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All Lingua Sinica Dispatches

Chinese Ambassador to Slovakia Meets with Nouvelles d’Europe

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On March 23, 2026, Zhong Cheng (鍾誠), president of the Nouvelles d’Europe Culture and Media Group and publisher of Nouvelles d’Europe (歐洲時報), visited the Chinese Embassy in Slovakia, where he was received by Ambassador Cai Ge (蔡革). Embassy Counselor Wang Xiaojian (王小劍), Political Section Director Liu Tiantian (劉甜甜), and Xuan Xuan (宣絢), general manager of Nouvelles d’Europe‘s Central and Eastern Europe bureau, also took part. The meeting was reported by Nouvelles d’Europe, a French-based newspaper with ties to the state-run China News Service and the CCP’s United Front Work Department. Cai said Sino-Slovak relations, elevated to a strategic partnership in November 2024, had entered “a new stage of vigorous development” (蓬勃發展的新階段), and said closer ties help build a more “objective and rational” (客觀理性) view of China within the EU. As evidence, Cai cited Confucius Institutes now hosted at Slovak universities, a Chinese-language program at Comenius University Bratislava, and a bilingual secondary school in the Banská Bystrica region. Zhong said Nouvelles d’Europe had expanded from a newspaper into a platform spanning media, culture, and Chinese-language education across multiple countries and languages, and described his outlet as a pioneer in exporting Chinese short-form video dramas abroad. He said the paper’s mission is to “tell China’s story well” (講好中國故事) overseas, a phrase closely associated with CCP guidance for state media. The two also discussed the broader European media and political landscape, according to the report.

Chinese Embassy in Slovakia

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The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Slovakia (中華人民共和國駐斯洛伐克共和國大使館) is China’s chief diplomatic mission to the Slovak Republic, located in Bratislava. China first established diplomatic relations with the former Czechoslovakia on October 6, 1949. When Slovakia became an independent state on January 1, 1993, China immediately recognized the Slovak Republic and established relations at the ambassadorial level. In November 2024, the two countries elevated ties to a strategic partnership. Slovakia has become China’s fourth-largest trading partner and largest source of imports in Central and Eastern Europe. Chinese ambassadors have regularly published op-eds in outlets described as fringe or alternative Slovak media, including Nové Slovo and Slovenské Národné Noviny. In 2025, for example, Ambassador Cai Ge published an opinion piece in Nové Slovo arguing that Taiwan is part of China and that reunification is “unstoppable.”

Chinese Embassy in Georgia

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The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Georgia (中華人民共和國駐格魯吉亞大使館) is China’s chief diplomatic mission to Georgia, located in Tbilisi. The embassy handles visas and consular services and promotes trade, investment, and cultural exchange between the two countries. China was among the first countries to establish formal diplomatic relations with Georgia following its independence from the Soviet Union, on June 9, 1992. In June 2026, the two countries upgraded ties to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” building on a strategic partnership established in 2023. In May 2024, Georgia’s parliament passed a “foreign agents” law requiring NGOs and media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as serving foreign interests. The law triggered mass protests in Tbilisi and was condemned by the EU as a threat to Georgia’s democratic path. The Chinese ambassador said the law was “a matter of domestic politics” and that China’s non-interference reflected respect for Georgian sovereignty. The Digital Forensic Research Lab later found that these comments were amplified across pro-government Facebook and Telegram pages as part of a broader campaign framing China as more respectful of Georgian sovereignty than the US and EU.

State Council Information Office Hosts Xinjiang Media Seminar for Foreign Journalists

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On April 14, 2024, the State Council Information Office (國務院新聞辦公室), together with the China International Communications Group (中國外文局) and the propaganda office of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region CCP Committee, hosted the Silk Road Economic Belt Joint Construction Countries’ Media Head Seminar (絲綢之路經濟帶共建國家媒體負責人研討班), bringing 26 media figures, writers, and scholars from 21 countries to tour Urumqi, Kashgar, and the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. Addressing participants in Urumqi, Ma Xingrui (馬興瑞), then Xinjiang’s CCP secretary, said the party would “to the greatest possible extent, ensure that the people’s rights to subsistence and development are not violated (最大限度確保人民的生存權和發展權不受侵害),” a formulation the CCP has used to rebut international criticism of its treatment of Uyghurs. Fifteen of the attendees, according to the same report, said Western media had “distorted facts to smear” (歪曲事實來抹黑) Xinjiang. As of April 2026, Ma was under investigation by China’s central discipline and supervisory authorities for a “serious violation of discipline and law,” a term typically denoting corruption.

Yeni Neşriyat A.Ş.

