China proves immune to Murdoch-style regime change .

Having created an empire on which the sun never sets, it must have been a heavy blow to Rupert Murdoch when his company, 21st Century Fox, announced last week it had sold its 47% stake in Star China TV to its joint venture partner, China Media Capital. There is little doubt the decision came from the top.

This investment had represented a tenuous toehold in China, involving a part share in three television stations, but Murdoch has always played the long game, starting small and then gobbling up assets until his interests dominate a particular market. And there is no bigger market than China. Having embarked on a strategy to create a global satellite television network, Murdoch coveted the Chinese market, with its 380 million households.

China is not an easy market to penetrate and Murdoch has had to work hard to get as far as he has.

There have, however, been missteps. He enraged the Chinese government with a speech he made in London in September 1993, in which he claimed that new telecommunication technologies, “have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere,“ concluding that “satellite broadcasting makes it possible for information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels.” Such views were not welcome in the upper echelons of the Communist Party and Prime Minister Li Peng reacted by immediately banning satellite dishes from China.http://www.businesses.com.au/business-reports/news/141647-china-proves-immune-to-murdoch-style-regime-change-