
Taming News of a Border Tragedy
The catastrophe that struck the China-Nepal border last month is a case study in information control — and the clearest sign yet that Xi Jinping has rewritten the script for domestic media.

On May 20, 2026, during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Beijing, Xinhua News Agency signed a memorandum with Rossiya Segodnya (今日俄羅斯國際通訊社), Russia’s principal state multimedia news agency for foreign audiences, agreeing to jointly hold the 2026 Shanghai Cooperation Organization Expert Forum. According to Xinhua’s account of the agreement, the memorandum is meant to strengthen dialogue among think tank experts from Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states and advance cooperation in the information field. The agreement, which specifically mentions exchange of “professional experience” (专业经验交流) among the think tank experts, was one of four documents signed between Xinhua and Russian media that day, all included among the official outcome documents of the China-Russia heads-of-state meeting. According to Sputnik, Xinhua and Rossiya Segodnya had previously signed a memorandum to hold a BRICS Expert Forum during Putin’s May 2024 state visit to Beijing.
