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Activity Type: Placement of PRC Party-State Content

Dolon TV Gains Exclusive CCTV Rebroadcast Rights in Kyrgyzstan

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Beginning in 2015, privately owned Kyrgyz broadcaster Dolon TV received Chinese government subsidies through 2018 under a designation in China’s “National Cultural Export Key Project” catalogue, according to an OSCE Academy in Bishkek research report on Chinese information operations in Kyrgyzstan. Around the same period, Dolon TV secured free, exclusive rebroadcast rights to at least ten CCTV channels, according to China Index, an independent research project tracking PRC-linked media relationships, which also reports that Dolon TV produces original programming on Chinese cultural and economic projects in Kyrgyzstan. Unlike Xinhua, Wen Wei Po, and Silk Road Observer, Dolon TV is not registered as foreign media with Kyrgyzstan’s government, and operates nominally as an independent local broadcaster while carrying Chinese state television content and receiving state support.

Global Times Holds Photo Exhibition in Bishkek During Media Forum

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On May 27, 2026, Global Times (環球時報) held a stop of its “Overseas China Week” series in Bishkek, launching a photo exhibition titled “Linked by Mountains and Rivers, Bound by Shared Hearts — China and Kyrgyzstan Hand-in-Hand for the Future” alongside the 2026 China-Kyrgyzstan Media Cooperation Forum. Attendees included People’s Daily deputy editor-in-chief Cui Shixin (崔士鑫), Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Minister of Culture, Information, Sports and Youth Policy Salkyn Sarnogoeva, Kyrgyz Tuusu Publishing House head Galina Baitekerek, and a Chinese embassy counselor. The exhibition was organized around four themes described by Global Times as “shared security responsibilities,” “integrated development opportunities,” “joint ecological construction,” and “mutual learning among civilizations,” and included images of joint counter-terrorism drills, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, and a Chinese-built waste-to-energy plant in Bishkek. The event also displayed the Russian-language edition of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China and Global Times feature coverage decoding the book, alongside AR translation glasses made by Chinese company LLVision. Global Times reported that Kyrgyz visitors, including a Kyrgyz National University Chinese-language teacher and the editor-in-chief of Slovo Kyrgyzstana, offered favorable impressions of the exhibition’s content and presentation. Global Times said the “Overseas China Week” series had previously appeared in South Africa, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, and Kazakhstan.

Kyrgyzstan Premieres China-Produced Belt and Road Documentary

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On November 30, 2023, Bishkek hosted the premiere of the documentary One Belt, One Road: Next to You, marking the tenth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, according to Kyrgyzstan’s state news agency Kabar. Chinese Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Du Dewen (杜德文), Kyrgyz Transport and Communications Minister Tilek Tekebaev, and Kyrgyz Deputy Minister of Culture, Information, Sports and Youth Policy Chyngyz Esengul uulu attended. Du said the initiative had “evolved from a Chinese initiative into an international practice” over its first decade and voiced hope that continued cooperation would advance a “Chinese-Kyrgyzstan community with a common destiny” — an unmistakable reference to Xi Jinping’s key foreign policy phrase. The five-episode documentary covers infrastructure, trade, transport, agriculture, and cultural cooperation between the two countries, and was slated to air through “China TV Theater,” a strand created by China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), the state agency that regulates broadcast and online audiovisual content and oversees the licensing of domestic and foreign media in China, to place Chinese state-produced programming on foreign broadcasters’ channels and platforms. Kabar described Dolon TV, its local carrier, as Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest cable operator, with more than 100 channels in Russian, Chinese, and English, and reported that the company has partnered with Chinese media on content adaptation, packaging, and dubbing since the Belt and Road Initiative’s launch.

Hong Kong Security Bureau and i-CABLE Launch National Security Series

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On June 30, 2026, Hong Kong’s Security Bureau launched NS Files: Decoded (國安檔案解密), a five-episode television series produced directly by the bureau to mark the sixth anniversary of the Hong Kong National Security Law’s implementation. The series revisited five prosecuted national security cases, including that of motorcyclist Leon Tong Ying-kit (唐英傑), the law’s first convicted defendant. It aired on Hong Kong broadcaster i-CABLE’s HOY78 channel, hosted by television personality Ken Chan (陳啟泰) alongside National Security Department Chief Superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah (李桂華). Security Secretary Chris Tang (鄧炳強) said the program aimed to remind the public that national security risks persist. In clear coordination of the campaign with PRC state media, the bureau confirmed to the Global Times, an outlet under the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, that each episode was also uploaded to its official Douyin account, extending the series to mainland Chinese audiences, while China News Service reported on the launch by citing Hong Kong media coverage. Hong Kong’s National Security Law was imposed directly by China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee in 2020. Because the law has a direct impact on the media environment and media freedoms in Hong Kong, and because the territory’s national security enforcement operates in coordination with central government bodies, this database treats media and national security cooperation in Hong Kong as a cross-territory engagement.

