BBC Director General Tim Davie (second from left) was a key figure in signing a deal with Tencent Penguin Pictures to co-produce Sir David’s natural history show, Dynasties, in 2018
Credit: BBC
A Chinese firm with alleged links to the country’s intelligence agency has worked with the BBC on flagship shows, including co-producing Sir David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II.
Tencent, a £375 billion tech and media giant, owns the controversial Chinese messaging app WeChat, which was banned in the US on national security grounds under one of Donald Trump’s final executive orders.
WeChat has been described as a “key component of the Chinese government’s infrastructure of control” after it was claimed that Tencent censors politically sensitive content on foreign accounts, an allegation it has previously denied.
It has also been claimed that Tencent received money from the Ministry of State Security, China’s main intelligence agency, when it was founded in 1998, an allegation it has also denied.
This week it was revealed that Oxford University accepted £700,000 from Tencent to rename one of its prestigious fellowships at New College. The Wykeham chair of physics, which was established in 1900, will now be known as the Tencent-Wykeham chair in honour of the Chinese computing giant.
The move was described as “very unwise” and “grotesque” by MPs given the allegations of the tech firm’s connection to China’s security apparatus.
Experts today expressed further concern at Tencent’s relationship with another leading British institution after it emerged that the BBC has signed a string of deals with the Chinese company since 2016 to co-produce a litany of the broadcaster’s flagship shows, including Sir David’s Blue Planet II.
Sir David Attenborough with a leatherback turtle for Blue Planet II
Credit: Gavin Thurston /BBC
In 2018, the BBC signed a three-year partnership with Tencent to co-produce and distribute “content-rich documentaries”.
In the same year, the current Director General Tim Davie — then the CEO of BBC Studios — was a key figure in signing a deal with the Chinese firm’s movie arm, Tencent Penguin Pictures, to co-produce Sir David’s natural history show, Dynasties.
Last year, the BBC signed another deal with Tencent to co-produce Seven Worlds, One Planet, which was aired on the Chinese state-controlled channel, CCTV-9.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith expressed concern at Chinese companies’ obligation to cooperate with the Chinese state under Beijing law, and raised concerns about such firms trying to "infiltrate" western institutions.
Sam Armstrong, China expert at the Henry Jackson Society, said: “This is an appalling misjudgment by the BBC. Tencent is intricately connected to the Chinese State.
“The partnership is not just a PR disaster for the BBC, it also casts serious doubt on the moral judgement of Tim Davies that he would have so thoroughly embraced such a firm."
In May last year, a study by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto alleged that images or documents sent between foreign WeChat accounts are analysed by algorithms to see whether they were politically sensitive.
“WeChat needs to be viewed as a key component of the Chinese government’s infrastructure of control, not just as an app that connects people and offers conveniences but is subjected to censorship and surveillance,” said Ronald Deibert, professor of political science, and director of the Citizen Lab at University of Toronto.
A BBC Studios spokesman said: “As a major exporter of British content to the world, and consistent with Sino-British trade policy and initiatives, BBC Studios has had relationships in place with Chinese media companies for many years to bring high-quality British television programmes to audiences in China.”
A spokesman for Tencent said: “Our history as an entrepreneurial start-up is well known, funded first by our founders and then IDG and PCCW, and we’ve been a public company with transparent ownership for over 16 years”
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