwise no one would watch, but it cannot say so much that it affects the CCP's final determination on major political issues. Liu Changle calls this state walking a tightrope; he says that if they listen to everything, the government's audience will despise Phoenix, and if they follow the name completely, the government will destroy Phoenix. To put it bluntly, Phoenix's task is to find a balance between what the audience is still willing to watch and what Beijing is still comfortable with.

Two years earlier, in 2003, the SARS epidemic provided another, more brutal example. While Beijing was still covering up the epidemic, military doctor Jiang Yanyong wrote a letter detailing the true situation and gave it to Chinese media. Later, public materials claimed that Phoenix was also one of the first media outlets to receive the information, but it did not report the truth first. At the same time, Phoenix broadcast a rather positive interview with Health Minister Zhang Wenkang. A few days later, Zhang Wenkang was dismissed for concealing the epidemic. Why could Phoenix jump the gun by a few minutes when Zhao Ziyang died, but not become a whistleblower when it came to whether Beijing was covering up the epidemic? The difference lies not in the size of the news, but in the political risk. When a report can demonstrate Phoenix's agility without destroying the core narrative the CCP is maintaining, Liu Changle is willing to take a small risk; but when a report would directly expose that the central government is lying, Phoenix returns within the red line required by the system. This also explains why Phoenix is occasionally cut off but has never been completely driven out of the mainland. Because a permanent ban would destroy a platform that is still useful to the CCP.

In March 1998, the newly appointed Premier Zhu Rongji held a press conference. The venue was packed with Chinese and foreign reporters, all scrambling to raise their hands. Zhu Rongji suddenly told the host to take care of Ms. Wu Xiaoli from Phoenix TV, saying he liked watching her broadcasts. She replied, "I must thank Premier Zhu, I must say that you are also my idol." There were also people outside who called him a "front-line" leader, or an "economic tsar," or even "China's Gorbachev." He said, "Whether you call me an economic tsar or anything else, I am not happy about it." This quickly spread across China. For a channel that had only been broadcasting for two years, what advertisement could be more effective than being personally named by the Premier in a nationwide live broadcast? Wu Xiaoli later admitted that being picked was not entirely due to Phoenix; to ensure she could ask a question, a lot of preparatory work was done. She sat in a prominent position, prepared prompt cards in advance, and wore eye-catching red clothing. These preparations explain why Zhu Rongji saw her, but they cannot explain why the Premier publicly said he liked watching Phoenix. This naming ceremony accomplished three things for Phoenix: First, it proved to mainland audiences that Phoenix was not an unknown small station from Hong Kong, but one that the highest levels of leadership were watching and approving of. Second, it signaled to officials at all levels that accepting interviews with Phoenix was safe and that helping Phoenix land would not be a political mistake. Third, it established a very useful identity for Phoenix: it was not CCTV, so it looked fresher, and it was approved by the Premier, so it was safer than true foreign media.

Wu Xiaoli subsequently became an important figure connecting Phoenix to the Chinese officialdom. She hosted "Q&A Shenzhou," and her interviewees included ministers, provincial party secretaries, governors, and mayors. The form in the subjective lens was a news interview, but the actual effect was often a local image project. Local officials needed a platform that appeared to have international communication capabilities to showcase their political achievements, investment attraction, and city image, while Phoenix needed interview resources, landing relationships, advertising clients, and local projects. Both sides got what they needed. Liu Changle never hid the fact that he spent a lot of time socializing with officials. The Washington Post recorded a Phoenix senior management meeting where Liu Changle had just met with a Politburo member and conveyed the other party's high hopes for Phoenix, hoping that Phoenix would do more positive reporting; subsequently, he suggested that they could report on the city that this Politburo member had governed. This is the tacit understanding between Phoenix and Chinese officials.

