II. The Media 

“To shape media content and narratives around the world, affecting every region and 

multiple languages,” Beijing uses a combination of “widely accepted forms of public diplo-

macy with more covert, corrupt, and coercive activities that undermine democratic norms, 

reduce national sovereignty, weaken the financial sustainability of independent media, and 

violate the laws of some countries,” wrote Freedom House.61 

Since the mid-2000s, the Chinese authorities have been trying to raise the profile of 

some of their “news” organizations to the level of the largest international media with a 

global influence, in order to make the Chinese vision of current affairs heard. The turn-

ing point came in 2008: as it noted the uncontrolled communication around the Beijing 

Olympic Games, which “just as much served as a sounding board for the regime’s oppo-

nents,” Beijing drafted a ten-year plan to better control its image in the world and, to 

this end, invested “10 billion RMB (€1.3 billion per year).”62 Over the past decade, the 

CCP has thus made unprecedented efforts to establish “a new world media order,” to use 

the expression coined by Li Congjun, the former president of Xinhua and now a member 

of the Party’s Central Committee.63 RSF noted that, “in his speeches, Li Congjun (李从军) 

constantly uses such terms as ‘media industry’ and ‘mass communications’ but has never 

used the word ‘journalism.’ This is not insignificant. By treating the media as an industry 

whose mission is to exercise influence on the state’s behalf, his ‘new world media order’ 

abolishes the watchdog role the media are meant to play.”64 Indeed, official press releases 

mention “media workers” rather than “journalists” – including, which is telling of this 

paradox, for the members of the All-China Journalists Association (ACJA).65

The Xinhua news agency, the CCTV television network, the China Daily newspaper, 

the Global Times and China Radio International (CRI) are among the first media organiza-

tions to have benefited from government support for their international development. In 

February 2016, after visiting the three main Chinese media organizations in Beijing (People’s 

Daily, Xinhua, and CCTV), Xi Jinping chaired a symposium of around 180 representatives 

of state media who were instructed to strictly follow the CCP’s instructions and focus on 

the “positive coverage” of the country. “All news media run by the party must work to 

speak for the party’s will and its propositions, and protect the party’s authority and unity,” 

he declared.66

61. Sarah Cook, Beijing’s Global Megaphone: The Expansion of Chinese Communist Party Media Influence Since 2017, Freedom 

House special report (Jan. 2020), 1. 

62. Reporters sans frontières (RSF), China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order (2019), 29. 

63. Li Congjun, “Toward a New World Media Order,” The Wall Street Journal (1 Jun. 2011).

64. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order, 9.

65. Ibid., 23. 

66. Edward Wong, “Xi Jinping’s News Alert: Chinese Media Must Serve the Party,” The New York Times (22 Feb. 

2016). 

173

Xi Jinping applauded in the press room of the People’s Daily in Beijing on February 19, 2016 (photo Xinhua, via AP).67

These major outlets have gradually multiplied their foreign-language content, developed 

branches abroad, established partnerships with foreign media and recruited local journalists 

to better convey their message to different audiences. As such, Chinese media greatly 

benefit from the asymmetry that characterizes the relationship between an autoc-

racy and democracies, as RSF reminded us: “The values of tolerance and openness that 

characterize liberal democracies give Beijing considerable freedom of movement, for which 

nothing is demanded in return. The asymmetry is striking. The state news agency Xinhua 

plans to have opened 200 bureaux around the world by 2020 but Beijing is extremely spar-

ing in the accreditations it gives to foreign reporters. State-owned China Global Television 

Network (CGTN) is extending its influence in more than 100 countries but international 

TV channels and radio stations such as France’s TV5, America’s VOA and the UK’s BBC 

are banned in China outside luxury hotels.”68

In addition to using these major media outlets to project itself in the world, Beijing 

is influencing local media in a growing number of countries, starting with those host-

ing the largest diasporas, with tactics that have long been well-known. In the American case, 

for example, it was found as early as in 2001 that “[four] main tactics characterize the Chinese 

government’s effort to influence Chinese media in America. First is the attempt to directly con-

trol newspapers, television stations, and radio stations through complete ownership or owning 

major shares. Second is the government’s use of economic ties to influence independent media 

who have business relations with China. This leverage has had major effects on the content 

of broadcasting and publishing, effectively removing all material deemed “unfavorable” by 

the Chinese government. Third is the purchasing of broadcast time and advertising space (or 

more) from existing independent media. Closely related to this is the government’s providing 

free, ready-to-go programming and content. Fourth is the deployment of government person-

nel to work in independent media, achieving influence from within their ranks.”69

67. Ibid.

68. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order, 45.

69. Mei Duzhe, “How China’s Government is Attempting to Control Chinese Media in America,” China Brief, 1:10 

(21 Nov. 2001). 

174

A. Chinese mainstream media 

Efforts over the past decade to strengthen the capacity and overseas presence of offi-

cial state media have paid off: CGTN, CCTV, China Daily, People’s Daily, China Radio 

International (CRI), Xinhua and China News Service have a global presence, in multiple 

languages, and on multiple continents. CRI has more than 70 stations in 65 languages 

and is the majority shareholder of 33 other stations in 14 countries; CGTN has 10,000 

employees in 70 offices and broadcasts in 140 countries; China Daily claims to have a circu-

lation of 900,000 and a readership of 150 million; Xinhua has 230 offices in the world (a 

40%-increase since 2017);70 the agency communicates in 19 languages71 and has increased 

its spending in the United States tenfold between 2009 ($500,000) and 2019 ($5 million).72 

Since 2018, several of these major media outlets have been combined into a conglomerate, 

the China Media Group (CMG), nicknamed “Voice of China” and subordinate to the State 

Council. CMG will soon open an “imposing office” in Brussels, in addition to the eight 

others it already has elsewhere in the world, and in December 2020, the group advertised 

264 new positions, 82 of which are dedicated to “international propaganda.”73

These media’s approach for their international development is always the same: the dif-

fusion of their products abroad is facilitated by the establishment of local offices and the 

recruitment of local journalists, the content is calibrated to local news, communi-

cation formats (text, image, video, audio) and media (paper, radio, television, Internet) are 

diversified, with an emphasis on the presence on social networks and formats adapted 

to cell phone screens in order to reach a wider audience, more directly. The website “China 

Internet Information Center” (china.com.cn or china.org.cn) is an example of a platform 

specifically dedicated to an international audience seeking to establish itself as a reference 

news website on China.

Chinese media have difficulties generating as much appeal as mainstream Western media 

however. Many viewers, listeners, and readers of foreign-language content are Chinese 

who wish to improve their English. Despite the efforts made to rebrand and to promote 

themselves as independent media, the lack of credibility of the information presented 

and the propagandistic tone of the Chinese media undoubtedly play a key role in 

their difficulties to compete with Western media and to establish themselves on the 

global market.

1. Xinhua 

Xinhua is one of the largest news agencies in the world. Based in Beijing, it manages 

more than 30 national branches and some 180 overseas offices in more than 100 countries. 

It is one of the Party’s largest and oldest news agencies. Created in 1931 under the name 

“Red China News Agency” (红色中华通讯社), it changed its name to Xinhua in 1937, 

which is literally “New China.” Its first foreign broadcast of an English program dates back 

70. Sébastien Falletti, “La propagande chinoise à l’assaut du monde,” Le Figaro, 2 Jun. 2021, 11.

71. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order, 30.

72. China Daily Distribution Corporation, “Supplemental Statement Pursuant to Section 2 of the Foreign Agents 

Registration, Act,” US Department of Justice (19 Jun. 2009), https://efile.fara.gov/docs/3457-Supplemental- 

Statement-20090619-9.pdf; China Daily Distribution Corporation, “Supplemental Statement Pursuant to Section 2 of 

the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” US Department of Justice (15 Nov. 2019), https://efile.fara.gov/ docs/3457-

Supplemental-Statement-20191115-31.pdf. 

73. Falletti, “La propagande chinoise à l’assaut du monde.”

175

to 1944 and the establishment of its first overseas branch in 1948. Today, Xinhua covers 

Asia, North America, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and offers content in a 

dozen languages – including English, French, Arabic, Russian, German, Portuguese and 

Tibetan – on topics ranging from politics, economics and international relations to culture, 

health and sports. The agency also publishes some two dozen newspapers and magazines, 

including Reference News (参考消息) which is one of the most widely distributed news-

papers in the world and is the most distributed newspaper in China. In the same logic of 

multiplying communication formats to broaden its audience, Xinhua has also developed its 

own television channel, China Xinhua News Network Corporation (CNC), offering con-

tent in Chinese and English, and broadcasting 24/7 in different countries around the world. 

The agency also sought to develop videos for phones, a format more suited to directly 

reach social network users. Its website, xinhuanet.com, is one of China’s most important 

information platforms available in a dozen foreign languages.

Under the direct supervision of the State Council, Xinhua relays information 

and the propaganda designed by the Party. For two years, between 1980 and 1982, the 

agency was incidentally under the authority of the Propaganda Department. The arrival of 

Xi Jinping was also perceived by Xinhua’s journalists as marking the entry into a new era 

in which the Chinese media “should no longer be ashamed of being communist media.”74

The agency aims to establish itself as a world leader in the sector and to be able to com-

pete with major media outlets such as CNN, Bloomberg, AP, AFP, and Al Jazeera, in order 

to bring the voice of China abroad and present its “true” nature to the rest of the world. In 

2010, Xinhua signed a 20-year contract to set up its premises in Times Square in New York; 

all the more symbolic of its internationalization is the gigantic 18 x 12 meter LED screen it 

rents there with the brand’s logo.75 Eventually, the goal is to turn Xinhua into a conglomer-

ate comparable to News Corp, Viacom or Time Warner. In March 2021, the “China Xinhua 

News” account was followed by more than 12 million users on Twitter and more than 89 

million on Facebook – probably artificially-inflated figures as we will see (→ p. 182). In 

order to better adapt its content to foreign audiences, the agency does not hesitate to recruit 

local staff members who are fluent in the language and cultural codes.76 Local “journal-

ists” are generally only tasked with translating dispatches (稿子) previously written 

by Chinese employees. In the case of Xinhua’s broadcasts in French, 80% of the dis-

patches are translations from English and the remaining 20% from Chinese.77 Xinhua has 

a specific service for the administration of foreign journalists: The State Administration 

of Foreign Experts Affairs. The dispatches translated, and more rarely written, by French 

journalists are all proofread by an experienced Chinese journalist who speaks fluent French 

and is familiar with the Party’s expectations as well as with its “preferred stories.”78

The agency’s partnerships with several UN international organizations, including 

UNESCO, UNEP, UNICEF, UNAIDS, FAO, and UNDP, serve to strengthen its legitimacy 

and trustworthiness in the eyes of the international audience.79 The former FAO Director 

74. Interview with a French journalist working for Xinhua (2018).

75. Stuart Elliott, “Sign of Arrival, for Xinhua, is 60 feet tall,” The New York Times (25 Jul. 2011).

76. Example of an advertisement for the recruitment of a native English speaker publicized on the China Xinhua 

News Facebook account, archived at: https://archive.vn/owxyl.

