Warner Bros. Distances Itself from Partnership with Chinese Propaganda Outlet

W arner Bros. Discovery distanced itself from its recent partnership with a Chinese Communist Party propaganda organ after several GOP members of Congress wrote to the company’s CEO demanding answers, National Review has exclusively learned.

The entertainment giant had worked with the China Global Television Network (CGTN) to produce a documentary series, called “World’s Ultimate Frontier,” about the Xinjiang region. The series conspicuously declined to mention Beijing’s ongoing atrocities against Uyghurs and other minority groups and instead portrayed the area as a thriving cultural and industrial hub, leading Representative Jim Banks to accuse Warner Bros. of “whitewashing” the abuses.

Warner Bros. Discovery conceded last week that it would not have made the same decision today, stopping just short of apologizing for it or expressing regret for the arrangement.

“Looking at the 2021 agreement with the benefit of hindsight and in recognition of developments since that time, Warner Bros. Discovery would decline to enter that production agreement if it were presented with it today,” wrote Brian D. Smith, a lawyer at Covington & Burling LLP, which represented the company in the matter, in response to the letter sent last month by Banks.

“I’m glad that Warner Brothers acknowledged that it made a mistake by partnering with the CCP on this project,” Banks told National Review in a statement yesterday.

Smith wrote that Warner Bros. Discovery “respects and acknowledges the findings of the State Department regarding Xinjiang and the Uyghurs,” referring to the U.S. government’s 2021 determination that Beijing is carrying out genocide and crimes against humanity.

Smith’s letter extensively described the circumstances in which Warner Bros. Discovery entered into this partnership with the Chinese regime. It shed light on the interactions that the company’s predecessor had with Beijing’s propaganda apparatus before a 2022 merger that formed Warner Bros. Discovery. According to the letter, Discovery’s subsidiary in Singapore, Discovery Networks Asia Pacific PTE LTD, entered into talks with China’s CCTV state broadcaster in late 2020 about producing a documentary about Xinjiang. Although the State Department had not yet labeled the Chinese regime’s actions there as genocide, the campaign against Uyghurs was already well known.

Discovery and CCTV reached an agreement to produce the documentary series in 2021, Smith’s letter stated. The deal stipulated that CCTV’s international documentary division would provide the funding for Discovery to produce the program to air on Chinese networks and that Discovery would maintain joint “editorial control” with CCTV. The letter also said that production took place throughout 2021 and 2022 and that the program was finalized in 2023.

The China Media Project, a nonprofit that analyzes Chinese state propaganda, recently found that the idea for the World’s Ultimate Frontier series likely came from directives given from the top of China’s Central Propaganda Department. It found that Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific has held a long-standing agreement with the China International Communication Center, another propaganda-department subsidiary, since 2012. The China Media Project also said that the vice president of Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, Vikram Channa, who likely oversaw the partnership with CCTV, is on the committee of another subsidiary of the propaganda department tasked with giving awards to cultural figures and organizations favored by Beijing.

“Although the program was not intended as a news or public affairs program, Warner Bros. Discovery understands and deeply appreciates the concerns raised in your letter,” the company’s response to the lawmakers stated before acknowledging the State Department’s Xinjiang determination. It also said that Warner Bros. “is incredibly proud of the coverage and reporting that its news divisions have devoted to Xinjiang and the Uyghurs, including the reporting by CNN that you noted in your letter.”

In addition to saying that Warner Bros. would not choose to enter into the same agreement with CCTV today, the letter described a series of actions the company has taken, including a decision not to air the documentary on any of its own networks and streaming platforms. It also said that Warner Bros. learned from Banks and the other lawmakers that CGTN had used the Discovery Channel’s logo in a trailer for the production posted to YouTube. This, it said, was “inconsistent with the production agreement,” and CGTN took down the video after Discovery raised the matter.

The lawyer representing Warner Bros. wrote that the company will request a meeting with the Uyghur Human Rights Project.

“Moving forward, I hope the company learns from their meeting with the Uyghur Human Rights Project and continues to distance itself from Beijing,” Banks said.

Julie Millsap, government-relations director for the Uyghur Human Rights Project, told National Review that the group arranged a meeting between members of her group and representatives from Disney after the company produced a scene of its live-action remake of Mulan in Xinjiang and thanked the region’s security force in the movie’s credits. After the film’s release in 2020, Disney initially declined to take meetings with UHRP up until Banks wrote to the company last year. Then, after the first meeting, in May 2023, UHRP requested an additional one to see if Disney would take remedial steps. While Disney agreed to meet a second time, it abruptly canceled those plans and declined to reschedule.

Millsap said that Disney declined to take steps such as setting up a scholarship fund for Uyghurs or removing the nod to CCP officials from the movie’s credits. Because of that experience, she has some reservations about the stance of Warner Bros.

“I’ll give them a leg up on Disney, in that it does indicate a vague sense of knowledge and wrongdoing,” she said, referring to the company’s letter, which she reviewed. “So that’s slightly better than Disney, who essentially just was extremely dismissive and not willing to acknowledge wrongdoing. But it’s still not worded in such a way that it clearly indicates that they’ll take full responsibility.”