Tomorrow, 22 July, the House of Lords will hold a consequential vote on whether to allow up to 15 percent foreign ownership of domestic media, in a long-standing debate that poses potential consequences for information integrity in the UK. At the heart of the issue is whether to allow the American investment firm RedBird Capital to proceed with its plan to purchase the parent company overseeing the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph and its global distribution. ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned about the risks posed to media pluralism, transparency, and information integrity by this proposed relaxation of foreign ownership limits without robust safeguards. We note that RedBird Capital’s close ties to China, including through its chairman, John L Thornton, raise risks of Chinese information influence in UK media and globally.
This is not the first time the firm has sought to acquire the Telegraph, having previously secured a deal through a joint venture with International Media Investment (IMI), a fund overseen by the Abu Dhabi royal family. This was prevented following concerns in Parliament and legislation passed in 2024 to prevent foreign ownership of UK media. However, the government is now poised to change course, allowing up to 15 percent foreign ownership of UK media.
ARTICLE 19 calls on the House of Lords to oppose the rule change until robust safeguards, guided by international media freedom principles, are in place to ensure greater transparency, especially over the source of funds behind such acquisitions. Such transparency is critical for effectively preventing foreign influence operations from authoritarian state actors like China, including through proxies.
We further call on the British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy, to suspend the Telegraph acquisition pending a full and independent investigation of these concerns, which should be informed by an understanding of how China engages in foreign state influence operations.
Foreign media ownership and transparency
Media pluralism is a basic condition of the right to freedom of expression and information, enshrined in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The 2018 Council of Europe Recommendation on media pluralism and transparency of media ownership holds that, as part of the obligation to guarantee pluralism, States should develop comprehensive regulatory frameworks taking into account media ownership and control. Restrictions on foreign ownership are permitted, but should be implemented in line with international human rights law obligations, namely that they promote and protect the freedom of expression and information, including safeguarding information integrity.
The Recommendation continues that States ‘should promote a regime of transparency of media ownership that ensures the public availability and accessibility of accurate, up-to-date data concerning direct and beneficial ownership of the media, as well as other interests that influence the strategic decision-making of the media in question or its editorial line’. Thus, transparency serves to limit the risk of information manipulation by direct or proxy actors.
Under international and European freedom of expression standards, States are encouraged to develop and implement specific media transparency disclosure obligations. This should include the names of direct and indirect owners with shareholdings enabling influence over operations and strategic decision-making. A threshold of 5 percent shareholding is recommended. Information on the nature and extent of shareholdings or voting rights of entities that could lead to influence over the media actors, such as those holding domestic or foreign political positions, should also be disclosed.
ARTICLE 19 calls on the UK government to uphold these standards.
China influence concerns
We recall that a group of MPs and peers expressed, in a letter sent to culture secretary Lisa Nandy in early June, concerns in this case stem from ‘the lack of transparency regarding the source of the funds behind this acquisition,’ making it ‘conceivable, and increasingly likely, that funds could be sourced directly or indirectly from foreign state actors,’ including China. This risk arises from the close relationship of RedBird Capital chairman, John L Thornton, to China, as argued in the letter.
Thornton’s connections to China are manifold, as outlined in a recent article for Index on Censorship by Luke Pulford, Executive Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). Thornton sits on the International Advisory Council of the China Investment Corporation, China’s largest sovereign wealth fund, and chaired the Silk Road Finance Corporation, both vehicles through which China has pursued financial influence. Bloomberg has also reported his ‘solid Chinese connections’, including positions on the boards of the semi-state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China Unicom Hong Kong, a subsidiary of the State-owned telecommunications operator, which was barred from doing business in the US in 2022 over national security risks. He has also served in advisory roles for the Confucius Institute, which the Henry Jackson Society and the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation identified in a 2022 report as a direct extension of the Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Department in the UK.
In 2023, at a talk on US-China Relations hosted by the University of Texas at Austin, Thornton relayed having previously told senior Chinese officials they were losing the global narrative war because China’s story was being told by people who are not Chinese. He advised them to insert themselves into English-language media channels where they could better shape international narratives.
This terminology, of telling China’s story well, is itself a central propaganda directive, as delivered first by Xi Jinping during the 2013 National Propaganda and Ideology Work Conference under a notion of external propaganda. The CCP has developed this notion since. It entreats China’s party-state media, Chinese diplomats, private companies, and other actors to fulfil information manipulation and influence responsibilities. Such a direct reference to China’s propagandising efforts reiterates the demand for full transparency in media ownership and influence where potentially China-aligned entities are concerned.
China must not be allowed to seize narrative influence over UK media or its global distribution.
The way forward
The UK government must ensure that its efforts to safeguard information integrity against FIMI are fully in line with its obligations under international human rights law. This includes ensuring that all media laws protect freedom of expression and information, including by guaranteeing that media pluralism, diversity of content, and transparency of ownership are integrated into the law.
The government should ensure that risks to media freedom, transparency, and information integrity are independently and continuously monitored. This should include detailed data and assessments, including as regards to media plurality, ownership and influence, and especially risks of foreign information manipulation and interference.
Enhancing transparency and human rights safeguards will ultimately limit the potential for China to engage in influence operations through opaque investments in the domestic media landscape, while further strengthening information integrity and media freedom in the UK.
For more information, contact:
Michael Caster, Head of Global China Programme, [email protected] or [email protected]