Italpress Signs Deal with Xinhua

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On December 17, 2025, Italian news agency Italpress signed a cooperation agreement with Xinhua, China’s state news agency, a ministerial-level body operating under China’s State Council and the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda apparatus. The two agencies signed the deal at a media and think tank forum in Rome, which Xinhua’s European Regional Office organized with support from the Chinese Embassy in Italy. Neither Italpress nor Xinhua has published the text of the agreement, though Italpress has since created a dedicated “Xinhua” section on its website, republishing Xinhua-produced articles on Chinese politics, technology, and diplomacy, translated into English, as its own coverage. Italpress director Gaspare Borsellino called the deal a step toward “more qualified, thorough, and quality” journalism, language that echoes Chinese Communist Party framing of state media professionalism, and said Italpress would open a bureau in Beijing in January 2026 as part of its international expansion. Tian Fan (田帆), director of Xinhua’s European Regional Office, said the agency would continue presenting China to Italy in a “vivid and multifaceted” way. Chinese Embassy chargé d’affaires Li Xiaoyong (李小勇) said the deal would help “authentic information” “cross borders” and build “mutual trust” between the two countries.

Italpress and CCTV Sign Content-Sharing Agreement

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On May 28, 2025, Italian news agency Italpress, based in Palermo, announced a content-sharing agreement with CCTV+ (央視國際視訊通訊社), the international video news agency of China Media Group (中央廣播電視總台), which operates under the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department. Under the agreement, Italpress will distribute its multimedia content in China while incorporating CCTV+ footage into its own coverage for subscribers in Italy and abroad. Italpress founder Gaspare Borsellino called the agreement “an important and exciting international partnership” that would help the agency reach new markets. CCTV+ director Li Xia (李霞) said the partnership reflected “growing mutual trust and cooperation between Chinese and Italian media,” and that both sides would pursue “authoritative, credible, and internationally influential journalistic content,” a characterization consistent with CCP framing of state media as objective and professional — even as the same CCP discourse emphasizes the primacy of the Party leadership over media and public opinion, following hardline comments on media policy made by Xi Jinping in February 2016. 

Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jianwei Publishes Op-Ed in Thai Media

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On July 1, 2026, marking both the 105th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s founding and the 51st anniversary of China-Thailand diplomatic relations, Chinese Ambassador to Thailand Zhang Jianwei (張建衛) published a signed op-ed titled “Standing at a New Starting Point, Walking Well on the New Journey” (站在新起點，走好新征程) in Thai media, according to the Chinese Embassy’s own account. The embassy named three placements: Daily News, Matichon (民意報), and Top News. Independent republication also confirms placement in Khaosod English, the English-language arm of the Matichon Group, and Nation Thailand, the English-language arm of The Nation Group. The op-ed credited the CCP with lifting China from poverty to becoming the world’s second-largest economy, framed Chinese foreign policy as building a “community of shared future for mankind,” and cited a more than 6,000-fold increase in bilateral trade since 1975, China’s 13-year run as Thailand’s largest trading partner, and record 2026 tourist numbers as evidence of the relationship’s “vigorous” development ahead of what it called the two countries’ next “golden 50 years.”

Curierul Național Partners with CCTV

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On October 20, 2021, the Romanian business daily Curierul Național announced a partnership with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV (中國中央電視台) to publish daily Romanian-language news from China. The announcement described the deal as “unique” in the Romanian media landscape and said it would prioritize content “exclusively provided by CCTV” on business and investment opportunities, alongside coverage of foreign policy, the economy, health, and education. It noted that CCTV operates 18 thematic channels, including two in 4K and 8K format, and an international channel, CGTN, also broadcast in Romania. The outlet’s resulting “Current Events China” section is branded as produced in partnership with CCTV+, the international digital media arm of China’s state broadcaster, but individual articles within the section are bylined to both CCTV and China Radio International — a separate PRC state broadcaster — indicating the “CCTV partnership” draws on multiple outlets under China’s state broadcasting apparatus, both of which sit under China Media Group, itself directly under the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department. The announcement noted this was not Curierul Național’s first such tie: the outlet is a founding member of the Belt and Road Economic Information Partnership (BREIP), a Xinhua News Agency-initiated news-exchange platform launched in 2019 spanning news agencies and publications across Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania.

RT and CCTV Premiere Joint WWII Documentary

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Between May 20 and 22, 2026, timed to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Beijing, RT and China Media Group’s CCTV jointly premiered a three-episode documentary titled The Last Strike (最後一擊), known in Russian as Последний удар, about the Soviet Union’s August 1945 Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation against Japan’s Kwantung Army in the closing days of World War II. According to CCTV, the documentary was produced to “promote a correct view of World War II history and safeguard international fairness and justice,” framing the operation as a case of Soviet-Chinese “coordinated combat” that helped end the war, and describing the Kwantung Army’s fortifications as an “Eastern Maginot Line” — a reference to France’s pre-war border defenses, which German forces bypassed in 1940, and which the term invokes here to characterize Japan’s defenses as elaborate but ultimately doomed to fail. RT described The Last Strike as the first documentary on the subject jointly produced and simultaneously broadcast by Russian and Chinese state media, drawing on interviews with nearly 20 witnesses, including a 106-year-old Soviet veteran, alongside researchers from Russia, China, and the United States. The first episode aired live on RT Documentary, RT’s documentary channel; the second and third aired May 21 and 22 on RT Documentary and CCTV-4, CCTV’s Chinese International Channel.