So, if you only look at Phoenix's Hong Kong headquarters, it is easy to mistake it for an ordinary listed media group. To truly understand Phoenix, you must follow the money into the mainland. A large portion of Phoenix's television advertising revenue comes from mainland China, but foreign television organizations cannot operate directly like mainland TV stations. Therefore, Phoenix established a batch of mainland companies and agency relationships, the most important of which is called Shenzhou Television Co., Ltd. Phoenix's listing documents clearly state that Shenzhou Television is its advertising agent in mainland China. Phoenix sells advertising slots to Shenzhou, and Shenzhou operates them for mainland clients. By 2014, the amount receivable from Shenzhou on Phoenix's books alone was nearly 490 million RMB. This is not just a TV station that produces programs in Hong Kong and sends signals to satellites; it possesses personnel, clients, advertising production, and project networks in Beijing, Shenzhen, and multiple other cities.

In 2008, Phoenix expanded into the urban outdoor large-screen business. Phoenix's own introduction described it quite directly: the advantages of this business included good government relations, where the outdoor large screens were placed, and who held the approval power. Whether screens in prime urban locations could be seen and what advertisements could be broadcast, as well as where clients came from, all relied heavily on the local government. Phoenix brought news influence into the localities and then converted local relations into advertising and projects. Later, Phoenix Urban Media briefly deployed outdoor large screens in hundreds of cities across the mainland. Phoenix also entered cultural industrial parks, digital creative education event planning, and real estate. The Phoenix Center in Beijing's Chaoyang Park, built in the shape of a Möbius strip, was the most striking landmark of this political-business capability. The land planning, approval, and development process of the project location could not possibly be completed relying solely on the TV ratings of a Hong Kong broadcaster. Phoenix's listing announcements showed that Phoenix Oriental Real Estate was responsible for the development, sales, and management of this media center, which covered an area of about 72,800 square meters, with a valuation close to RMB 2 billion in 2014. What the outside world saw were star hosts, celebrity interviews, and battlefield live reports, but what truly supported Phoenix's internal operations were businesses like advertising agencies, outdoor screens, local cooperation, real estate, and finance.

Lu Xiaoqi's interviews with provincial governors should also be understood within this framework of interest relations. It is not to say that every interview involved some specific transaction, but rather that Phoenix had already formed a stable internal circulation: the recognition of central leaders brought political credit, which in turn helped it get close to local officials. Local officials provided interview access and project resources, and Phoenix used its programs to expand the influence of those localities. This was also what made Phoenix most different from ordinary CCP overseas propaganda: CCTV treated propaganda as a task and used government funds to accomplish it, while Phoenix packaged political permission into market scarcity and then sold that scarcity to advertisers and local governments. Viewers believed it was more open than CCTV, and officials believed it was more reliable than foreign media. What Phoenix earned was precisely the price difference between these two types of trust.

Phoenix's most successful brand building, however, was its battlefield journalists. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, CCTV reacted sluggishly, while Phoenix quickly interrupted its normal programming for continuous live broadcasting. A large number of mainland local TV stations directly rebroadcast Phoenix's signal because Liu Changle knew this was a media battle for positioning. Subsequently, Phoenix sent a four-person team including Lu Yuwei to enter Afghanistan for reporting, which included two cameramen—one filming the news and the other specifically recording the reporting team's own journey. After returning to China, this footage was edited into a five-episode series,

During the early stages, a large amount of his reporting on weapons clearly adopted the Russian narrative. In September 2022, he released a video claiming to show the wreckage of a U.S. HIMARS rocket launcher destroyed by the Russian military. However, netizens quickly discovered that the so-called parts were labeled "Made in China," and the footage actually came from a Canadian car modification blogger; the object was a burnt-out Chevrolet car radio. The original video's creator publicly pointed out that their footage had been stolen, and the relevant video was subsequently taken down. It is not enough to dismiss this incident merely as an individual reporter's fabrication; what is more noteworthy is why Phoenix would express a pro-Russian stance so thoroughly. The answer is the same as during the Afghanistan war: Phoenix's international reporting can be very on-the-ground, but its political coordinates always lean toward Beijing. Given the CCP's strategic support for Russia, reporting like that—entering the Russian military system, adopting Russian sources, and packaging Russian military propaganda as exclusive frontline coverage—is not an accidental individual preference, but the result of Phoenix's long-term reporting methodology on the Russia-Ukraine battlefield.

