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Activity Category: Media Engagement Activity

Cangzhou Opens New York Communication Hub With Xinhua

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On August 24, 2022, Xinhuanet (新華網), the publicly listed online platform of China’s government-run news agency, Xinhua, signed a cooperation agreement in Beijing with the government of Cangzhou, a port city in Hebei province, and unveiled the Cangzhou International Communication Center (滄州市國際傳播中心). According to Xinhuanet, the launch opened a North America branch of the center in New York offering “24-hour international communication services.” The propaganda office of the Cangzhou CCP Committee later said the branch was unveiled in Times Square, part of a strategy of “borrowing a boat to go out to sea” (借船出海) through central media’s overseas resources. Chinese scholars have noted that the branch drew on the “advantages” (優勢) of Xinhua’s overseas branch offices. Xinhua’s North America regional bureau has occupied offices in Times Square since 2011. Xinhuanet also operates a wholly owned subsidiary in the region, Xinhuanet North America Corporation. Xinhuanet chairman Liu Jian (劉健) said the center would “spread Cangzhou’s good voice” (傳播滄州好聲音). He added that it would create a favorable “public opinion atmosphere” (輿論氛圍) for attracting investment, language rooted in CCP doctrine on guiding public opinion. Hebei state media later claimed that the center’s content had reached 1.63 billion people in more than 100 countries, a figure that has not been independently verified.

China-Hosted Journalism Roundtable Discusses Presenting China to Spaniards

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On October 6, 2026, Zhang Hui (張輝), communication director at the China International Communications Group (中國外文局), or CICG, unit that publishes China Today (今日中國), held a roundtable in Madrid with Spanish journalist Georgina Rosa Higueras Rumbao and Juan Antonio Perteguer, whom CICG described as the head of a Spanish business association. The session, titled “Understanding China’s Development Logic and Exploring Opportunities for Cooperation with China” (讀懂中國發展邏輯，探討對華合作機遇), took place at a book-reading exchange on the Spanish edition of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, Volume V (習近平談治國理政第五卷西文版). According to CICG, the participants discussed, from an “international communication” (國際傳播) perspective, how to present a “real” China “objectively” to Spanish-speaking audiences. In Chinese state discourse, such language generally signals a push for favorable coverage, set against claims that Western media portray China unfairly. Higueras, a longtime Asia correspondent for El País (國家報), has served as vice president of the Cátedra China Foundation (西班牙知華講堂基金會), whose executive president also spoke at the event. CICG is directly under the CCP Central Committee and managed by the Central Propaganda Department.

Toledo Mayors Join CICG Roundtable in Madrid

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On October 6, 2026, three mayors from Spain’s Toledo province took part in a roundtable on local cooperation with China, titled “Spanish Mayors’ Dialogue: New Opportunities for Local Cooperation with China” (西班牙市長對話——對華地方合作新機遇), held as part of a Madrid book-reading exchange on the Spanish edition of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, Volume V (習近平談治國理政第五卷西文版). Manuel Guillermo Fernández Lázaro-Carrasco of Gálvez, Emilio Bravo Peña of Mora and Sagrario Gutiérrez Fernández of Guadamur discussed trade, technology and cultural exchange with China at the local level. All three mayors represented Spain’s conservative People’s Party (人民黨). China International Communications Group (中國外文局), or CICG, and the Chinese Embassy in Spain (中國駐西班牙大使館) guided the wider event. CICG described that event as an effort to spread the CCP’s “innovative theories” in the Spanish-speaking world. CICG is directly under the CCP Central Committee and managed by the Central Propaganda Department.

ACJA Co-Hosts 2024 Belt and Road Journalists Forum

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From August 26 to September 1, 2024, 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, co-hosted the 2024 Belt and Road Journalists Forum with the propaganda office of the Chongqing CCP Committee (中共重慶市委宣傳部). It was the first edition of the annual forum held outside Beijing. Nearly 100 leaders of journalist organizations and media representatives from 50 countries and regions joined organized reporting tours of Chongqing before the main session on August 31, which Mo Gaoyi (莫高義), then a deputy head of the Central Propaganda Department (中央宣傳部), addressed. ACJA president He Ping (何平) urged media to build a “new narrative framework” transcending ideology and social systems**, a common reference to the CCP’s view that a global narrative more favorable to China and less dominated by the West is essential.** He also called on media to champion the community of shared future for mankind. The forum expanded the International Home of Journalists (國際記者之家), a network proposed at the 2023 forum, awarding certificates to 14 foreign journalist organizations, though Chinese state media gave varying counts. The forum also appointed 16 consulting experts to the network, and journalists from Argentina, Bulgaria, China and Egypt used the occasion to launch a “Media Ambassadors Initiative” (媒體使者倡議). In October 2024, Ghana’s Ghanaian Times published a laudatory feature on the forum, highlighting foreign participants’ praise for Chinese media.

Jinan Opens Propaganda Hub in Frankfurt

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On December 2, 2024, the Jinan International Communication Center (濟南國際傳播中心), a municipal external propaganda platform guided by the propaganda office of the Jinan CCP Committee (濟南市委宣傳部), opened a German branch in Frankfurt together with the German bureau of Nouvelles d’Europe (歐洲時報). Sun Shihui (孫世會), then executive deputy head of the propaganda office, and Hu Xudong (胡旭東), editor-in-chief of the paper’s German bureau, attended the unveiling. Jinan named Hu an honorary overseas promoter of “Spring City culture” (泉城文化海外推薦官), after the city’s nickname, formally enlisting a newspaper editor to market Jinan abroad. The two sides also signed an international communication agreement. According to the Jinan Daily (濟南日報), the official newspaper of the Jinan CCP Committee, the center had placed more than 30 articles promoting the city’s “high-quality development” in Nouvelles d’Europe since 2023, echoing a Xi Jinping slogan that the leadership has treated as the fundamental requirement for economic policy since 2017. The report said the branch would widen Jinan’s international “circle of friends” (朋友圈), invoking a CCP notion of friendship that ties foreign goodwill to alignment with China’s positions, and that the center would “tell China’s story well” (講好中國故事). The Jinan Daily called Nouvelles d’Europe Europe’s “most influential” Chinese-language daily. The Paris-based paper is in fact owned by a company controlled by the CCP’s United Front Work Department. The Jinan center is one of many local international communication centers that Beijing has promoted since 2018 to raise China’s “discourse power.”

