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Archives: Dispatches

All Lingua Sinica Dispatches

Commonwealth of Independent States

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The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organization comprising states of the former Soviet Union, formed after the collapse of the union in December 1991. Its origins trace to the Belovezha Accords, signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus on December 8, 1991, and it formally came into being on December 21, 1991, when the founding agreement was expanded to include the Central Asian republics, the Transcaucasian republics, and Moldova, per Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Baltic states declined to join. Minsk serves as the CIS’s administrative center, with its Executive Committee also maintaining an office in Moscow. The organization coordinates member states’ economic, foreign, defense, immigration, environmental, and law-enforcement policy through a council of heads of state and government. Georgia finalized its withdrawal in August 2009 following its 2008 war with Russia, and Ukraine formally withdrew in 2018 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In October 2025, the CIS Heads of State Council granted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization observer status at a Dushanbe meeting, citing shared positions on counterterrorism, trade, and international law.

France’s CSA Approves Broadcast License for Mandarin TV

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On November 8, 2021, Mandarin TV (歐視TV+), a French-Chinese bilingual TV channel, held a launch ceremony in Paris with the Chinese embassy to celebrate its license from the French national broadcasting regulator, the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA), to extend its broadcasts across Europe under the brand “Europe TV.” The outlet reported that it would use satellite transponder capacity leased from the European satellite operator Eutelsat. Addressing the ceremony by video, China’s ambassador to France, Lu Shaye (盧沙野), described Mandarin TV as the first Chinese broadcaster in France to hold a CSA license. The license and the network’s European expansion, he said, advanced “friendship” between the two countries. According to China News Service, some 300 attendees were present at the launch, including French political and business figures, Chinese and French media representatives, and members of the Chinese diaspora in France. Station director Chen Chen (陳晨) said the expanded signal would reach an estimated 135 million households, with future programming to target European countries with sizable Chinese communities, including Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

CMG and Visit Finland Sign Cooperation Agreement

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On January 27, 2026, during a visit of Finland’s prime mInister visit to China, the tourism-promotion platform Visit Finland, an office under the country’s government agency for trade and investment promotion, signed a cooperation agreement for content production, project planning, and event organization with the state-run media conglomerate China Media Group. The agreement sought to promote what Chinese state media refer to as “people-to-people exchange” between the two countries, this being a recurring term that Chinese leader Xi Jinping uses to signal what China regards as a cornerstone of diplomacy — the contact between Chinese citizens and foreign publics. The agreement was signed by CMG President Shen Haixiong (慎海雄) and a representative of the Finnish Embassy in Beijing, and it was one of several deals signed during the visit that produced 11 business agreements between Chinese and Finnish companies, as well as multiple government-to-government memoranda of understanding.

Romanian News Outlet Publishes Special Edition with Xinhua and Chinese Embassy

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On September 28, 2020, three days before China’s official National Day marking the foundation of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, Nine O’Clock, a Romanian English-language daily newspaper, co-published a special edition on the holiday with the state-run Xinhua News Agency and the Chinese Embassy in Romania. The 12-page special issue recapped the history of China-Romania relations, and featured an article on bilateral cooperation written by Jiang Yu (姜瑜), then Chinese ambassador to Romania. The article, titled “Face up the Difficulties and Make New Advances in a Changing World”, praised China for the medical assistance it had provided to Romania in the midst of the pandemic. Jiang’s article also emphasized China’s commitment to “multilateralism,” a concept the Chinese Communist Party often applies selectively, emphasizing bilateral agreements and negotiations over adherence to binding international rules.

Business Finland

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Business Finland is a non-profit company fully owned by the Finnish government, established in January 2018. It acts as Finland’s official agency for supporting businesses, attracting foreign investment, promoting tourism, and bringing skilled workers to Finland. It provides funding, advice, and networking opportunities to Finnish companies and research organizations looking to grow internationally. Business Finland is under the oversight of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.

Nine O’clock

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Founded in 1991 following the 1989 anti-communist revolution that overthrew the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, Nine O’Clock is an English-language daily newspaper in Romania. The newspaper covers politics, economics, culture, and society. In recent years, the Chinese Embassy in Romania has published articles through the outlet on several occasions. In September 2025, for example, the paper ran an article by Chinese Ambassador Chen Feng (陈峰) describing “defense of the One-China principle” — the PRC’s assertion of territorial sovereignty over Taiwan — as the “foundation” of relations between the countries. The commentary followed a visit to self-ruled Taiwan by a delegation from the Senate of Romania.

Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

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The Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment is a Finnish government ministry established on January 1, 2008, as part of the Government Program — or negotiated policy platform — of the second government (2007-2010) of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, a former journalist and leader of Finland’s centrist Center Party. The ministry covers entrepreneurship, innovation, labor markets, and regional development, and also oversees energy policy, competition and consumer affairs, and labor migration. 

Mandarin TV

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Mandarin TV is a 24-hour Chinese-French television station providing programs across Europe. Founded by the Paris-based C-Media (歐洲中誼文化傳媒公司), which openly describes itself on the banner of its website as an entity “authorized by the State Council Information Office” — referring to the Chinese government office responsible for “external propaganda” and identical to the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — the broadcaster reportedly became the first Chinese-language television station to obtain a license from France’s Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA), the country’s former media regulator, since succeeded by Arcom. The channel launched in 2015 as “French Overseas Chinese Satellite TV” (法國華人衛視) and underwent a rebranding in 2021 as Europe TV (歐洲衛視) as it expanded its satellite footprint on the continent. Despite reporting of the name change by China’s official People’s Daily, the broadcaster’s website and online channels, including YouTube, identified it still as “Mandarin TV” as of 2026. Though Mandarin TV has said that it aims to “promote cultural exchange and cooperation between China and Europe,” it has clear affiliations with Chinese state media, including China Central Television, and its open acknowledgment of its “authorization” by the State Council Information Office (國信辦授權單位), or SCIO, suggests at least accommodation of China’s state communication strategies, and possibly active collaboration. The broadcaster’s YouTube channel also released programs from Chinese media such as Inside China: A Discovery Tour, a documentary by Xinhua News Agency to explore the human rights situation in China. In an interview in 2021, Chen Shiming (陳世明), the founder of Mandarin TV, said the channel had worked with state-run media, including China Central Television (中央電視台) China Radio International (中國國際廣播電台) Shanghai Television (上海電視台) Wenzhou Television (溫州電視台). In 2022, the broadcaster’s YouTube channel released a documentary by the Chinese government’s Xinhua News Agency lauding the concept of “whole-process democracy,” which had emerged as a key propaganda theme in China the year before. The documentary also argued that human rights were broadly protected in China.

Visit Finland

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Visit Finland is Finland’s official national tourism promotion organization, wholly owned by Business Finland, the country’s official government body for trade and investment promotion, and operating under the mandate of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. It is responsible for promoting Finland internationally as a travel destination and supporting domestic travel industry companies in developing and marketing services for global audiences. It also runs the Sustainable Travel Finland program, a certification pathway guiding tourism businesses toward internationally recognized sustainability standards.