What truly exposed Phoenix's special function was not just the war, but several interview opportunities that ordinary media could never have obtained. From 2015 to 2016, five individuals associated with the Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong disappeared one after another. They published and sold books containing inside information about the CCP's top leadership. Lee Bo disappeared in Hong Kong and later appeared in mainland China. The incident caused a massive shock because if mainland personnel could secretly take away a person holding a British passport in Hong Kong, then the boundaries of "One Country, Two Systems" had been completely breached. At this point, Phoenix TV obtained interview opportunities. Lui Por, Cheung Chi-ping, Lam Wing-kee, and others admitted on Phoenix's camera to illegally selling books to the mainland. Lee Bo also accepted an interview with Phoenix at an undisclosed location in the mainland, denying he had been kidnapped and claiming he had voluntarily smuggled himself back to the mainland to assist with an investigation, and even said he would renounce his British right of abode. The question is, under whose control were they at the time? Why was Phoenix able to get in? Who arranged the interview conditions? Could questions be asked freely? Was the recording censored? Phoenix did not provide a convincing explanation. A few months later, Lam Wing-kee returned to Hong Kong and publicly recounted the detention process, stating that his televised confession had been scripted and that if the content deviated from the script, it had to be re-recorded.

I also returned it to his family and to mainland China.

I only want to return Lei Feng.

Male and female, and also good intentions.

Our station's consulate used our rotten education association.

Female workers, I went to get sweaters, the aperture was handed to Xicheng to join. At this point, can Phoenix's role still be lightly dismissed as just a pro-Beijing media outlet? It turned confessions made under the control of security agencies into news, and then used the facade of Hong Kong media to broadcast them to Hong Kong and overseas. When CCTV broadcasts such confessions, the audience knows it is official propaganda, but if Phoenix broadcasts the footage, it adds a layer of the illusion of independent reporting by Hong Kong media. This is precisely where Phoenix is most valuable to the CCP: it does not simply repeat Xinhua News Agency's press releases, but provides an overseas source for official information.

Similar questions also arose in the United States. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted a military technology intelligence ring involving Mak Tai-chi, Mak Tai-hung, and others. A key figure, Mak Tai-hung, had served as an engineering manager for Phoenix's North American branch. Case materials showed that this group collected U.S. Navy technical data for the Chinese side. Mak Tai-hung later pleaded guilty and was sentenced. This case cannot directly prove that Phoenix company participated in espionage, but it shows that Phoenix's overseas branches did indeed have an engineering manager convicted by U.S. judicial authorities for transmitting restricted military technical data to China. For a media outlet that has long undertaken external communication, engaged with political and business figures, and set up press bureaus in multiple countries, this is not a coincidence that can be completely ignored. In 2020, when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission processed a Chinese-language program application for the Mexico border radio station X1W, it encountered a Phoenix-related company again. The application sought to produce programs within the U.S., but failed to fully disclose Phoenix's actual role in it. U.S. regulators believed that the activities of Phoenix Radio in the studio were significant enough that they could not bypass review, and ultimately required the relevant Chinese-language programs to stop. Putting these events together, the outline emerges: to judge whether Phoenix is a CCP institution, one does not need to wait for the Ministry of State Security to publicly stamp it; the CCP's party affairs, united front, and intelligence agencies do not rely on public signage to confirm their identities, do they? Looking at the permits it enjoys, the scenes it enters, the actions it coordinates, and who finally takes it over is enough to make a political judgment. In terms of corporate law, Phoenix was once a Hong Kong-listed company; in terms of political function, it has always been an extension of the CCP's media system.

Since Phoenix Television has always served Beijing, why did Beijing still delete its programs? Because serving the Chinese Communist Party does not mean every host and every episode can freely determine its boundaries. The value of Phoenix precisely came from saying a little bit more than CCTV, and its risks also came from this extra bit. When the political climate was relaxed, this space could attract viewers, but when the political climate tightened, the exact same content would become a problem. Phoenix once gathered a group of people who were very good at speaking: Wu Xiaoli, Lu Yu, and Xu Gehui were responsible for interviews with celebrities and officials; Dou Wentao turned a group discussion around a table into Behind the Headlines with CCTV; Cao Jingxing, Ci'an and Liangliang, Qiu Zhenhai, and others used commentary programs to explain international politics; and Chen Xiaolan, Lüqiu Luwei, and others added social investigations and on-site news images to Phoenix. They did not come from the same background, nor can it be simply said that everyone worked for state security. The true brilliance of Phoenix was letting a group of people with personal charm, professional ability, and different experiences produce rich content for the same set of political boundaries. What the audience liked were the specific hosts, while the political license remained in the hands of the institution. The hosts' personalities gave Phoenix its credibility, while the institution determined where the boundaries of that personality expression lay.