77. Interview with a French journalist working for Xinhua (2018).

78. Ibid. During this period, the French were paid around RMB 20,000 per month (approximately €2,500). 

Anglophones seemingly received somewhat higher salaries.

79. “UNESCO and Xinhua Deepen Partnership,” UNESCO (2 Jun. 2014); “UNEP and Xinhua Heads Sign 

Agreement on Promotion of Environmental Issues,” UNEP (5 Jun. 2015); “UNICEF and Xinhua Join Forces to 

Promote Children’s Rights,” UNICEF (5 Nov. 2019); “UNAIDS and Xinhua Renew Their Partnership Toward Ending 

176

General, José Graziano da Silva, described the partnership between his organization and 

Xinhua as “one of the most important media partnerships for FAO.”80 

Since the late 2000s, Xinhua has also been focusing on the African continent. This 

strategic shift is notably reflected in the multiplication of training offers for media profes-

sionals on the continent (→ p. 202). 

2. CCTV/CGTN

Another Chinese media organization that has also been given the mission to compete 

with major international media outlets is China Central Television (CCTV). This situation 

has incidentally created tensions between the media groups CCTV and Xinhua. CCTV is 

the main network of public television channels in China. Beijing TV was established 

in 1958 and changed its name to CCTV in 1978. Today, CCTV operates about 40 channels 

and it is owned by the China Media Group, since 2018, which is itself under the authority 

of the State Council. CCTV’s international development has unfolded gradually. In 1992, 

CCTV broadcast its first Mandarin-language program abroad to the diaspora. Its first news 

channel entirely in English, CCTV-9, was launched in 2000. By signing an agreement with 

News Corp in 2002, CCTV ensured its presence on American cable. From 2004 to 2010, 

five other channels in French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Portuguese were launched. And 

with a production center set up in Nairobi in 2012, CCTV intended to increase its audience 

in Africa, which is becoming a new target for Chinese media (→ p. 202). Two other produc-

tion centers are also being developed in London and Washington DC, the latter becoming 

the main center for processing and disseminating information around the world.

CCTV wants to differentiate itself from Xinhua by changing its tone and offering 

content that looks less manifestly like state propaganda. The objective is, once again, 

to succeed in imposing the “good” image of China abroad and to “correct” the misrep-

resentation to which it feels subjected to. With that in mind, CCTV-9, the international 

division of CCTV, was given a new look in 2016 by changing its visual identity and taking 

the name China Global Television Network (CGTN). CGTN now operates a number of 

news channels in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian, available in more 

than 170 countries and regions around the world.81 According to its official website, 

CGTN has “over 150 million followers across the globe” (for its website, mobile applica-

tions and social network accounts).82

To increase the attractiveness of its content, CCTV has increasingly used star journalists 

to present its shows, such as Yang Rui, who has adopted a dynamic style and does not hes-

itate to push his guests out of their zone of comfort. Yang Rui was the co-host of Focus, 

CCTV’s first English-language news magazine. Emphasis is also put on Chinese culture and 

history, with many channels broadcasting documentaries, films, and TV series highlighting 

the richness of the Chinese civilization. Regional adaptations employ local presenters and 

journalists. On the other hand, Chinese television channels seem less concerned than the 

Russians about recruiting Western “stars” to give credibility to their content, as RT America 

did with Larry King for example.

the AIDS Epidemic by 2030,” UNAIDS (18 Mar. 2016); “FAO and Xinhua News Agency Sign Global Communication 

Partnership,” FAO (14 Oct. 2015); “Xinhua, UNDP Sign MOU to Forge Strategic Partnership,” UNDP (7 Apr. 2011). 

80. “FAO and Xinhua News Agency Sign Global Communication Partnership,” FAO (14 Oct. 2015).

81. Merriden Varrall, “Behind the News: Inside China Global Television Network,” Lowy Institute (16 Jan. 2020). 

82. “About us – China Global Television Network,” CGTN. 

177

Sources: on the left, https://america.cgtn.com/anchors-corresp; 

on the right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aZSHxR2qb0.

CGTN plays a key role not only in spreading a positive discourse on China, but 

also in propagating counter-narratives that can discredit criticisms circulating in 

Western media, as well as in acting as a relay for Party-constructed narratives. On 

this last point, during the Covid-19 crisis, CGTN in Arabic made significant efforts to make 

plausible the hypothesis of a virus manufactured by the American army, notably by using 

the channel’s star presenter, MsV, who speaks perfect Arabic.83 She eventually used argu-

ments broadcast by other Chinese vectors (→ p. 595). 

83. Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlGj1RdUHUM. Page also archived here: https:// 

archive.vn/vm2QE. 

178

The “Laurène Beaumond” affair

Context is important: first, on March 3, 2021, the French CSA (Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, 

the French media regulatory authority), authorized CGTN to broadcast in Europe84 – although 

the preceding month, its British counterpart (OFCOM) cancelled its broadcasting rights in the 

UK and, several days later, fined the channel for its “partiality,” “invasion of privacy,” and 

“unfair treatment” in four different cases.85 The fact that the media outlet “found a refuge in 

France,” did not fail to elicit criticism.86 Meanwhile, the relationship between China and France 

grew more tense in March, due to the Chinese embassy’s decision to pressure French sena-

tors to cancel their planned trip to Taiwan, the insult thrown at researcher Antoine Bondaz 

(→ p. 237), and the Chinese sanctions against ten European citizens, including the French 

MEP Raphaël Glucksmann(→ p. 637).

In this context, on March 27 and 28, CGTN Français published two somewhat offensive 

articles from a “Laurène Beaumond”: “Visit of French MPs at Taiwan: the (true) reasons 

for the crispation,”87 and “‘My’ Xinjiang: Putting a Stop to the Tyranny of Fake News.”88 The 

author was described as “an independent journalist based in France, [who had] lived in Beijing 

for seven years and was an editor, reporter, and news TV host who, with “her diplomas in art 

history and archeology from the University of Paris Sorbonne-IV and her masters’ in journal-

ism, [had] worked in several Parisian editorial offices before settling in Beijing.” Her article on 

Xinjiang was written as a testimony: “I am French and I have lived for 7 years in China. 

The fortunes of my life made it that I have some relatives living in Urumqi, the capital city of 

Xinjiang. I had the opportunity to visit the region many times between 2014 and 2019, and I do 

not recognize the Xinjiang described to me as the one I know.” This article was largely relayed 

by pro-Beijing networks, starting with the Embassy of China. 

On March 31, the researcher Antoine Bondaz questioned CGTN on Twitter, asking 

whether “Laurène Beaumond” was a “fake profile” or not.

84. “La chaîne CGTN relève, pour sa diffusion en Europe, de la compétence de la France” (“To Broadcast in 

Europe, CGTN is Now the Responsibility of France’), CSA Press Release (3 Mar. 2021). According to Pierre-Antoine 

Donnet, who quotes a member of the CSA, this authorization was “purely technical and automatic,” as CGTN was 

transmitting from a European satellite: the CSA could not have prevented it even if it had wanted to. See: Pierre-

Antoine Donnet, Chine, le grand prédateur (China: The Great Predator) (Paris: éditions de l’Aube, 2021), 217. 

85. Ofcom, “Broadcasting and on Demand Sanction Decisions, Decision – Star China Media Limited” (fairness 

and privacy), “Decision – Star China Media Limited” (due impartiality) (8 Mar. 2021), https://www.ofcom.org.uk/

about-ofcom/latest/bulletins/content-sanctions-adjudications.

86. Jérémy André, “CGTN, la mystérieuse télé chinoise qui trouve refuge en France” (“CGTN, the Mysterious 

Chinese TV who Found Refuge in France”), Le Point (10 Mar. 2021).

87. https://archive.vn/imo9t; covered by CRI on March 31: (https://archive.vn/ODlOX).

88. https://archive.vn/MnMwQ.

179

This hypothesis was taken up by Nathalie Guibert in an article published by Le Monde 

several hours later, in which she confirmed that “no one with that name was found in the da-

tabase of the Commission of identity cards of French professional journalists.”89 This hypothet-

ical deception– CGTN’s the fabrication of a fake person – was largely covered by international 

media in English and led to a flurry of mocking comments and parodic accounts on Twitter. 

The following day, on April 1, the topic was discussed in Beijing during a press confer-

ence of the spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Answering a question from 

the AFP, Hua Chunying defended that “this person exist[ed],” and that she was “a French citi-

zen who has lived in China for years,” but that she could not reveal her identity because “now, 

in some European countries and in the United States, every time someone says something true 

about China, he or she will be viciously attacked.”90 Hence, the spokeswoman implied that 

“Laurène Beaumond” was in fact a pseudonym used to protect another person. It was also the 

idea defended by CGTN Français that same day, insisting that “Laurène Beaumond” did ex-

ist (“CGTN Français has concrete evidence of the several trips made by Laurène Beaumond in 

Xinjiang, many photos and even a copy of her marriage license as she was married in Urumqi 

in 2014 with someone from the city”) but that the name was a “nom de plume” – while cas-

tigating Nathalie Guibert for her “total lack of professionalism” as she did not conceive that 

possibility “for a single instant.”91 Why a pseudonym? “To protect herself,” answered the me-

dia: “Laurène Beaumond wishes to use a pseudonym and we respected her decision, because 

we understand the risk that it represents, for some French journalists, to express their opinion 

about China” – mentioning Christian Mestre (→ p. 409) and Maxime Vivas (→ p. 335). 

