National Media Group and CMG Sign Deal to Deepen SCO Coverage

On May 20, 2026, during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Beijing, National Media Group (國家媒體集團) and China Media Group (中央廣播電視總台), or CMG, agreed to expand cooperation on coverage of events related to Russia, China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a China- and Russia-led regional grouping. The two sides also agreed to establish a direct communication mechanism between their editors-in-chief to coordinate coverage of what National Media Group described as “extraordinary and particularly significant events.” National Media Group general director Svetlana Balanova, who is under EU and Swiss sanctions both for her role atop NMG and as head of the Public Council under Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulator, credited earlier cooperation with CMG for providing what she called “unprecedented information support” to the Chinese release of the Russian-Chinese co-produced film Red Silk (紅絲綢), formally credited as a Russia-China co-production. Set in 1927 aboard the Trans-Siberian Express amid Soviet-Chinese diplomatic tensions, the film follows a Chinese courier, Wang Lin, and a Soviet agent, Artyom, who are forced into an uneasy alliance to protect a piece of secret intelligence as assassins, defectors, and rival spies close in around them, according to the film’s Chinese distribution listing. The film premiered in Russian theaters on February 20, 2025, under the title Красный шёлк, and ranked second in Russian and CIS box office grosses for the week of February 27–March 2, 2025, trailing only The Poet, a musical biographical drama about Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. It opened in mainland Chinese theaters on September 6, 2025, roughly seven months after its Russian debut.