China Daily
China Daily (Chinese: 中国日报; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rìbào) is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
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Type | Daily newspaper, state media |
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Format | Broadsheet |
Owner(s) | |
Founded | 1 June 1981 |
Political alignment | Chinese Communist Party |
Headquarters | 15 Huixin Street East, Chaoyang District, Beijing |
Circulation | 900,000 (600,000 international, 300,000 domestic) |
Website | ChinaDaily.com.cn |
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This article is part of a series on the politics and government of China |
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Overview
China Daily was established in June 1981 and has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in China.[2] The headquarters and principal editorial office is in the Chaoyang District of Beijing.[1] The newspaper has branch offices in most major cities of China as well as several major foreign cities including New York City, Washington, D.C., London, and Kathmandu.[3] The paper is published by satellite offices in the United States, Hong Kong, and Europe.[4] China Daily also produces an insert of sponsored content called "China Watch" that has been distributed inside other newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.[5][6][7][8]
China Daily in China targets mainly diplomats, foreign expats, tourists as well as locals wishing to improve their English.[2] The China edition also offers program guides to Radio Beijing and television, daily exchange rates, and local entertainment schedules.[9] It has been used as a guide to Chinese government policy and positions of the Chinese Communist Party.[10][11] Scholar Falk Hartig describes the newspaper and its various international editions as an "instrument of China's public diplomacy."[2][12]
China Daily's editorial policies have been described as slightly more liberal than other Chinese news outlets.[2][13][14] The newspaper's coverage of the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak was reported to be more critical, fact-driven, and less laudatory than that of the People's Daily.[15] A 2018 discourse analysis from Uppsala University found that prior to Xi Jinping's accession, many China Daily articles portrayed their government as a particular kind of democracy, with democratic ideals such as the implementation of universal suffrage (in Hong Kong) and grassroots elections sometimes endorsed. After his accession, articles became more negative in tone toward democracy and shifted focus to portraying the "vices" of democracies in the West, particularly the United States.[16]
Editorial control
Scholars have described China Daily as effectively controlled by the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party.[2][17][18] According to its 2014 annual report, China Daily is formally managed by the State Council Information Office (SCIO), which was formed from the Propaganda Department in 1991.[1][19] The SCIO holds regular meetings with journalists and editors from China Daily on what they should publish.[19] A former copy-editor (or "polisher" as termed at China Daily) for the newspaper described her role being "to tweak propaganda enough that it read as English, without inadvertently triggering war."[20]
International editions
China Daily Group has 12 print editions.[21]
African edition
In December 2012, China Daily launched an Africa edition, published in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.[22][23] This edition is a way to expand the China Daily readership and boost China's interests in Africa, especially in mining and immigration policies, and prestige.[23] In addition, the African edition is not only aimed at African people, but it is also addressed to Chinese people who live in Africa.[23]
China Asia Weekly
China Daily Asia Weekly is a tabloid-sized pan-Asian edition of the China Daily. The 24 page newspaper launched on 9 December 2010 in Hong Kong. Zhou Li, editor-in-chief of China Daily Asia Weekly, told India's The Statesman: "Our long-term aspiration is to be a reference point on China and the rest of Asia for the region's readers."[24]
China Daily Asia Weekly is a member of Asia News Network (ANN). A group of 21 newspapers, including The Nation of Thailand, The Star of Malaysia, Jakarta Post of Indonesia, The Straits Times of Singapore, The Statesman of India, The Korea Herald of South Korea, The Daily Yomiuri of Japan and others.
China Daily Asia Weekly was initially distributed in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Japan. Later, it was expanded to include Australia, India, Myanmar, Nepal,[25] Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam.
China Daily European Weekly
China Daily European Weekly was launched in December 2010 and is published from London. It offers 32 pages of news and views from China and continental Europe each week and is distributed in over 23 countries. In 2011, it won the Launch Paper of the Year award presented by the UK's Association of Circulation Executives (ACE); and the International Media Award sponsored by the Plain English Campaign.[26] In 2014, it won the International Newspaper of the Year at the Newspaper Awards.[27] It is the only title within the China Daily portfolio of publications to have its circulation externally audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), with a confirmed average weekly distribution of 92,547 copies for in the first half of 2014.