One day later, on April 2, this version was confirmed by Le Figaro, which published an inter-

view with “‘Laurène Beaumond,’ the alias of a very real person.”92 The editorial decision of 

Le Figaro to publish this exclusive interview is interesting, not only because it is the great rival 

of Le Monde but also because Le Figaro has been a partner of China Daily between 2015 and 

2021 (→ p. 188).93 But that did not prevent the article from being both serious and critical of 

Beijing. It provided more details about “Laurène Beaumond,” the pseudonym of a forty-year-

old woman from the Sarthe, former CGTN TV host who had lived in China between 2011 

and 2017, where she married a man from Urumqi. With this information, and what was 

initially provided by CGTN, we easily found her real identity, her name and birth name, 

as well as a wedding picture. That said, we will not disclose her identity because we respect 

her decision to remain anonymous. Several days later, CGTN rubbed it in as it published 

an article penned by Zheng Ruolin (→ p. 628) who, using Le Figaro, accused Le Monde and 

Antoine Bondaz of “lies” and asked for an “apology” from them.94 The demand was later 

renewed in English by the Global Times.95

Now, and even if “Laurène Beaumond” is the pseudonym used by a real person, several 

elements remain troubling. First, this “alias” had already been used between October 

15 and November 25, 2020, in five articles published by Radio China International 

(CRI → p. 181).96 CGTN and RCI are both owned by China Media Group and regularly 

share articles. Moreover, when she wrote for RCI five months earlier, “Laurène Beaumond” 

89. Nathalie Guibert, “Quand la télévision chinoise CGTN invente une journaliste française” (“When Chinese TV 

CGTN Invents a French Journalist”), Le Monde (31 Mar. 2021).

90. “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on April 1, 2021,” PRC Ministry of 

Foreign Affairs, https://archive.vn/PiV57.

91. “Chine et “fake news”: ce manichéisme qui perdra les intellectuels français” (“China and ‘Fake News’: the 

Manicheanism that will Doom French Intellectuals”), CGTN (1 Apr. 2021), https://archive.vn/soFiK.

92. Sébastien Falletti, “Les confidences de la plume mystère au service de la Chine” (“The Confidences of the 

Mysterious Alias that Services China”), Le Figaro (2 Apr. 2021).

93. Tuo Yannan, “China Daily Starts First French Edition with Le Figaro,” China Daily (29 May 2015).

94. Zheng Ruolin, “Chers Le Monde et M. Bondaz, il serait peut-être temps de présenter vos excuses?” (“Dear Le 

Monde and Mr. Bondaz, maybe It’s Time to Hear Your Apology?”), CGTN (4 Apr. 2021), https://archive.vn/rEkIL.

95. Chen Qingqing, “Le Monde Owes an Apology for Accusing Chinese State Media of Creating a Fake French 

Journalist to Speak the Truth about Xinjiang: Scholar,” Global Times (7 Apr. 2021), https://archive.vn/7YCAT.

96. “Égalité des sexes en Chine: la montée en puissance des femmes” (“Sex Equality in China: The Rising Power 

of Women”), CRI (15 Oct. 2020), https://archive.vn/hEeGe; “La Chine rejoint COVAX: la décision que le monde 

attendait” (“China Joins COVAX: The Decision the World was Waiting For”), CRI (19 Oct. 2020), https://archive.

vn/xASUZ; “Lutte contre la COVID-19: autant de pays que de méthodes” (“Fight Against COVID-19: As Many 

Methods as Countries”), CRI (4 Nov. 2020), https://archive.vn/WVufZ; “CIIE 2020: opération séduction pour les 

firmes étrangères” (“CIIE 2020: Seduction Operation for Foreign Firms”), CRI (16 Nov. 2020), https://archive.vn/

MuR83; “Jour des célibataires, Black Friday: à vos marques, prêts… Achetez !” (“Day for Single People, Black Friday: 

On Your Marks, Set… Buy”), CRI (25 Nov. 2020), https://archive.vn/nBtF2.

180

was not introduced as a “journalist” but as a “commentator,” and none of her publications 

suggested that she would need to “protect” herself from a French popular vendetta. 

If “Laurène Beaumond” really is the women from Sarthe who, for years, showed her face on 

television as a TV host for CCTV, why would she suddenly need to hide herself to write an-

odyne articles on sex equality in China or Black Friday? Furthermore, CGTN’s mention of 

the cases of Mestre and Vivas is anachronistic: events from 2021 cannot be invoked to 

justify the use of a pseudonym dating back from October 2020. Finally, the “journalist’s” title 

is misleading for someone who admitted she had not “conduct a journalistic investigation” 

in Xinjiang during her “touristic” trips that took place “before the massive internment policy 

[…] was implemented full-speed.”97 In a way, as Le Figaro explained, “Laurène Beaumond’s” 

testimony only illustrated the CCP strategy which, to defend itself on Xinjiang, “uses 

‘testimonies’ from Westerners ostensibly presented as professional ‘journalists’ or ex-

perienced ‘researchers’”98 – even when they are not. 

3. China Daily 

The China Daily (中国日报) is the first Chinese newspaper in English. Created in 

1981 and operating under the authority of the Propaganda Department of the Central 

Committee, it redesigned its layout in 2010 to boost its international development and now 

manages about 40 offices and printing centers abroad. An American version was launched 

in 2009, a European version in 2010, an Asian version in 2010, and an African version in 

2012. The China Daily also distributes a free supplement, “China Watch,” in many major 

foreign newspapers in English (→ p. 187). 

Like its Chinese state media counterparts, China Daily has a rather distant relationship 

with the truth, as illustrated by this Twitter message which used a video shot in Brienz 

(Switzerland) to promote Chinese landscapes:99 

Source: https://twitter.com/ChinaDaily/status/1391566387185782785 (deleted since).

97. Falletti, “Les confidences de la plume mystère.” 

98. Ibid.

99. The original video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AOmuBUIE7w&t=104s. 

181

4. Global Times 

The Global Times, created after the China Daily, is another Chinese English-language 

newspaper that is gaining influence even though it does not belong to the group of 

media outlets designated by the government to compete with the world’s largest media 

companies. Established in 1993, and owned by the People’s Daily, its first English-language 

version dates back to 2009. The intent is still to offer another way to get news about 

China, to present the country from its best angle and to defend the interests of those in 

power. The newspaper’s editorials often adopt an aggressive and threatening tone on 

certain sensitive subjects such as Taiwan,100 and its editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, is present 

on Twitter, which is ironic knowing that the network is banned by Chinese authorities.101

5. China Radio International 

China Radio International (CRI) is one of the oldest and the most important Chinese 

radio broadcaster dedicated to an international audience. Created in 1941 first under 

the name Radio Peking, it took its current name in 1978 and now belongs, like CCTV, to the 

China Media Group which is under the authority of the State Council. Its stated objective 

is to “promote good relations between China and the world” and to increase the Chinese 

soft power. With some thirty offices abroad, the CRI now produces content in more than 

sixty languages.

6. Their presence on social networks 

Chinese state media are present on all social networks, including those blocked 

in China (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram), and they invest a lot of money 

in trying to amplify their online audience, with notable success. They started to create 

Facebook pages in English for their international versions in 2013.102 Today, they are by 

far the ones with the most subscribers: CGTN has more than 116 million, China Daily 

103.2, Xinhua 86.7, People’s Daily 86, etc., much more than CNN (34 million), which remains 

100. “Tsai authorities Deserve a Stern Warning from Beijing: Global Times Editorial,” Global Times (31 Aug. 2020), 

https://archive.vn/ZVPJS. 

101. This is the Twitter account: @HuXijin_huanqiu. 

102. Vanessa Molter and Renee DiResta, “Pandemics & Propaganda: How Chinese State Media Creates and 

Propagates CCP Coronavirus Narratives,” The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review (1 Jun. 2020), 1. 

182

a much better-known English-language medium however. The same observation can be 

made in French, where the Facebook page of CGTN Français (20.4 million fans) is in the 

top 5 of the most followed pages, with music stars, soccer stars and a cooking website – far 

ahead of all the other French media, which are also a priori much better known: CGTN has 

twice as many subscribers as France 24 (10 million) and five times more than Le Monde (4.6), 

RFI (4.3), TF1 (4.2), L’Équipe (4), etc.103 

Studies conducted in both languages104 concluded that these spectacular numbers 

have little credibility, pointing to several indicators, including an exceptional growth 

rate (37.8% on average for the eight main Chinese state media outlets in English, 5,000 

times higher than the average growth rate of mainstream U.S. media websites) but an 

extremely low interaction rate compared to their size (0.006%, 68 times lower than 

U.S. media websites).105 In other words, there is a suspicious gap between the huge 

number of subscribers and the much smaller number of views on content or comments 

on posted messages. A study on French-language Chinese state media106 reveals other 

clues. For example, some Facebook posts generated far more engagement than others 

(more than 150 times the page’s average, while in general the difference does not exceed 

x20) which could not be explained by differences in their content. For example, a CGTN 

post on the Guangzhou Fair presented as “a new impetus to world trade” – news that 

is not of particular interest to a French-speaking audience – received 165 times more 

engagement than the average post on the same page. There are also suspicious discrep-

ancies, on the one hand, between the number of subscribers to these pages on Facebook 

compared to other platforms (20 million subscribers to CGTN Français on Facebook 

but only 100,000 to CGTN Français on YouTube) and, on the other hand, between the 

number of subscribers to these pages on social networks and the traffic on their websites 

(between 60,000 and 80,000 visits per month only for francais.cgtn.com).107 Moreover, 

many subscribers to these accounts on Twitter and Facebook (who post only in French) 

are clearly not French speakers themselves.

Taken together, these clues suggest that, as a December 2019 study noted, China’s state 

media “may have artificially inflated their numbers of subscribers and ‘likes.’”108 

This is not new: the practice has been observed since at least 2015,109 and, in 2018, The New 

York Times had already revealed that Xinhua had paid the Devumi company to gain “hun-

dreds of thousands of followers and retweets on Twitter.”110 Concretely, this means that a 

substantial part of the subscribers could actually be bots and fake accounts. It is estimated 

for example that “the top 20 Xinhua re-posters are either broadcast or spam bots.”111

103. Audience numbers (8 Apr. 2021); See https://www.socialbakers.com/statistics/facebook/pages/total/france. 

104. Molter and DiResta, “Pandemics & Propaganda”; Damien Leloup and Harold Thibault, “Comment la Chine 

impose sa propagande sur les réseaux sociaux en France” (“How China Imposes Its Propaganda on Social Networks 

in France”), Le Monde (28 Jul. 2020). 

