
Swipe Right for the Motherland
When China’s flagship official newspaper introduces a dating app and starts hosting singles mixers for troops and government workers, you know the demographic issue has entered a new phase.

A delegation from the government of the Republic of Buryatia (布里亞特共和國), a federal republic of Russia located in Eastern Siberia, renowned as a spiritual center of Buddhism in Russia, visited China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from April 27-30, 2026, for talks on news and media cooperation. The trip was led by Ivan Sergeevich Loginov, chairman of the Information Policy Committee of the Administration of the Head of the Republic of Buryatia. According to a report from Inner Mongolia Daily (內蒙古日報), the delegation toured the Inner Mongolia Art Theatre, the Inner Mongolia Museum, and the offices of Inner Mongolia Daily and Inner Mongolia Radio and Television, including the latter’s international communication and “media convergence” (融媒體) centers, an effort to combine party media outlets into single, multi-platform operations under centralized editorial control. The delegation also attended a sister-city event between Hohhot and the Buryat capital, Ulan-Ude. On April 29, the visitors held a working session with regional press and culture officials to discuss cooperation on news websites, broadcast content sharing, and translated programming. “Media exchange is an important entry point for deepening friendly cooperation between the two countries,” Loginov was quoted as saying. He called for joint projects and regular journalist exchanges to “increase mutual understanding” between the two countries — language consistent with standard Chinese Communist Party framing of bilateral cultural exchange as relationship-building rather than as a vehicle for shaping foreign perceptions of China.
