China Daily Runs Inserts In Jakarta Post

The Jakarta Post, an English language newspaper published by Indonesia’s PT Bina Media Tenggara, a media and consulting firm, reportedly signed a content-sharing arrangement with the Chinese government-run China Daily (中國日報) in 2016 to regularly publish a “China Watch” (看中國) insert. The specific date of the agreement, however, remains undocumented in public sources. China’s Mission to ASEAN stated in October 2016 that the cooperation “opens a new window for the Indonesian people to understand China.” The Indonesian newspaper’s editor-in-chief characterized the collaboration as “purely commercial,” telling Voice of America that China Daily “buys space for ads for its content” with disclaimers, and that there is “no editorial collaboration.” Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of China-Indonesia Studies at the Center of Economic and Law Studies, noted in an interview with Taiwan’s Central News Agency in 2023 that the paper republishes content from China Daily and Xinhua (新華社), as well as articles by Chinese ambassadors. According to CNA, The Jakarta Post has published a full-page insert from the People’s Daily (人民日報), the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, every Friday since late 2023.