105. Molter and DiResta, “Pandemics & Propaganda,” 19. 

106. French-Language Chinese State Media: Strategies and Social Media Accounts Analysis, EU Disinfo Lab, October 2020.

107. Average between May and October 2020, according to similarweb.com.

108. Mareike Ohlberg, “Propaganda Beyond the Great Firewall,” MERICS (5 Dec. 2019).

109. Tom Grundy, “Did China’s StateRun News Agency Purchase Twitter Followers?” Hong Kong Free Press, (14 Apr. 

2015); Alexa Olesen, “Where Did Chinese State Media Get All those Facebook Followers?” Foreign Policy (7 Jul. 2015). 

110. Nicholas Confessore, Gabriel J. X. Dance, Richard Harris and Mark Hansen, “The Follower Factory,” The New 

York Times (27 Jan. 2018). 

111. Beyond Hybrid War: How China Exploits Social Media to Sway American Opinion, Recorded Future, Insikt Group 

(6 Mar. 2019), 19. On the different categories of bots, see Richard J. Oentaryo, Arinto Murdopo, Philips K. Prasetyo 

and Ee-Peng Lim, “On Profiling Bots in Social Media,” Social Informatics: 8th International Conference Proceedings (2016), 

92- 109. 

183

This was confirmed by the SparkToro tool, which estimates the proportion of fake 

accounts among Twitter account subscribers. While Twitter accounts are followed by 

between 5 and 30% of fake accounts on average (“bots, spam accounts, inactive users, 

propaganda or other non-engaged/non-real users”),112 the People’s Daily (@PDChina) 

reportedly had 34%, China Daily (@ChinaDaily) 36.9%, CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) 37.3%, 

Xinhua (@XHNews) 38.4%, Quotidien du peuple (French_renmin) 55%, Xinhua in French 

(@XHChineNouvelle) 55.4%, China Radio International (@CriFrancais) 57.2% and @ 

CGTNFrancais 62.8%.113 The difference between the English and French accounts is nota-

ble, the latter being followed by many more false accounts.

A network of young French-speaking Chinese women

Profile photos of the Facebook pages listed below.

French-language Chinese state media also rebroadcast videos produced by a large number 

of young French-speaking Chinese women, presented as “journalists,” “presenters,” “video 

creators,” or “bloggers,” who promote China. Their Facebook pages were created in 2019 

or 2020 (they generally have accounts on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram as well);114 Tiantian 

Studio;115 CocoStudioenChine;116 Emilia_ChinaTube;117 Monpekinexpress;118 JYPenseChine;119 

Jie Lynn;120 LechinoisavecXuLi;121 Chloe Zhou;122 Lena Studio;123 Jessica Chen.124 

These pages that appear to be devoted to apolitical subjects (the beauty of Chinese nature, 

the richness of Chinese culture, its way of life, cooking, etc.) sometimes also slip messages 

with political overtones – following the method identified by Graphika as “Spamouflage”, i.e. 

a form of camouflage.

Finally, in terms of content, an automated text analysis of posts published on the Facebook 

pages of Chinese state media showed that “a significant share of coverage [focused] on 

positive stories, adjusting narratives retroactively, and using ads to spread messaging” as 

well as [showing] “a willingness…to spread misinformation that is overtly conspiratori-

al.”125 It also revealed that the Chinese state media not only praised the Chinese government 

and showed its achievements in a positive light on these pages, but also “revised, eliminated, 

112. https://sparktoro.com/tools/fake-followers-audit.

113. Results (as 23 Nov. 2020) on https://sparktoro.com/tools/fake-followers-audit.

114. Identified in French-Language Chinese State Media: EU Disinfo Lab.

115. https://www.facebook.com/TiantianStudio/.

116. https://www.facebook.com/CocoStudioenChine/.

117. https://www.facebook.com/Emilia_ChinaTube-109737260611743. 

118. https://www.facebook.com/Monpekinexpress/. 

119. https://www.facebook.com/JYPenseChine/.

120. https://www.facebook.com/Jie-Lynn-107834970840514/.

121. https://www.facebook.com/LechinoisavecXuLi/.

122. https://www.facebook.com/Chloezhou93 (Originally created under the name @Chloezhounan).

123. https://www.facebook.com/Hanyingya.

124. https://www.facebook.com/Jessica-Chen-103639557755163. 

125. Molter and DiResta, “Pandemics & Propaganda,” 2.

184

and fabricated aspects of narratives to bolster the image of the CCP”.126 Moreover, a study 

published in June assessed that, since January 2020, more than 33% of the content posted 

on the Facebook pages of Chinese state media was linked to Covid-19.127

B. Control of Chinese-language media abroad

Aware that a significant proportion of overseas Chinese speak Chinese at home and 

consume Chinese-language media, the CCP has set out to win over this population, relying 

in particular on newcomers. In the United States, Australia, and Canada (→ p. 539), the 

same situation occurred: in the 1980s, the Chinese-speaking media in these countries was 

pluralistic and critical because migrants came mainly from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and 

those from mainland China, especially after Tian’anmen, were often dissidents. Since then, 

waves of immigration from mainland China have changed not only the profile of local 

communities, but also the influence of the Chinese-language media, which are more or less 

controlled by the CCP, in each of these countries, especially in places where the Chinese 

diaspora is significant.

The conquest of Chinese media abroad was conducted through various means 

– including buyouts and cooptation and/or pressure by local Chinese associations – 

examples of which will be given in the case studies (→ p. 440 and 563). In this way, Beijing 

has achieved a virtual monopoly on the world’s Chinese-language media market. In the 

United States, “the market for independent Chinese-language information [is] monopolized 

by the Qiaobao (China Press) and the SinoVision channel, two media outlets that have been 

under the control of the Chinese authorities since their launch and whose content comes 

directly from the Chinese state media”; in Australia, “Beijing is said to have infiltrated around 

95% of the Chinese-language newspapers,”128 as the editor-in-chief of a pro-Chinese govern-

ment publication acknowledged.129 The same happened in Canada (→ p. 563) and elsewhere 

in the world. Even countries that do not have a large diaspora have received special attention: 

Chinese media in Germany, mostly based in Frankfurt, were also “harmonized,” i.e. they have 

become very homogeneous and predominately pro-Beijing.

The Australian case was the subject of an ASPI130 report which showed that the main 

problem is not direct financing (only one company, out of the 24 analyzed, is officially 

owned by the CCP – Global CAMG Media, 60% of which is owned by China Radio 

International (CRI), itself a subordinate of the Propaganda Department; two other compa-

nies – Pacific Media Group and Nan Hai Culture and Media – have indirect financial ties to 

the CCP, because they are owned by Australians who also own joint ventures with Chinese 

companies subordinate to the UFWD).131 The main problem – the most effective lever 

available to the CCP to control the editorial content of Chinese media abroad – is 

the social network WeChat, which will be presented below (→ p. 196). WeChat, which 

is estimated to have between 700,000 and more than 3 million daily users in Australia, 

has become “the most important medium for [disseminating] Chinese news in the coun-

126. Ibid., 10.

127. Ibid., 1.

128. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order, 39.

129. Kelsey Munro and Philip Wen, “Chinese Language Newspapers in Australia: Beijing Controls Messaging, 

Propaganda in Press,” Sidney Morning Herald (8 Jul. 2016). 

130. Alex Joske, Lin Li, Alexandra Pascoe and Nathan Attrill, The influence environment: A survey of Chinese-language 

media in Australia, ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre, Policy Brief, Report 42 (Dec. 2020). 

131. Ibid., 18. 

185

try.”132 In fact, there are two versions of WeChat, which the company itself describes as 

“sister apps” (they are interoperable): Weixin (微信), for users based in mainland China, 

and subject to Chinese law, where censorship is stricter; and WeChat, the international 

version which, as we will see later, is also the subject of censorship (but to a lesser extent). 

However, WeChat only allows “official” accounts, such as those used by the media, 

to publish four times a month, each time with a maximum of eight articles, whereas 

these limitations do not exist on Weixin – as long as the accounts are registered in the name 

of an individual or organization domiciled in China. These rules therefore encourage 

Australian Chinese media to register in China, via Weixin, where they fall under 

direct CCP censorship. As they are unaware of the exact form of these rules and 

what can be said, they tend to censor themselves in order to avoid being suspended 

(a phenomenon found elsewhere, such as among Hollywood productions hoping to access 

the Chinese market → p. 350). In 2020, an editor of one of Australia’s most followed 

WeChat accounts explained that in order to not unintentionally cross a “red line,” she fol-

lowed the editorial line set by the People’s Daily and Xinhua.133

More generally and independently of WeChat, the ASPI report showed that the Australian 

Chinese-language media largely censor themselves, avoiding any criticism of the Chinese 

government and the CCP but also avoiding the “five poisons” (Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun 

Gong practitioners, pro-democracy activists and Taiwanese independence activists). Other 

levers that allow Beijing to exert influence on Australian Chinese-language media include 

business ties (especially if the groups that own these media have financial interests in China, 

potentially in other sectors), infiltration by the United Front (the executives of 12 of the 

24 media groups analyzed were members of United Front organizations) and advertising, 

which is the main source of income for most of these media organizations (critical pub-

lications are boycotted, therefore financially drained, while complacent publications are 

rewarded). These methods are not specific to Australia, as ASPI demonstrated efficiently: 

they can be found everywhere in the world where Beijing has an interest in influencing 

the media in Chinese. The fourth section of the report will give other examples in the 

Taiwanese (→ p. 423) and Canadian (→ p. 539) cases.

In Europe, there may be about one hundred Chinese media channels, mainly in 

Germany, France, in the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. In Paris, the European Times (

欧洲时报 → p. 333), founded in 1983 with the help of the Chinese Embassy in France, 

and printed in four languages (Chinese, French, English, and German), serves as an 

“umbrella” for many other European Chinese-language media and it organizes numerous 

events.134 Chinese-language media in Europe have their own association founded in 1997, 

the European Chinese Media Association (欧洲华文传媒协会), and they frequently meet 

at events in Europe or China (the Global Chinese Language Media Forum (世界华文传

媒论坛) or the Overseas Chinese New Media Forum (海外华文新媒体高峰论坛) for 

instance). According to a study by the People’s Daily Overseas Edition Online Data Research 

Center (人民日报海外网数据研究中心) which evaluated the influence of 400 Chinese 

media abroad, two European media are in the top 20: www.dolc.de (德国热 线), based in 

Germany, and xineurope.com (新欧洲), based in France.135

132. Ibid., 13.

133. Ibid., 16.

134. Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “Mapping China in Germany,” Sinopsis (2 Oct. 2019), 11. 