Before the opening of the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2001, Phoenix successively suspended programs such as Behind the Headlines, Zhenhai Fenglu (Shocking Road Closures), and Current Affairs Debates. Public reports cited internal sources at Phoenix stating that the suspension order came from the radio and television authorities. Why was Behind the Headlines shut down? Next Tuesday, we will do a special episode to analyze this. If Phoenix were truly an independent Hong Kong media outlet, Beijing could at most prevent it from landing in the mainland, but could not decide which program the Hong Kong headquarters produced. But the reality was that political orders before the National Congress could directly alter Phoenix's program schedule, which shows that the mainland market is not an ordinary source of revenue for Phoenix, but rather the power center determining its life and death. This also leads to another question: since the Chinese Communist Party could determine Phoenix's program schedule, why did it allow Phoenix to maintain a distance from CCTV in the early years? Because propaganda is only more likely to influence others when the audience believes the disseminator is not a propaganda organ. In the 1990s, CCTV struggled to attract audiences in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese, but what about Phoenix? Using a Hong Kong license, Taiwan hosts, hosts who defected from CCTV, and Western television packaging, it talked about the US presidential election, international wars, and celebrity life, while also having Dou Wentao and guests chat casually about social issues. These programs helped Phoenix accumulate a sense of affinity. When major political events occurred, the same group of viewers had already grown accustomed to getting explanations from Phoenix, and thus would feel that their explanations were correct. Therefore, Behind the Headlines and those charismatic hosts were not the opposite of Phoenix's political function, but rather the very condition for it to exert its influence.

By the era of Xi Jinping, this balance began to fail. The Party demanded that media be strictly party-led, and it increasingly feared that the media, in the process of striving for credibility, would form its own agenda, figures, and audience. The program rectification in 2017 showed that Beijing was no longer satisfied with controlling Phoenix's political bottom line; it also wanted to directly manage its methods of expression.

At least compared to Dialogue with World Leaders, which is not even online...

Consequently, Behind the Headlines, possessing an accumulated network of guests and regular viewers at the level of 5000 episodes, even without ever publicly opposing the Chinese Communist Party, already possessed a social influence rarely matched by CCTV programs. For power that demanded all media be uniformly loyal to the Party, this influence itself needed to be brought back under control. The final act took place in 2021, when Liu Changle's controlled Today's Asia sold off 37.93% of Phoenix Satellite Television's shares in one go, with 16.9% sold to a company under the Xingde Group, for a total transaction amount of about 1.15 billion Hong Kong dollars. Liu Changle subsequently resigned as chairman of the board of directors and executive director, ending the 25-year Liu Changle era of Phoenix Satellite Television. When this exit occurred, Liu Changle's family was mired in the thunderstorm of Phoenix Finance; the peer-to-peer lending network controlled by his son-in-law He Xin experienced a redemption crisis and was subsequently subjected to compulsory measures by the police. Liu Changle's commercial credit and political utility came to an end simultaneously.

Bauhinia Culture, which took over, is not an ordinary investment fund; it is a state-owned cultural enterprise managed by the central government. Phoenix's former second-largest shareholder was a company under China Mobile Hong Kong. By the public equity structure in 2025, Bauhinia Culture held only 21%, the China Mobile system held 19.68%, Xingde held 16.93%, and the board of directors wrote this structure ever more clearly. In 2024, Ding Wei, who entered Phoenix's board of directors, simultaneously served as the deputy general manager of Bauhinia Culture and its Hong Kong company. In the past, he worked at the People's Daily, serving as deputy director of the News Coordination Department and director of the New Media Center. Those entering the board of directors from China Mobile had long served in China Mobile's party-政 (party and government) system and marketing departments. By this step, Phoenix no longer needed Liu Changle to coordinate in the middle; the tasks previously accomplished by him—understood as Beijing's intention to appease regulatory authorities and translate propaganda requirements into commercial projects—could now be directly completed by state-owned shareholders and dispatched directors. The Taiwan side quickly gave an external judgment: Phoenix had operated in Taiwan as a disguised entity for 21 years; following the equity change in 2021, Taiwan's competent authorities designated Phoenix as mainland-funded media in 2022, and its Taipei office was subsequently closed. In the past, Phoenix relied on its identity as a Hong Kong company to enter Taiwan, but once state-owned shareholders officially stepped to the front, this Hong Kong business card lost its original utility.

