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Activity Type: Placement of PRC Party-State Content

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.

Chinese Ambassador to Denmark Addresses China-EU Trade in Copenhagen Post

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On May 29, 2026, Wang Xuefeng (王雪峰), China’s ambassador to Denmark, published an op-ed in the Copenhagen Post, Denmark’s English media outlet, responding to the question of whether Europe lost its economic momentum as China’s trade surplus with the EU last year rose to nearly USD 300 billion. Wang argued that “the reality is not as it seems,” and that “the evolution of the China-EU trade landscape is a natural consequence of globalization and industrial upgrading.” Wang suggested that criticism of the imbalance overlooked what he called “mutual benefit.” Wang also listed the “multi-structural factors” that he said led to the trade imbalance, including the EU’s policy adjustments in response to the energy landscape following the Ukraine crisis, and controls on exports of technology products. The ambassador underscored what China has seen as “discriminatory and exclusionary” legal amendments that he said are “undermining” EU-China trade relations. He called for the EU to “embrace China” to create a “win-win partnership” rather than making it a “zero-sum” game — this being a framing used consistently by China to characterize its global trade relationships as broadly beneficial. During the first quarter of 2026, the EU’s trade deficit with China reached its highest level since 2022.

Budapest Radio Station Interrupted Broadcast for CRI Programming During Chinese State Visit

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On June 24, 2011, Budapest’s classical-music radio station Klasszik Radio halted its regular programming and aired Chinese state-produced content timed precisely to the arrival of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), the first visit to Hungary by a Chinese premier in 24 years, investigative Hungarian outlet Direkt36 reported. Former senior editor Viktor Hankó said the order originated directly from China Radio International (中國國際廣播電台), or CRI, the CCP-controlled international broadcaster, which in 2018 was brought under the China Media Group (CMG). Klasszik Radio was reportedly phoned by CRI representatives less than 48 hours before Wen’s arrival and sent prepared material on China’s history and Sino-Hungarian relations for the station to air. Referring to Wen Jiabao’s motorcade, Hankó told Direkt36 that the goal was “to show to that one guy sitting in his limousine that there are Chinese broadcasts even on Hungarian radio.” The same broadcast instructions were delivered to GBTimes Oy (環球時代傳媒公司), the Finnish-registered firm with which  Klasszik had partnered in December 2010, selling it part of its airtime. GBTimes Oy also acted in the interest of China Radio International. Four years later, a 2015 Reuters investigation identified Klasszik among the stations in GBTimes Oy’s European network carrying CRI-linked programming through a China-based subsidiary of CRI. GBTimes Oy CEO Zhao Yinong (趙亦農) told Reuters that CRI paid his company “several million euros” a year to produce China-friendly radio content. Chinese officials later told Klasszik staff that Wen was pleased with the broadcast, according to the Direkt36 report.

Chinese Ambassador to Estonia Gives Interview to The Baltic Times

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In November 2025, Guo Xiaomei (郭曉梅), China’s ambassador to Estonia, gave an interview to the Baltic Times on China-EU relations, trade, and Taiwan. Guo pushed back against the European Commission’s de-risking strategy, a policy articulated in 2023 aimed at reducing the EU’s critical dependencies on China, claiming that halting cooperation would endanger the relationship. “In our view, failure to cooperate is the greatest risk, and failure to develop is the greatest insecurity,” she wrote. These remarks echoed the CCP’s vision of rights and development globally, holding that development — largely meaning economic growth — should be prioritized over human rights and democracy. On the question of Taiwan, she warned that opening any representative office in Tallinn would breach the Joint Communiqué signed on September 11, 1991, establishing China-Estonia ties. Estonia’s government had decided in November 2023 to allow a non-diplomatic Taipei office, though as of late 2025, the office had not yet opened.