135. Ibid., 12. 

186

C. Influence on mainstream media 

Beijing uses several means to reach a wider audience, beyond the diasporas, and thus 

influence the non-Chinese-language media in a large number of countries.

1. Infiltration

a. Through its diplomats

Chinese diplomats are regularly present in the local press through op-eds, articles and 

interviews. Liu Xiaoming (刘晓明), the previous Chinese ambassador in London, who had set 

a record for his time spent at this position (2010-2021), was known to have established close 

relations with the media, even though he was one of the most vehement Chinese diplomats. 

In France, the ambassador Lu Shaye (卢沙野) published several op-eds and interviews in the 

newspaper L’Opinion – an apparently privileged relationship that is beginning to raise some 

questions.136

Source: Evening Standard, May 16, 2019; The Sunday Telegraph, April 28, 2019; and The Daily Telegraph, March 20, 2019 / L’Opinion, 

December 1, 2019, September 23, 2019, April 27, 2020, 17 juin 2021 and 31 juillet 2021.

136. Frédéric Lemaître and Nathalie Guibert, “L’ambassadeur de Chine en France et ‘la guerre de l’opinion 

publique’” (“The Chinese ambassador to France and ‘the war of public opinion’”), Le Monde (17 Jun. 2021). “BFM, 

L’Opinion et Le Figaro jouent les discrets relais des médias d’Etat chinois” (“BFM, L’Opinion and Le Figaro play the 

discreet relays of the Chinese state media”), La Lettre A (13 Sep. 2021).

187

b. Through the “China Watch” of the China Daily 

The China Daily publishes a free supplement, “China Watch,” with a circula-

tion of more than 13 million copies in some 30 daily newspapers worldwide, with 

a particular focus on targeting business executives and decision-makers, mainly in Japan 

(6.6M in the Mainichi Shimbun) and in the United States (1.7M in The New York Times (up 

until the end of 2019), 1.6M in the Los Angeles Times, 1.3M in the Wall Street Journal, 910,000 

in The Washington Post (up until the end of 2019), and much less in the Des Moines Register) 

but also in Europe (Le Figaro, El País, De Standaard, Le Soir, Handelsblatt), Russia (Rossiskaya 

Gazeta), Australia (Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, AFR), New Zealand (The Dominion Post) 

and Argentina (El Cronista).137 To convince these newspapers to accept the supplement, 

the China Daily offers a financial remuneration. As such, between November 2016 and 

April 2020, the China Daily paid nearly $19 million to American newspapers that 

published its advertising or supplements,138 including nearly $6 million to the Wall Street 

Journal, $4.6 million to The Washington Post, and $50,000 to The New York Times.139

This “Trojan Horse” – or “Worm in the Apple” – tactic,140 has a long-term effect, 

disseminating influence daily or weekly, but it can also be used in the short term, on the 

occasion of a specific event, such as during an election. For example, during the campaign 

for the 2018 midterm elections in the United States, the China Daily used its supplement in 

the Des Moines Register (Iowa’s largest daily) to try to weaken Donald Trump in one of his 

strongholds. One of the articles highlighted the president’s responsibility for the trade war 

and its negative consequences for American farmers.

On the left, “China Watch” supplement in the Des Moines Register, 23 September 2018 (source: https://twitter.com/

JenniferJJacobs/status/1043919358752423937/photo/1); on the right: the magazine Foreign Policy has also harbored a “China 

Watch” supplement since 2019, and received $100,000 for the sole May-October 2020 period.141

The Chinese strategy actually aims to produce a triple effect. Two direct effects: 

on the one hand, inserting Chinese propaganda into the very heart of the world’s 

most influential daily newspapers and in a relatively discreet way, so that the reader may 

not necessarily be aware that they are no longer reading their newspaper – a fortiori when 

it appears as an online feature on the host newspaper’s website, “further blurring the lines 

between Chinese state media content and the host outlet’s own reporting.”142 On the other 

137. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order, 36.

138. Eric Chang, “China Daily Paid US Papers $19 Million in Advertising, Printing,” Taiwan News (10 Jun. 2020). 

139. Mo Yu, “US Spending Report Sheds Light on China’s Global Propaganda Campaign,” VOA (26 Jun. 2020). 

140. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order, 36-37. 

141. John Dotson, “Xinhua Infiltrates Western Electronic Media, Part One: Online “Advertorial” Content”, China

Brief, 21:7, 12 Apr. 2021.

142. Cook, Beijing’s Global Megaphone, 8. 

188

hand, for the China Daily, it boosts its image and credibility by being associated with the 

major headlines of the Western press. This was also the case for the Russian equivalent, 

“Russia Beyond the Headlines,” a supplement launched in 2007 by Rossiyskaya Gazeta which 

had the same targets but has only existed in its online version since 2017.143 Finally, there 

is also an indirect effect: having financial leverage on the dailies in question, since this 

financial windfall makes them more likely to want to please Beijing in order to keep the 

contract, more vulnerable to pressure, and more likely to engage in self-censorship.

The Daily Telegraph’s “China Watch”

Until recently, The Daily Telegraph received £750,000 (€835,000) per year to distribute 

the “China Watch” supplement of the China Daily.144 This eight-page supplement was in-

cluded in the newspaper since 2011 and also had a dedicated section on the UK newspaper’s 

website after 2015.145 This kind of collaboration created a financial dependence that affect-

ed the entire editorial line, not just in the inserted pages: it was in fact found that between 

2016 and 2018, The Telegraph published no less than 20 articles of the Chinese ambassador, 

twice as many as those published by the Daily Mail, The Guardian and the Financial Times com-

bined.146 The degrading relations between China and the UK in 2019-2020, and particularly 

during the Covid-19 pandemic, illustrated a tension between critical articles about China on the 

one hand and articles of Chinese propaganda published in the China Daily’s dedicated section 

on the other (such as “Why are Some Framing China’s Heroic Efforts to Stop Coronavirus 

as Inhumane? “or “Traditional Chinese Medicine “Helps Fight Coronavirus””).147 Finally, in 

April 2020, The Telegraph decided to discontinue its collaboration with China Daily.

The Washington Post and The New York Times also terminated their partnerships with China 

Daily in late 2019 and early 2020.148 In Australia, the Nine Entertainment group (Sydney 

Morning Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review) renounced the China Daily sup-

plement at the end of 2020.149 The same year in France, Le Figaro also stopped inserting 

“China Watch” in its pages.150 The renunciations are multiplying. Similarly to the Confucius 

Institutes (→ p. 306), this is probably the first sign of a durable pushback against what is 

now perceived as propaganda, or even as an inacceptable foreign interference. 

c. Through accessible and reusable content 

Besides the particular case of “China Watch,” which is a regular supplement, Chinese 

media also penetrate foreign media by providing them, more or less regularly, with content, 

in such a way that “hundreds of millions of news consumers around the world rou-

tinely view, read, or listen to information created or influenced by the CCP, often 

143. The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro, La Repubblica, 

Süddeutsche Zeitung. 

144. Jack Hazlewood, “China Spends Big on Propaganda in Britain... but Returns are low,” Hong Kong Free Press (3 

Apr. 2016). 

145. Cao Yin, “China Watch to Reach More Online Readers,” China Daily (29 Apr. 2015). 

146. Charles Parton, China-UK Relations: Where to Draw the Border between Influence and Interference? Royal United 

Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), Occasional Paper (Feb. 2019), 20. 

147. Jim Waterson and Dean Sterling Jones, “Daily Telegraph Stops Publishing Section Paid for by China,” The 

Guardian (14 Apr. 2020). 

148. Yuichiro Kakutani, “NYT Quietly Scrubs Chinese Propaganda,” Free Beacon (4 Aug. 2020). 

149. Amanda Meade, “Nine Entertainment newspapers quit carrying China Watch supplement,” The Guardian (8 

Dec. 2020). 

150. “BFM, L’Opinion et Le Figaro jouent les discrets relais.” A journalist from the group confirmed to us that it 

was in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, that the management of Le Figaro terminated the contract binding them 

to China Daily.

189

without knowing its origins.”151 We need to distinguish two situations here, starting with 

the free supply of free content. Unlike major Western agencies (AP, AFP, Reuters, etc.), 

Chinese agencies (Xinhua, China News Service and CCTV) offer free content. In 2018, 

CCTV provided “free video footage and television scripts to 1,700 smaller foreign 

news organizations and media groups.”152 This practice is particularly prevalent 

in Africa, where local media can least afford to turn them away because they often lack 

resources, well-trained journalists, and quality content. In addition, Chinese agencies offer 

international news, while most African media cannot afford correspondents abroad. The 

fact that local media use Chinese content to cover international news means that “the image 

conveyed by the Sahelian media is identical to that which China itself presents.”153 This 

practice is not unique to Africa: it occurs everywhere in the world, including in Europe – in 

Sweden for example, small media with few means have been offered the use of Chinese 

content, images and databases free of charge.154 

Then, they also use infomercials: Chinese media pay foreign outlets to include 

articles that are nothing but more-or-less explicit advertisement in their printed 

pages and/or on their websites that the readers may sometimes find difficult to sep-

arate from legitimate articles. This is especially true for the print media, but also for tele-

vision. In Germany, for example, the private television group Deutsches Regionalfernsehen 

(DRF), which had only broadcast animal programs previously, now broadcasts “China 

Info,” a daily prime time show which promotes China, sometimes even on political topics 

(for example, to claim that there is no proof of the Chinese origin of the coronavirus). 

