
China’s Media Toll on Taiwanese Democracy
Official state media warn a popular Taiwanese television host to avoid observing local elections — or risk losing PRC market access.

The International Home of Journalists (國際記者之家) is a program through which the official All-China Journalists Association (中華全國新聞工作者協會), or ACJA, recruits foreign journalist associations, largely from the Global South, into a China-centered partnership network, with members in countries including Brazil, Cabo Verde, Zambia, Chile, Mongolia, Slovakia, and Tajikistan. The ACJA is an ostensible professional association that serves a key role in licensing journalists and implementing press control policies within the profession. The program presents itself as a “home base” for journalists worldwide. According to a CCP party-building website, the network is meant to help members “tell China’s story well” (講好中國故事), a directive Xi Jinping has promoted since 2013 urging media to spread positive narratives about China abroad, and to extend China’s discourse power overseas. The ACJA proposed the program in October 2023 and launched it at the 2024 Belt and Road Journalists Forum in Chongqing, where it awarded membership certificates to organizations from more than 20 countries. The program operates under the Belt and Road Journalists Network (一帶一路記者組織合作平台), an international platform the ACJA co-founded with foreign journalist groups in 2019. New cohorts have received certificates formalizing their membership at each subsequent forum, 11 in 2025 and 10 in 2026. State media reported that the 2026 cohort, which included journalist bodies from Slovakia and Tajikistan, brought membership to organizations from more than 40 countries. Other members include the Brazilian Press Association, the Association of Journalists of Cabo Verde, and the Zambia Science and Technology Media Alliance. The program also organizes joint reporting trips and interviews, essay competitions, training programs, and an annual roundtable at which members meet Chinese officials. It runs a Facebook page with nearly 576,000 followers as of October 2026. Chinese state media have tied the program to Xi’s “community of shared future for mankind” (人類命運共同體), his signature foreign policy slogan for a China-led vision of world order.