ACJA Hosts China-Spain Media Roundtable in Madrid

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On May 19, 2026, the International Department of 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, hosted the China-Spain Media Think Tank Dialogue Roundtable (中西媒體智庫對話圓桌會) in Madrid. More than 30 representatives of Chinese and Spanish media outlets and think tanks took part in discussions on media responsibility in the AI era, under a theme linking that topic to advancing stable China-Spain relations. This framing is central to China’s global media engagements, which emphasize the role of media in furthering diplomatic goals rather than news values or professional standards. Wu Xu (吳旭), executive secretary of the ACJA secretariat, urged media in both countries to “jointly tell stories of China-Spain friendship.” The phrase echoes the CCP’s directive to tell China’s story well, which promotes positive coverage of China abroad. After the roundtable, the ACJA International Department signed a memorandum of understanding with what Chinese coverage called the “Spanish branch” of the European Federation of Journalists, pledging a regular cooperation mechanism. The Madrid-based Asociación de Periodistas Europeos, the Spanish section of the Association of European Journalists, later reported that ACJA representatives had visited its premises months before it attended the association’s October 2026 forum in Nanjing as an invited guest. Two days later, the ACJA held a parallel roundtable in Athens on similar themes.

CICG Presents Magazine to Spanish Communist Leader

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On October 6, 2026, Xie Gang (謝剛), vice president of China International Communications Group (中國外文局), or CICG, presented José Luis Centella Gómez, president of the Communist Party of Spain (西班牙共產黨), or PCE, with a copy of China Today (今日中國) featuring Centella’s article on the 90th anniversary of the Long March, the CCP’s foundational 1934–1936 military retreat. Xie, Centella and Chinese Ambassador to Spain Yao Jing (姚敬) met in Madrid ahead of a CICG book-reading exchange on the Spanish edition of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, Volume V (習近平談治國理政第五卷西文版). In July 2026, Centella had addressed by video a Yan’an event of CICG’s “Together on the Long March” (同走長征路) project, saying the Long March spirit would offer inspiration for building a “community of shared future for mankind,” Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy slogan. CICG, which publishes China Today, is directly under the CCP Central Committee and managed by the Central Propaganda Department.

ACJA Hosts 2023 Belt and Road Journalists Forum

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On October 12, 2023, 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, gathered nearly 100 heads of journalist organizations and media representatives from more than 40 countries and regions in Beijing to mark the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative. Sun Yeli (孫業禮), then a deputy head of the Central Propaganda Department (中央宣傳部), addressed the forum. ACJA president He Ping (何平) urged attendees to jointly tell good stories of Belt and Road cooperation and to sing the “main melody” of peace, development and win-win cooperation. The forum ran under the Belt and Road Journalists Network (“一帶一路”記者組織合作平台), a platform launched in 2019 that describes itself as jointly initiated by journalist organizations in Belt and Road countries, but whose executive vice chairman and secretary-general are ACJA officials. Its joint declaration, Join Hands to Embark on a New Journey of the Next Decade (攜手啟航新十年——“一帶一路”記者組織聯合宣言), called on members to promote friendly press exchanges as a means of advancing political mutual trust and economic ties between states — what it called “friendly exchange” (友好交流). It pledged joint reporting tours to cover Belt and Road achievements “objectively and truthfully”, a formulation that equated objectivity with documenting successes and made no provision for reporting on the initiative’s setbacks or controversies. It also proposed an “International Home of Journalists” (國際記者之家) network. Guy Mettan, a Swiss journalist who has led the Geneva Press Club and authored Creating Russophobia: From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria, told the forum the West would try to undermine a multipolar world.

Cangzhou Opens Brussels Hub With Xinhua

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On August 24, 2022, Xinhuanet (新華網), the publicly listed online platform of China’s government-run news agency, Xinhua, signed a cooperation agreement in Beijing with the government of Cangzhou, a port city in Hebei province, and unveiled the Cangzhou International Communication Center (滄州市國際傳播中心). According toXinhuanet, the launch opened a Europe branch of the center in Brussels offering “24-hour international communication services.” The propaganda office of the Cangzhou CCP Committee later said the branch was set up in Brussels as the “seat of the EU headquarters,” part of a strategy of “borrowing a boat to go out to sea” (借船出海) through central media’s overseas resources. Chinese scholars have noted that the branch drew on the “advantages” (優勢) of Xinhua’s overseas branch offices. Xinhua’s Europe regional bureau has been based in Brussels since 2004. Li Shengjiang (李生江), chief of the bureau, pledged “full support” for the branch’s operations, saying it would build Cangzhou’s reputation in Europe and set an example for others. Xinhuanet also operates a wholly owned subsidiary in the region, Xinhuanet Europe B.V. Xinhuanet chairman Liu Jian (劉健) said the center would “spread Cangzhou’s good voice” (傳播滄州好聲音). He added that it would create a favorable “public opinion atmosphere” (輿論氛圍) for attracting investment, language rooted in CCP doctrine on guiding public opinion.