The insertion may seem incongruous, but DRF’s editor-in-chief assumes it, explaining that 

it is a “source of income” like any other. Another German example: between 2017 

and 2019, the public broadcasting service Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) broadcast a 

political and economic debate program on the digital television channel tagesschau24 in 

partnership with CGTN: “40,000 German viewers attended without any critical questions 

being asked about human rights violations.”155

This is a common practice but, in some cases, it can be an intense media campaign. For 

instance, on March 17, 2021, the People’s Daily published an entire page untitled “Injecting 

Positive Energy for World Development,” in which it congratulated itself for the diffu-

sion of 750 different articles – described as “informational products” (新闻产品) – in 

nearly 200 foreign media, from more than 40 countries, in 12 languages, and during 

an entire week (March 5-11).156 It coincided with the annual congress of the two Chinese 

assemblies (PNA and CPPCC). It also coincided with the launch of the “14th five-year 

plan” and Beijing hoped to circulate the representation of an efficient China, which had 

extirpated its immense population from poverty and made scientific achievements. To do 

that, the People’s Daily introduced paid promotional inserts in widely circulated newspapers 

151. Sarah Cook, China’s Global Media Footprint: Democratic Responses to Expanding Authoritarian Influence, National 

Endowment for Democracy (Feb. 2021), 2.

152. Emily Feng, “China and the World: How Beijing Spreads the Message,” Financial Times (12 Jul. 2018). 

153. “Soft Power au service de l’influence: l’exemple de la Chine en Afrique. Entretien avec Mme Selma Mihoubi” 

(“Soft Power at the Service of Influence: the Example of China in Africa. Interview with Mrs Selma Mihoubi”) in Soft 

Power. Les Cahiers du comité Asie n. 16, Les Jeunes IHEDN (Autumn 2019), 117.

154. Interview with one author in Stockholm (Feb. 2020).

155. Christina Brause, Anette Dowideit, Tina Kaiser, and Maximilian Kalkhof, “Chinas heimliche Propagandisten” 

(“China’s secret propagandists”), Die Welt (15 Jun. 2021).

156. “为世界发展注入正能量” (“Injecting Positive Energy for World Development”), 人民日报 (Renmin Ribao) 

(17 Mar. 2021) (https://archive.vn/O1GIM).

190

– so many that the campaign probably cost dozens of millions of dollars in less than 

a week.157 

In France, for example, the newspaper L’Opinion published two “advertorials” on March 

11 (with the mention “content produced by the People’s Daily”) that bragged about China’s 

ability to “reduce poverty while preserving the environment” on the one hand,158 and the 

resilience of the Chinese economy on the other (see below).159 Normally, without knowing 

how much the People’s Daily eventually paid, a full page in L’Opinion costs between €18,000 

and €30,000.160

On the left: the page of the People’s Daily congratulating itself for the publication of articles in foreign media (March 17, 2021). 

On the right: the two articles published in L’Opinion (March 11, 2021).

Interestingly, the host media are not always comfortable with this collaboration 

when it becomes public, as illustrated by the following example. On March 17, 2021, Jeune 

Afrique published an article by He Qian, the Parisian director of the French online version 

of the People’s Daily, promoting Maxime Vivas’s book on the Uyghurs – which, as we will 

see, “dismantles the information of Western media that accuse China of violating human 

rights in this region in full expansion” (→ p. 335). The mention “sponsored content” was 

added at the bottom of the text. As such, it was probably an article published by People’s 

Daily thanks to an agreement with Jeune Afrique. Its publication was actually relayed by the 

Chinese embassy in France. This agreement was quickly denounced on Twitter, including 

by Antoine Bondaz who presented it as “a concrete example of the use, by the [Chinese] 

authorities, of paid partnerships with foreign media to disinform,” and he tagged @jeunea-

frique on this post.161 The criticism was efficient: the following day, the article was with-

drawn and the link did not work anymore – which seems to indicate that, in hindsight, Jeune 

Afrique rapidly came to the conclusion that the article bore a reputational risk. 

157. David Bandurski, “Dropping propaganda,” China Media Project (17 Mar. 2021).

158. Gu Zhongyang and Yu Jingxian, “Réduire la pauvreté par la préservation écologique permet à la population de 

s’enrichir” (“Reducing Poverty Through Ecological Preservation Allows People to Become Richer”), content produced 

by People’s Daily in L’Opinion (11 Mar. 2021) (https://archive.vn/w8cgg).

159. Luo Shanshan, “Les investissements étrangers affichent une croissance résiliente en Chine malgré la conjoncture 

défavorable en 2020” (“Foreign Investment Shows Resilient Growth in China despite Adverse Economic Conditions 

in 2020”), content produced by People’s Daily in L’Opinion (11 Mar. 2021) (https://archive.vn/yaRgX).

160. According to the prices set by the newspaper (2021): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S9zfofN 

SPLvvzYBAggc_YStZYkVtehmQ/view. 

161. https://twitter.com/AntoineBondaz/status/1372067398698815488.

191

The article, published online on March 17, was withdrawn on March 18,162 

but the webpage was archived and remains accessible.163

2. Acquisition 

Foreign media purchases are multiplying, not only in Asia (see: Taiwan), but also in 

Europe,164 such as in Hungary, Italy and Portugal: the two oldest Portuguese newspapers, 

Diário de Notícias, founded in 1864, and Jornal de Notícias, founded in 1888, are owned by 

a Chinese joint venture (as are other media in the country, including TSF radio and the 

sports newspaper O jogo).165 There are generally consequences on the editorial line. 

When two Czech media groups, Empresa Media and Médea, came under the control of the 

Chinese consortium CEFC in 2015, the media of these groups “including Tyden (a weekly) 

and Barrandov TV, distinguished themselves by their inordinately enthusiastic coverage of 

China.”166

This risk is higher in the most open media circles, where there are still places to be 

taken. This is one of the factors that explain why Japan remains relatively less vulnerable to 

Chinese influence than other countries in the region (see box below).

The Japanese counter-example

Despite their geographical proximity, China’s influence in Japan is limited compared to other 

democracies for a number of reasons: first, due to an insularity that is both historical 

and economic (the “Galapagos Syndrome”) that makes the Japanese difficult to influence 

from the outside; a fortiori by the Chinese toward whom most feel distrust at best, or even 

antipathy (85% of Japanese presumably have a negative opinion of China –among the 

34 countries surveyed by Pew, Japan is the country with the highest negative opinions of 

China). This is in part grounded in a common history of nearly 2,000 years which, in the 

recent period, has seen several bloody wars and, more recently, the 2010-2012 conflict over 

the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and China’s subsequent decision to stop exporting rare earth 

materials to Japan. This has often been described as a “turning point” in their relationship.167 

162. https://twitter.com/ambordas1/status/1372578017948663810.

163. https://web.archive.org/web/20210317021515/https://www.jeuneafrique.com/brandcontent/1137388/fake-

news-temoignage-maxime-vivas-sur-le-xinjiang/.

164. Cook, Beijing’s Global Megaphone, 10.

165. International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), The China Story: Reshaping the World’s Media, research report on 

China and its impact on media (2020), 6.

166. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order, 37. 

167. Devin Stewart, China’s Influence in Japan: Everywhere Yet Nowhere in Particular, CSIS (Jul. 2020), 21. 

192

Other factors are the important homogeneity of the Japanese population;168 its great 

political stability as, aside from two short digressions (1993-1994 and 2009-2012), the 

same party, the PLD (自由民主党), has been in power since 1955, and the other parties 

are not easier to influence (even the Japanese Communist Party, with little political weight, 

is relatively nationalist and therefore not very sensitive to Chinese influence);169 and very 

strict rules, especially on financial contributions to political parties and foreign investment 

(to protect domestic companies). To all this, one must add, in recent years, a greater aware-

ness of the Chinese threat, through other examples (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia), and 

strengthened intelligence capabilities – which make any Chinese attempt to influence 

even more difficult than before.

As for the media, the 810,000 Chinese living in Japan are a privileged target for Beijing, 

notably via the local Chinese-language media, most of which only pick up on the dispatches 

written by Xinhua or the People’s Daily.170 The Japanese Chinese-language newspaper with the 

highest circulation, Chubun News (Chinese Review Weekly) “toe[s] the CCP line.”171 But its influ-

ence is as limited as its readership. Overall, the Japanese media market is oligopolistic: 

five conglomerates (TBS-Mainichi, TV Asahi-Asahi, NTV-Yomiuri, Fuji TV-Sankei, and TV 

Tokyo-Nikkei) divide the media landscape among themselves, leaving almost no room for 

anything else, including outside influence. Beijing is unable to penetrate the Japanese-

language media market, which is generally very resistant to any outside influence, except 

perhaps that of the United States (with the Japanese version of the Wall Street Journal). Nor 

has there been any significant acquisition of Japanese media by Chinese groups. There is the 

case of the inclusion of the “China Watch” in the Mainichi Shimbun but, on the one hand, the 

newspaper accepts “news on travel issues but no political or economic issues” and, on the 

other hand, the Japanese readership see these pages for what they are: advertising.172 For all 

of these reasons, Japan offers relatively few holds for the usual Chinese tactics, which does 

not prevent Beijing from identifying other vulnerabilities, including separatists and pacifist 

movements (→ p. 401). 

Two radio stations broadcasting in the United States are controlled by Beijing

In April 2020, The Washington Free 

Beacon revealed that two local radio sta-

tions were actually controlled by 

Beijing: one is a Mexican radio station 

owned by the Chinese Phoenix TV 

Group, which broadcasts Chinese-

language propaganda from a tower in 

Mexico that allows it to reach across 

the border into southern California, 

circumventing U.S. regulations.173 The 

other is the Las Vegas Public Radio 

(LVPR), which, contrary to its name, is not a public radio station (it is not affiliated to the 

National Public Radio network), but a radio station registered as a lobbyist for Huawei.174 The 

station assumes this role, as the tweet below shows. In its broadcasts, it indeed tries to counter 

the idea, which is very present in the United States, that Huawei is a threat to national security. 

Since its inception in 2016, it has employed two Chinese citizens as “international liaisons,” 

168. In December 2019, 2.93 million foreigners lived in Japan, a record compared to previous years but still only 

2.3% of the population. Most are from China (810,000), South Korea (440,000) and Vietnam (410,000) http://www.

asahi.com/ajw/articles/13256541. 

169. Stewart, China’s Influence in Japan: Everywhere Yet Nowhere in Particular, 25. 

170. Ibid., 9.

171. Ibid., 10.

172. Ibid., 11. 

173. Adam Kredo, “Cruz Seeks to Shut Down Chinese Propaganda Station Phoenix TV,” Free Beacon (24 Apr. 

2020). 

174. Yuichiro Kakutani, “The Strange Story of a Las Vegas Radio Station Co-Opted by China,” Free Beacon (27 

Apr. 2020). 

