Chinese investors purchase Mexican radio station

Vivian Huo is the managing director at H&H Capital Partners and the owner of H&H Group USA which purchased the radio station 

A group of Chinese investors with ties to a pro-Beijing TV network that has been blacklisted by the FCC are in the process of buying a Mexican radio station which is popular in southwest California. 

H&H Group USA is in the process of buying the Tijuana-based XEWW AM 690 which has an outpost in Burbank, California. 

H&H is owned by Vivian Huo, a US citizen who runs the investment firm H&H Capital Partners. 

She has been linked to Phoenix Satellite Television, a television station which is a subsidiary of the Hong Kong, pro-Beijing network Phoenix TV. 

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. 

Though based in New York, H&H shares an office with Phoenix TV in Irwindale, California. One of the Chinese television station’s anchors has also recently joined H&H Capital Partners as a senior adviser. 

The close ties between the two companies have piqued suspicion in US regulators. 

According to the conservative news website,The Washington Free Beacon, the Justice Department launched an investigation into the deal last week. 

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. ‘

The Chinese firm has acquired the Tijuana-based radio station XEWW AM 690 which also has an office in Burbank, California (pictured above) 

The Chinese firm has acquired the Tijuana-based radio station XEWW AM 690 which also has an office in Burbank, California (pictured above) 

Jackie Pang, a journalist for the pro-Beijing TV network Phoenix TV, is a senior adviser at the finance firm  

Jackie Pang, a journalist for the pro-Beijing TV network Phoenix TV, is a senior adviser at the finance firm  

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.’ 

Other Chinese-speaking radio stations which currently exist in the US have complained to the FCC about the sale. 

‘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. 

 The FCC must protect American security and economic interests, and deny any attempt by the Chinese government to broadcast Communist Party propaganda and other programming into the United States

‘An investigation of this issue is necessary,’ a filing by the the Chinese Sound of Oriental and West Heritage said. 

Huo insisted that she is not affiliated with Phoenix TV and said the sale was entirely independent. 

She dismissed it as a coincidence that H&H also had space in the California building where Phoenix has an office and Pang, the Phoenix journalist she recently hired as a senior adviser to her investment firm, said she is in no way involved in the sale. 

‘We purchased the radio station ourselves and there is nothing to do with Phoenix,’ she said. 

In 2013, Phoenix TV tried to purchase KDAY, a Southern Californian radio broadcaster. 

Sen. Marco Rubio is among those who have voiced concerns about the sale. 

He said: ‘The FCC must protect American security and economic interests, and deny any attempt by the Chinese government to broadcast Communist Party propaganda and other programming into the United States.’  



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