Some say that Phoenix TV was finally co-opted in 2021, but this judgment is only half right. What really happened was not that an independent media outlet suddenly turned red, but that a media outlet which had long served special functions for the CCP ended its phase of being steered by a private owner who had transformed from a cadre within the system. The corporate management structure of 1996 was suitable for the period around Hong Kong's handover, because at that time, Beijing needed to leverage Murdoch's satellites, the facade of Hong Kong media, and Liu Changle's political identity to establish a platform more easily accepted by the Chinese-speaking world than CCTV. Liu Changle thus gained enormous commercial interests and political status, such as being a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee. The conditions of the Xi Jinping era have changed; the media space in Hong Kong has been compressed, the internet has replaced satellite television, and the CCP has established a more massive overseas propaganda network. The value of Liu Changle, who could play both sides, had limited reach, and operated based on personal connections, has declined while risks have risen. Consequently, Liu Changle exited, and state-owned cultural groups entered. Phoenix did not change the object of its service; it simply shifted from being steered by Liu Changle personally to being directly controlled by state-owned shareholders. What is more telling is that in 2026, Phoenix signed a related-party transaction with its largest shareholder, Bauhinia Culture, under which Bauhinia Culture would provide 26 million RMB to commission Phoenix to produce, broadcast, and promote a documentary series on traditional Chinese medicine. Today, even the funding party, the production party, and the distribution party of a propaganda project can be openly stated in the aforementioned announcement. The Phoenix of the past wanted people to believe it was a Hong Kong commercial media outlet; the Phoenix of today no longer particularly cares about maintaining that distance.

Looking back at the 30-year history of Phoenix TV, one finds that its most successful product was not any specific program, but an illusion of identity: it made mainland audiences feel they were watching overseas television, made overseas audiences feel they were seeing Hong Kong media, made local officials feel it could promote their city's image, and made Beijing believe it would not touch the true forbidden zones of the CCP regime. Of course, Phoenix produced news more timely than CCTV and demonstrated courage and professional capability; its live coverage of 9/11, reports from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, and many discussions in "Qiangqiang Sanrenxing" (Three People Talk) did indeed open a window for a generation of Chinese audiences. But to judge the nature of a media outlet, one cannot look only at what it has said; one must also look at what it has consistently been unable to say. One cannot look only at which reporters took risks; one must also look at who the boss explains to after the line is crossed. One cannot look only at the shareholder register of a Hong Kong company; one must also look at who grants it landing rights in the mainland, who allows it to enter interview sites controlled by security agencies, and finally, who took over its control. The rumor of two million dollars may never have an official answer, but even if that rumor is removed, the CCP fingerprints on Phoenix remain clearly visible: CCTV's involvement in the founding equity, Beijing granting exclusive licenses, the prime minister personally naming it, the interest loop formed between local governments and advertising projects, the mandated suspension of programs before the 19th National Congress, and finally, the formal takeover by a central state-owned cultural group. Liu Changle's ending was not that the CCP snatched away a media outlet that was originally independent; he was not an agent hired temporarily. He was one of their own, cultivated by the CCP system. He operated Phoenix for 25 years under the guise of a private owner, gaining fame, wealth, and political status from it. When the state-owned shareholders could stand directly at the forefront, the CCP no longer needed him to operate from the middle, so he and his era exited together. Phoenix did not become a CCP institution in 2021; 2021 was simply the year the CCP placed the hand that had been hiding behind Phoenix onto the shareholder register. Alright, that is all for today. If this episode is valuable to you, please like it.

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