193

one of whom became its program director. It not only defends Huawei but, more generally, 

disseminates official Chinese narratives on issues such as the Hong Kong crisis. Its founding 

president, Gregory LaPorta, met with foreign ministry officials in Beijing in October 2019 and 

won support from the Chinese government for his plan to open an office in China.

3. Cooptation 

Beijing cultivates foreign media producing favorable content, seducing them in exchange 

for compensations (advertisements, all-expenses-paid trips/trainings in China, 

contracts with other companies of the same group, “and even political appoint-

ments”).175 These “bought” private media subsequently alter their editorial line and relay 

pro-Beijing positions. Another method producing the same result is to cultivate local fig-

ures of influence (various personalities, politicians, researchers, etc.) that, in turn, intervene 

in local media to defend pro-Beijing positions. In all cases, Beijing benefits from “strings” 

that can be concealed, since these positions, defended on private outlets by private individ-

uals, are not directly attributable to Beijing.

4. Training and networking 

a. “Training” journalists 

The General Administration of Press and Publication (known until 2018 as the State 

Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television, 新闻出版总署) has in 

recent years hosted trainings for more than 3,400 media professionals from 146 coun-

tries. In some countries, a majority of journalists has been trained in China: this is 

the case in Grenada where 70% of media professionals have visited China since 2013, with 

consequences for the editorial line of local media. “This “‘re-education’ of Grenadian 

journalism has had a major impact on the local media, which have become much more 

reverential toward China. The situation is similar in the neighboring islands of Dominica 

and Barbados, where the media have also benefited from Chinese largesse.”176 

They offer several programs: special 26-day BRI training courses (“Dongfang” fellow-

ships); “red carpet” fellowships, which bring nearly 100 journalists from the Indian sub-

continent, Southeast Asia, and Africa every year for a ten-month stay. They are “received 

like film stars, they are given luxurious accommodation in central Beijing, two trips a month 

to different Chinese provinces, Chinese-language courses and a monthly stipend of up to 

5,000 RMB (650 euros). At the end, the journalists even receive a diploma in international 

relations from a Chinese university.”177 RSF noted that “the journalists are not chosen by 

their editors, but by the Chinese embassy with the Party’s approval. And something 

is demanded in return. The conditions are clear: they must promise to ‘tell the China 

story well’ and even portray its authoritarian regime as a democracy and interna-

tional peacemaker. The guests are not, however, allowed to move around freely during 

their stay.”178

175. Cook, Beijing’s Global Megaphone, 9. 

176. Ibid., 33.

177. Ibid., 33.

178. Ibid., 33. 

194

The practice is widespread: half of the journalists’ unions surveyed in 58 countries 

and territories around the world in September and October 2019 responded that jour-

nalists from their countries or territories had participated in such trainings in China, 

lasting from two weeks to ten months.179 Beijing seems to target primarily jour-

nalists with “ineffective or repressive governments”180 but not only: all countries 

are ultimately targeted, including those with effective governments, such as Singapore 

(CGTN invites many Singaporean journalists to China for training that they call “famil-

iarization trips” and that some Singaporeans ironically call “indoctrination trips”)181 

or Australia (dozens of Australian journalists in recent years). A particular effort has 

recently been given to Muslim journalists, who have been specifically selected, even in 

non-Muslim countries, to visit Xinjiang and influence their coverage of the Uyghur 

issue.182

Beijing also seeks to formalize its relationships: 36% of the journalists’ unions sur-

veyed (55% of them in Europe) had been offered an MoU by a Chinese entity, “a classic 

United Front strategy [...] to co-opt entities traditionally perceived as hostile or neutral.”183 

Furthermore, more than a third of respondents said that content-sharing agreements with 

Chinese media – which either offer it for free or pay the local media to circulate stories – 

were in place in their country.184

b. Networks 

Beijing creates networks, through regular events such as the World Media Forum, 

established in 2009, and “which – as its name fails to suggest- is entirely designed, orga-

nized and funded by the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.”185 The 10th edition in October 

2019 brought together more than 400 Chinese-language media representatives from 61 

countries. The All-China Journalists Association (ACJA) also organizes a Belt and Road 

Journalists Forum bringing together around 100 media representatives from about 50 

countries and, since April 2019, a formal network, the Belt and Road News Network 

(BRNN), chaired by the People’s Daily in Beijing, bringing together 72 media outlets from 

42 countries.186

5. Constraints

In line with its usual methods to encourage self-censorship, Beijing uses carrots 

(advertising resources, contracts, benefits in kind, etc.) but also sticks, taking a 

number of direct actions such as using visas as weapons against critical foreign journal-

ists, leveraging family members and close friends in China, intimidating local jour-

nalists and/or media via Chinese diplomats (threatening phone calls and emails, naming 

and shaming, etc.) The Swedish case (→ p. 521) is not isolated. There are many examples 

around the world of harsh reporting on China that was suppressed at the last moment, 

or of critical journalists who were fired. In South Africa, just hours after publishing an 

179. IFJ, The China Story, 3. 

180. Ibid., 3.

181. Interview with one of the authors in Singapore (Nov. 2019).

182. IFJ, The China Story, 2. 

183. Ibid., 4. 

184. Ibid., 5. 

185. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order, 12.

186. Ibid., 31.

195

editorial on Uyghur persecutions, the journalist Azad Essa was fired from Independent 

Online because Chinese investors had a 20% stake in the publication.187 Of course, this 

does not always work. In December 2018, an attempt by “Chinese diplomats” to cancel 

the broadcast of the documentary The World According to Xi Jinping scheduled on Arte (a 

European public channel) “by intervening with the channel in Paris and with the Quai 

d’Orsay”188 ultimately failed.

The CCP also exerts indirect, more subtle pressure via intermediaries, “adver-

tisers, satellite firms, technology companies, foreign governments and international orga-

nizations – to prevent or punish the publication of unfavorable content.” The pressure 

is also legal, through the threat of prosecution, which pertains to lawfare (→ p. 53). 

Finally, it can go as far as the use of force. Chinese cyberattacks (mainly DDOSs 

and phishing attacks) are not only aimed at individuals and communities within the 

Chinese diaspora, who are considered by Beijing as threats (the “five poisons”) – even 

if they do remain priority targets – but also at major foreign media: the servers of The 

New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, for example, have been 

attacked.189 In Hong Kong, for several years, journalists have been physically attacked 

by people suspected of being linked to Beijing, and cases intensified during the 2019 

crisis.190

D. Control over the containers 

The “CCP’s approach over the past decade has been at least as such about controlling 

the medium as about controlling the message,”191 as one enables the other. In other words, 

Beijing is developing “a sophisticated strategy to influence every stage of the global 

information supply chain, from the people who produce content to the institutions that 

publish it and the platforms that deliver it directly to consumers.”192

1. Television

A satellite TV service provider, for example, has the power to prioritize a particu-

lar channel in its offerings. Hence, when the Chinese group StarTimes, which was 

instrumental in the transition from analog to digital on the African continent, provides 

services to its millions of subscribers. It prioritizes CCTV channels in its package 

deals, to the detriment of independent international news channels. “In Kenya, 

Uganda and Nigeria, for example, packages that include international options like the 

BBC World Service cost more than basic packages with local channels and Chinese state 

media, sometimes beyond the reach of what many African families can afford”;193 “3 to 

5 euros a month for a StarTimes multichannel subscription, as against at least 12 euros 

for Canal Plus, for example.”194

187. Ibid., 4.

188. La Chine démasquée, Les dossiers du Canard enchaîné, 157 (Oct. 2020), 30. 

189. Ibid., 17. 

190. Ibid., 15. 

191. Ibid., 16.

192. Rush Doshi, “China Steps Up its Information War in Taiwan,” Foreign Affairs (9 Jan. 2020).

193. Cook, Beijing’s Global Megaphone, 17.

194. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order, 28.

196

2. Digital Platforms

In this area, Beijing is clearly on a path of conquest. In May 2020, the Academy 

of Social Sciences wrote that Beijing should use its platforms – WeChat, Weibo and 

TikTok – to counter the influence of American platforms – Twitter, Facebook, and 

YouTube.195

a. WeChat

Launched in 2011, first as a mobile messaging application, WeChat (微信) was devel-

oped by Tencent and it has quickly become a real ecosystem offering a wide range of 

services: calls, transmission of images, videos, and voice messages, information dissemi-

nation, mobile payment, gaming, etc. It is the most popular social network in China and 

is now indispensable to access certain services.196 But it is also the third most popular 

social network in the world, with more than 1.2 billion monthly users in the third quar-

ter of 2020.197 In January 2019, as many as 45 billion messages were sent on the platform 

every day198 – likely many more today. WeChat is increasingly used by non-Chinese 

speakers, especially, but not only, by politicians, to reach out to their Chinese electorate, 

such as in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada.

First, WeChat poses a problem of surveillance and censorship. The messages 

exchanged on the app (which are not encrypted) pass through a server managed by 

Tencent which filters, detects, blocks, and reports to the Chinese authorities the 

content they consider unacceptable. In several successive studies since 2016, Citizen 

Lab (University of Toronto) has shown how censored messages are those that contain 

one or more keywords, or combinations of keywords, that are automatically detected.199 

One hacker also showed that, out of 3.8 billion messages intercepted on March 18, 2019, 

59 millions of which were in English and 19 millions of which were sent from outside 

China, keywords such as “Xi Jinping,” “CCP,” “Rights,” “1989,” “Tibet,” “Authorities,” 

“Crackdown,” “Party,” “Tian’anmen” automatically triggered the selection of the conver-

sation for review.200 In this way, WeChat censors in real time.201 The app can also auto-

matically detect and censor images (by comparing them with a database of banned 

images considered “politically sensitive,” and using an “MD5 hash” – a kind of digital 

fingerprint).202

195. 林跃勤 (Lin Yueqin), “着力提升因应外部对华舆论攻击能力” (“Improve Our Capacities to Respond to 

Exterior Attacks on China”), 中国社会科学网 (Chinese Social Sciences Net) (24 Apr. 2020), https://archive.vn/lT5gJ). 

196. Tamara Khandaker, “The WeChat Factor,” Vice New (1 Feb. 2019).

197. https://www.statista.com/statistics/255778/number-of-active-wechat-messenger-accounts/. 

198. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/wechat-statistics/. 

