On February 6, 2024, Chinese Ambassador to Portugal Zhao Bentang (趙本堂) met with representatives from Diário de Notícias, a Portuguese newspaper founded in 1864. The meeting, reported only by the Chinese Embassy, featured Zhao promoting China’s foreign policy framework and proposing expanded media cooperation. The newspaper’s representatives pledged to present “a real, multi-dimensional, and comprehensive China” to Portuguese readers — language that closely echoes Chinese state media narratives about countering alleged Western media bias.
On September 11, 2024, China’s ambassador to Portugal published an article in Diário de Notícias, a Portuguese daily newspaper, discussing the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Summit held September 4-6, 2024. FOCAC is a China-led platform for cooperation with African countries, established in 2000. The ambassador characterized the summit as China’s largest recent diplomatic event, with leaders from over 50 African countries attending. He outlined a three-year cooperation framework and called for China-Portugal-Africa trilateral cooperation to “support Africa in achieving modernization through its own path” (支持非洲以自身道路实现现代化). The ambassador’s framing emphasized China’s role as a partner in African development, echoing Beijing’s broader narrative of South-South cooperation. He also pitched for trilateral cooperation targeted Portugal’s existing relationships with six Portuguese-speaking African nations: Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Equatorial Guinea.
On September 12, 2024, China Media Group (CMG) and La Liga, the Spanish football league, signed a media cooperation agreement in Beijing. The agreement, signed by CMG President Shen Haixiong (沈海雄) and La Liga President Javier Tebas, granted CMG broadcasting rights for the 2024-25 La Liga season across television and digital platforms. According to CMG, the parties also agreed to cooperate on commercial exchanges and youth football development. Tebas said La Liga wanted to share its operational experience to help “promote the development of the football industry in China.”The signing coincided with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s visit to China, during which he met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強).
On December 3, 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping published a signed article in Portugal’s weekly newspaper Diário de Notícias titled “Friendship that Transcends Time and Space, Partners for the Future” (跨越時空的友誼 面向未來的夥伴) ahead of his state visit. The article quoted the 16th century Portuguese poet Luís de Camões on Portugal’s geographic position and referenced historical cultural exchanges, including the Portuguese adoption of Chinese silk-making techniques. through Belt and Road initiatives, positioning Portugal as a “key hub” that connects the land and maritime Silk Roads. The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is a key component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a major development plan that aims to connect China with the rest of the world. During the visit, Xi and the then-President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa signed a Belt and Road Memorandum of Understanding, making Portugal the first Western European nation to formally join the initiative.
China’s National Radio and Television Administration (国家广播电视总局) and Malaysia’s Ministry of Communications signed a bilateral memorandum of understanding on September 26, 2024. The agreement aimed to “deepen practical cooperation” in areas including content creation, program exchange, and technological development while addressing challenges and opportunities brought by new technologies to traditional broadcasting. Meeting in Beijing during the 50th anniversary year of China-Malaysia diplomatic relations, China’s broadcasting chief Cao Shumin (曹淑敏) met with Malaysian Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil. The memorandum comes as both sides highlighted recent successes in “joint production and industry cooperation” (联合制作, 产业合作), with Malaysia noting that broadcasting has played a “positive role in enhancing mutual understanding” between the two nations.
On May 3, 2017, Denmark signed a film co-production agreement with China during Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s official visit to Beijing. The agreement was negotiated between China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) (國家新聞出版廣電總局) and the Danish Film Institute (Det Danske Filminstitut) (丹麥電影中心). Danish Film Institute CEO Henrik Bo Nielsen signed the agreement at a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) and Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen in attendance. The co-production agreement grants film projects access to national film support and theatrical markets in both countries. Danish films co-produced with Chinese partners would not be subject to China’s import quota of a maximum of 38 foreign films annually, instead gaining equal access to the Chinese market. Nielsen stated that the agreement “will be important to both parties, both economically and culturally” and that “encounters that take place when we exchange and cooperate on art and culture are both inspiring and necessary for mutual understanding.”
On April 26, 2021, the Chinese Ambassador to Portugal published a signed article in the Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias titled “Jointly Safeguard the Healthy Development of China-EU Relations” (共同維護中歐關係健康發展). In the article, the ambassador expressed “regret” over the EU sanctions targeting Chinese officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang, saying that China only imposed counter-sanctions as a retaliatory measure, labeling the EU actions as interference in China’s internal affairs. The ambassador also discussed Portugal’s role as the EU’s rotating presidency holder in the first half of 2021 and expressed hope that Portugal would promote “objective” views of China among EU member states. The article followed the levying of joint sanctions in March 2021 by the European Union, the US, Canada and the UK against senior Chinese officials over abuses targeting the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, which prompted Beijing to retaliate by blacklisting numerous EU lawmakers and scholars.
On June 2, 2026, the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong (香港報業公會) and the Hong Kong News Executives’ Association (新職行政人員協會) signed a memorandum of understanding with Khabar Agency (哈巴爾通訊社), Kazakhstan’s state-owned broadcaster, in Astana. The signing took place during a visit to Kazakhstan by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu (李家超), who led a high-level delegation that for the first time included representatives of Hong Kong’s press industry. Under the agreement, the parties committed to jointly promoting what they described as “accurate narratives” about their respective regions, and to facilitating professional exchanges, training programs, and journalist study visits — language that mirrors official PRC framing around Western dominance of global public opinion and the need for alternative narrative channels. The agreement was one of seven MOUs signed between Hong Kong media and public and private sector counterparts in Kazakhstan during the visit. Hong Kong’s director of information services, Tse Chun-chung (謝振中), who accompanied the delegation in his first overseas trip in that role, said the visit responded to a policy direction set out in the previous year’s Policy Address to help local media expand networks beyond Hong Kong and “tell Hong Kong’s story well” (說好香港故事) — a phrase that echoes Xi Jinping’s directive to “tell China’s story well” (講好中國故事), a formulation used in the context of both tightening domestic media control and extending Chinese state influence over China’s narrative overseas.
On August 25, 2023, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency signed a news exchange and cooperation agreement with the Zambia News and Information Services (ZANIS) in Lusaka, Zambia. According to Xinhua, the agreement covered news content exchange, video and new media cooperation, and journalist training. Xinhua’s president, Fu Hua (傅華), met with Loyce Saili, director of ZANIS, at the ZANIS headquarters in Lusaka during a combined signing and equipment handover ceremony, at which Xinhua donated laptops and hard drives to ZANIS. Saili noted that the two agencies’ relationship dated to before 2005, when ZANIS was still called Zambia Information Services, and said the 2023 agreement renewed a memorandum of understanding first concluded in 1984. Saili mentioned that the newly formed ZANIS Television would begin broadcasting later in the year and suggested the agency would look to China for training of related personnel. Using official discourse typical of such arrangements, subordinating media issues to diplomatic relationships, Fu framed the agreements within a broader push to build “a favorable environment in terms of public opinion for both countries to pursue a development path suited to their national conditions” ahead of the 60th anniversary of China-Zambia diplomatic relations in 2024, and invited ZANIS to participate in the fifth World Media Summit, a forum organized and funded by Xinhua.