Hong Kong edition
The China Daily Hong Kong Edition (traditional Chinese: 《中國日報香港版》; simplified Chinese: 《中国日报香港版》; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rìbào Xiānggǎng Bǎn), has been published since 6 October 1997 and aims to report the policies and directions of the Chinese government, politics, economy, and social and cultural issues of both the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.[28] It is the only official English-language newspaper published by the Chinese government in Hong Kong and Macau.
US edition
China Daily USA, based in New York City,[29] was launched in 2009. It publishes 16 pages Monday to Friday, with a 24-page insert on Fridays. Circulation includes the United Nations Headquarters, government agencies of the United States and Canada, universities, think tanks, major financial institutions, and many international corporate entities. While New York City coverage historically focused on Manhattan during the publication's earlier days, this emphasis has evolved and expanded to include in-depth coverage of Queens and Brooklyn, the boroughs of New York City and U.S. municipalities with the largest Chinese populations.
Reception
The New York Times wrote that China Daily's supplements published in US newspapers "generally offer an informative, if anodyne, view of world affairs refracted through the lens of the Communist Party."[30]
Disinformation allegations
Non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders have alleged China Daily of engaging in censorship and propaganda.[31][32] Media outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, Quartz, and BuzzFeed News have also published accounts of China Daily's dissemination of disinformation related to the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.[33][34][35][36][37] In September 2019, China Daily's official Facebook account stated that Hong Kong protesters were planning on launching terrorist attacks on September 11 of the same year.[38]
In May 2020, CNN, Financial Times, and other media outlets reported that China Daily censored references to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic from an opinion piece authored by European Union ambassadors.[39][40][41][42] In September 2020, India's Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement saying that comments made by China Daily were falsely attributed to Ajit Doval.[43] In January 2021, China Daily inaccurately attributed deaths in Norway to the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.[44]
In response to criticism, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, and Nine Entertainment Co. ceased publishing China Daily's "China Watch" insert in their newspapers.[6][45]
Designation in the United States
China Daily registered as a foreign agent in the United States in 1983.[30]
In February 2020, a group of U.S. lawmakers asked the United States Department of Justice to investigate China Daily for alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[46] Later the same month, the United States Department of State designated China Daily, along with several other Chinese state media outlets, as "foreign missions" owned or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.[47][48][30][49]
Portrayal of Muslims
A 2019 critical discourse analysis of China Daily's coverage of Chinese Muslims found them to be portrayed as "obedient and dependent Chinese citizens who benefit from the government’s intervention."[50] In January 2021, a China Daily article praised a report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stating that government policies in Xinjiang had "emancipated" the minds of Uyghur women so that they are "no longer baby-making machines."[51][52] The article drew condemnation as being a justification for reproductive policies of Uyghur genocide,[53][54][55] and sparked calls for Twitter to remove links to the article.[56][57][58] Twitter removed a reposting of the China Daily article by the PRC's official U.S. embassy account and subsequently suspended the account for contravening its stated policy against "dehumanization of a group of people."[59]
References
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- Changfu, Chang (21 November 2013). "One System, Two Frames: The Coverage of the WTO Negotiations and the SARS Outbreak by the People's Daily and the China Daily". Evolution of Power: China's Struggle, Survival, and Success. Lexington Books. pp. 263–265. ISBN 978-0-7391-8498-1. OCLC 864899546. Archived from the original on 9 January 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
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External links
- China Daily
- International editions of China Daily
- China Daily USA Edition
- China Daily European Edition
- China Daily African edition
- China Daily Asian edition
- Foreign editors at China Daily describe working life on the newspaper
- Other China Daily publications
- Beijing Weekend e-paper
- China Business Weekly e-paper
- Shanghai Star e-paper
- China Daily Hong Kong Edition started to publish (in Chinese)
- Description of the group, with details on China Daily Hong Kong Edition (in Chinese)
- Description of the group, with details on China Daily Hong Kong Edition (in Chinese)