Nanjing Forum Expands ACJA Global Journalist Network

On October 17, 2026, the official All-China Journalists Association (中華全國新聞工作者協會), or ACJA, a Chinese Communist Party-led professional association that serves a key role in implementing press control policies, convened the 2026 Belt and Road Journalists Forum in Nanjing. The ACJA co-hosted the forum with the propaganda office of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and the Nanjing Municipal People’s Government. About 100 heads of journalist organizations and media representatives from more than 50 countries and regions attended. The event was held under the Belt and Road Journalists Network (一帶一路記者組織合作平台), an international platform the ACJA co-founded with foreign journalist groups in 2019. Mo Gaoyi (莫高義), deputy head of the Central Propaganda Department and director of the State Council Information Office, addressed the opening. In his keynote, ACJA President He Ping (何平) urged journalists to answer “decoupling” and “small yard, high fence” policies by telling the Silk Road story of “extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits” (共商共建共享), a core Belt and Road Initiative slogan. Beijing uses the two terms to criticize US restrictions on exports of advanced technology to China, and US and European efforts to reduce economic dependence on China, including EU trade measures against Chinese goods it considers unfairly subsidized or dumped. 10 journalist organizations, including bodies from Cabo Verde, Chile, Mongolia and Zambia, received certificates admitting them to the ACJA’s International Home of Journalists (國際記者之家). The opening ceremony also launched a Global South Journalists Workshop Program (全球南方國家記者研修計劃). Its first workshop, themed on AI and the Silk Road, opened at Nanjing University the next day. The forum also opened a Belt and Road journalists’ station at the Xinhua Daily Media Group (新華報業傳媒集團), following earlier stations in Chongqing and Jiangxi, to host foreign reporters visiting China. Xinhua reported that International Home of Journalists membership now spans more than 40 countries, and that such stations have received more than 480 journalists from more than 180 media outlets.