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Yeni Neşriyat A.Ş. is the Istanbul-based publishing company that owns and operates Millî Gazete, a Turkish daily newspaper that describes itself as representing Millî Görüş (“National View”), the movement founded by Necmettin Erbakan whose political vehicles have been characterized by Britannica as Islamist. Company filings listed on the paper’s own masthead identify Ömer Yüksel Özek as acting on the company’s behalf as license holder and general manager. Apple’s App Store lists Yeni Neşriyat A.Ş. as the developer of Millî Gazete’s mobile applications, confirming the corporate link. In July 2026, Millî Gazete’s editorial department head was among the foreign media figures hosted on a state-organized seminar in Xinjiang, organized by China’s State Council Information Office.

Mundo Obrero

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Mundo Obrero (“Workers’ World”) is the official publication of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), first published on August 23, 1930, shortly after the fall of Spain’s Primo de Rivera dictatorship. Under the Franco dictatorship the paper was repeatedly suppressed; according to Público, imprisoned PCE militants handwrote miniature, illustrated copies of the paper and smuggled them out of Francoist prisons for clandestine distribution. It returned to open circulation after the PCE’s legalization in 1977, and is currently published as a monthly print magazine alongside a daily news website, based in Madrid. In July 2026, the outlet published its own account of a State Council Information Office-organized seminar in Xinjiang, describing Urumqi as a logistics hub of the “New Belt and Road” — Xinhua separately quoted a Mundo Obrero columnist, identified as Jesús Rodríguez Rojo, praising Xinjiang’s “smart agriculture” during the same trip.

China International Publishing Center

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China International Publishing Center, or CIPC, is one of 22 brands operating under the China International Communications Group (中國國際傳播集團), focusing on translating, editing, and publishing the CCP’s documents to promote and align with “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” to overseas audiences. The center also organizes programs facilitating international communication, including high-level visits and events inviting foreign media workers to China, framed around the directive to “tell the stories of China in the new era well.”

Millî Gazete

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Millî Gazete (“National Newspaper”) is a Turkish-language daily newspaper first published on January 12, 1973, in Istanbul’s Cağaloğlu district, according to the paper’s own account of its founding (archive pending — see note above). The paper has identified itself with Millî Görüş (“National View”), an Islamist political movement whose flagship parties were twice dissolved by Turkey’s courts — the National Salvation Party, banned in 1981, and the Welfare Party, banned in 1998 — both led by Necmettin Erbakan. Millî Gazete is published by Yeni Neşriyat A.Ş., with Ömer Yüksel Özek listed as its license holder and general manager and Mustafa Kurdaş as editor-in-chief. The paper is headquartered in the Sefaköy area of Istanbul’s Küçükçekmece district. In July 2026, the paper’s editorial department head, Ercan Salkaya, was among the foreign media figures hosted on a state-organized seminar in Xinjiang, where he was quoted praising the pace of the region’s industrial development.

European Chinese Media Association Organizes 15th European Chinese Media Forum in Milan

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On July 19, 2026, the Association of Overseas Chinese Media in Europe (歐洲華文傳媒協會), also known as the “Chinese Media Association in Europe,” organized a large-scale media exchange event in Milan, Italy, inviting 80 representatives from over 40 outlets across more than 20 European countries, according to People’s Daily Online, a web portal operated by the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily. The event, called the “European Chinese Media Forum” (第十五屆歐洲華文傳媒論壇), was hosted by the Italy-based Chinese-language newspaper European Chinese News (歐洲華人報). The forum was held under the theme “the integration and innovation of Chinese-language media in the AI era” (人工智能時代華文媒體的融合與創新). At the opening ceremony, Zhang Chenggang (張承剛), China’s consul general in Milan, delivered a speech describing Milan as a hub for China-Europe exchange, and emphasizing the role of media in shaping a friendly perception of China in Europe. Zhang also said Chinese-language outlets need to “adapt to trends in artificial intelligence and media convergence,” phrasing that echoes Xi Jinping’s 2019 call for AI-driven “media convergence.” Zhang Chunjiao (張春姣), vice chair of the All-China Journalists Association, the CCP-led journalistic body that serves to implement official media control policies, invited outlets to visit China and “tell China’s stories well, spread China’s good voice,” aiming to shape “a credible, lovable and respectable image of China,” echoing the CCP’s directives on how to spread positive and non-critical views on China. Zhang Lei (張雷), the editor-in-chief of the official China News Service, pledged at the event that CNS would support outlets with “content, technology and channels” to navigate news gathering and dissemination in the AI-era. He added that “a just cause is never without followers; walking together, one travels further,”  a line Xi has used repeatedly at summits of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to describe China-led multilateral cooperation.