199. Lotus Ruan et al., One App, Two Systems: How WeChat Uses One Censorship Policy in China and Another 

Internationally, Reports of Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto, 

#84 (30 Nov. 2016); Lotus Ruan, Jeffrey Knockel, and Masahi Crete-Nishihata, We (Can’t) Chat: ‘709 Crackdown’ 

Discussions Blocked on Weibo and WeChat, Research report #91 (13 Apr. 2017); Lotus Ruan, Jeffrey Knockel, and 

Masahi Crete-Nishihata, Censored Contagion: How Information on the Coronavirus is Managed on Chinese Social Media (3 

Mar. 2020); Masahi Crete-Nishihata et al., Censored Contagion II: A Timeline of Information Control on Chinese Social Media 

During COVID-19 (25 Aug. 2020). 

200. https://twitter.com/0xDUDE/status/1120374736276553728. 

201. Patrick Howell O’Neill, “How WeChat Censors Private Conversations, Automatically in Real Time,” MIT 

Technology Review (15 Jul. 2019). 

202. Jeffrey Knockel, Christopher Parsons, Lotus Ruan, Ruohan Xiong, Jedidiah Crandall, and Ron Deibert, We 

Chat, They Watch. How International Users Unwittingly Build up WeChat’s Chinese Censorship Apparatus, Citizen Lab, Toronto 

(7 May 2020). 

197

The Covid-19 led to another round of censorship on WeChat: many users in 

North America, Europe, and Asia have noticed that, since February 2020, their con-

tacts in China can no longer see messages that others post in shared groups.203 An initial 

study showed that between January 1 and 31, 2020, 132 keyword combinations related to 

the outbreak, in both simplified and traditional Chinese, triggered censorship, and then 

another 384 between February 1 and 15, for a total of 516 in that month-and-a-half 

period. Among the sub-topics censored were the CCP’s response to the crisis, in particu-

lar any criticism of the measures taken; the policies implemented in Hong Kong, Taiwan 

and Macau; and a few specific individuals, such as Dr. Li Wenliang (19 combinations with 

his name), one of the first doctors to have warned of the outbreak of the virus and who 

died in Wuhan on 7 February.204 A second study showed that between January 1 and May 

31, a total of 2,174 key words were censored (162 in January, 645 in February, 501 in 

March, 628 in April, 238 in May).205

“In Canada, WeChat censors deleted a Member of Parliament’s message to con-

stituents praising Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement protesters, manipulated dissemi-

nation of news reports related to Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s arrest, and blocked 

broader media coverage of Chinese government corruption and leading Chinese offi-

cials. In the United States, Chinese Americans have reported censorship of WeChat posts 

in group conversations about local political issues, or had their accounts shut down after 

commenting about democratic parties’ victory in Hong Kong’s district council elections in 

November 2019.”206 Messages posted by diplomatic missions are also widely cen-

sored: when the accounts of the American and British talk about Hong Kong, the South 

China Sea, the pandemic, and ethnic minorities, the Uyghurs for instance, or when the 

account of the Indian embassy talks about the clashes between the Chinese and Indian 

armies in Ladakh.207

Citizen Lab has shown that surveillance on WeChat affects all users, including those 

abroad, whereas it was initially thought to apply only to accounts registered in China.208 

Not only are “documents and images shared among non-China-registered accounts…sub-

ject to content surveillance [but they are also] used to build up the database WeChat uses to 

censor China-registered accounts.”209 In other words, those who use WeChat in France, 

the United States, Australia, Canada, are indirectly contributing to enhancing the 

surveillance of the population in China.

Second, WeChat also poses a problem of propaganda and disinformation. One of 

its peculiarities, especially when compared to applications such as WhatsApp, is that users 

can create private chat groups but also receive information from official accounts.210 This 

makes WeChat a hybrid application, both private messaging and social media, that competes 

with other information sources. Beijing thus uses WeChat as a vehicle to reach Chinese 

communities abroad directly, through official accounts, or indirectly, by instrumentalizing 

203. David Guilbert, “Here’s How China is Silencing Coronavirus Critics in the U.S.,” Vice (12 Feb. 2020). 

204. Ruan, Knockel, Crete-Nishihata, Censored Contagion. 

205. Crete-Nishihata et al., Censored Contagion II. 

206. Cook, Beijing’s Global Megaphone, 18. 

207. Fergus Ryan, Audrey Fritz and Daria Impiombato, TikTok and WeChat: Curating and Controlling Global Information 

Flows, ASPI, International Cyber Policy Centre, Policy Brief, Report 37 (Sept. 2020), 30-33. 

208. Jeffrey Knockel et al., We Chat, They Watch: How International Users Unwittingly Build up WeChat’s Chinese Censorship 

Apparatus, Research Report 127, The Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of 

Toronto (7 May 2020). 

209. Ibid., 6

210. There are about 10 million of them. 

198

local agents of influence. This report describes numerous cases where WeChat was used 

to monitor, intimidate, and mobilize Chinese students on campus (→ p. 274), raise 

money to fund legal action against a journalist critical of Beijing (→ p. 576), and 

spread fake news and conspiracy theories, for example about the origin of Covid-19 

(→ p. 599). WeChat has also been used for election interference, to encourage vot-

ing for certain candidates of Chinese origin, as in Canada (→ p. 562), or voting against 

an incumbent government, as in Australia (→ p. 269). During the May 2019 election in 

Australia, where WeChat is the primary source of information for 26% of citizens of 

Chinese descent, a “fear campaign” against the Labor Party was organized on WeChat 

“in a way that could influence critical marginal seats, away from the scrutiny of the main 

campaign.”211 The Chinese app also caused a stir in Canada in 2019 when Karen Wang, the 

Liberal Party candidate in the Burnaby South district in British Columbia used it to try to 

win the votes of the Chinese community in her district, reminding members of the Chinese 

diaspora that she was the “only candidate of Chinese descent” against the NDP’s Jagmeet 

Singh, of “Indian descent.” Karen Wang was heavily criticized in the media and on social 

networks and was forced to withdraw.212

In France, the United Front’s agents of influence, acting through the Association for 

China’s Peaceful Reunification,213 also use WeChat to mobilize the population of Chinese 

descent during elections214 or to support demonstrations, such as the movement that arose 

“spontaneously” against “injustice and police violence” after the death of Liu Shaoyao, 

who was shot by the police in March 2017. Chinese authorities have asked France to shed 

light on this case, but they have also mobilized, via WeChat in particular, the French pop-

ulation of Chinese origin and Chinese residents in France215 to put pressure on the French 

government.

A study conducted by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism216 at Columbia University, 

on the use of WeChat in the United States also showed that the level and nature of dis-

information operations on the network were similar to what could be observed on 

Facebook: hyper-partisan comments, caricatures, stories leading to the reinforcement of 

dissent. Certain topics are the subject of recurrent debates, such as the question of the 

integration of minorities (especially Asian minorities), discrimination, the right and con-

ditions of the vote, and unemployment. Rumors are also frequent and tend to accentuate 

the divisions in the American society.217 But most rumors and fake news seem to come 

from private groups and individuals who have no state support and do not, for that matter, 

always seem to have a political agenda.

211. Steve Cannane and Echo Hui, “Federal Election 2019: Anti-Labor Scare Campaign Targets Chinese-

Australians,” ABC (3 May 2019). 

212. Fanny Bédard, “La candidate libérale qui devait affronter Jagmeet Singh se désiste” (“The Liberal Candidate 

Who Was Running Against Jamgmeet Singh Abandoned”), Radio Canada (16 Jan. 2019). 

213. A “pseudopod” of the United Front Labor Department (中共中央统一战线工作部) whose mission is to 

increase the influence of the Chinese Communist Party among people of Chinese origin.

214. “Les Chinois de France se sont organisés pour se rendre aux urnes” (“Chinese from France Organized 

Themselves to Go Vote”), Chine-info.com (24 Apr. 2017), https://archive.vn/QnCHT. 

215. This mobilization, encouraged by the Chinese Embassy, was confirmed by several Chinese students from 

Parisian universities.

216. Zhang Chi, “WeChatting American Politics: Misinformation, Polarization, & Immigrant Chinese Media,” Tow 

Center for Digital Journalism, A Tow/Knight Report, Columbia University (2018). 

217. For example, the U.S. association No Melon, specialized in the detection of false news and counter-narratives 

on WeChat, debunked a false story about a national day of riots on November 3, 2017. This rumor emerged on 4Chan 

before spreading on WeChat. See Daniel Funke, “On WeChat, Rogue Fact-Checkers are Tackling the App’s Fake News 

Problem,” Poynter (3 Jul. 2018). 

199

b. Weibo

Second largest social network in China after WeChat: Weibo (微博), which means 

“microblog” in Chinese, and is a microblogging website similar to Twitter. It was created 

by the Chinese company Sina Corporation – hence its full name “Sina Weibo” (新浪微

博) – in 2009, a year marked by the twentieth anniversary of Tian’anmen but also by the 

Urumqi Riots in Xinjiang, following which the Chinese authorities decided to block Twitter, 

Facebook, and the Chinese equivalent of Twitter at the time, Fanfou (饭否).218 With some 

511 million active monthly users in the third quarter of 2020, Weibo has reportedly had 

more users than Twitter in recent years.219

Generally presented as the Chinese Twitter, the Weibo platform is actually more like 

Facebook. It is possible to create groups, share stories, texts beyond the initial 140-char-

acter limit (lifted in 2016),220 live-stream, and make purchases. The strategic partnership 

signed with Alibaba – which acquired 18% of Weibo in 2013, then 30% in 2015 – has 

indeed made the development of e-commerce features possible on the platform.

As with WeChat, access to the platform is increasingly regulated and requires the ver-

ification of the user’s identity. The content that circulates on the platform is subjected to 

ever-increasing surveillance. In 2012, the Greatfire.org website already estimated that 

about 2,500 words were blocked on it.221 In 2017, the platform recruited 1,000 “monitors” 

(监 督员) among its users to monitor and report pornographic, harmful, and illegal con-

tent. These monitors had to report at least 200 pieces of content for a fixed monthly fee 

of RMB200, or less than €30, and there were in-kind rewards (cell phones and computers) 

for the ten best performing monitors of the month, i.e., those who reported the most con-

tent.222 The Cyberspace Administration had previously sanctioned the platform for dissem-

inating illegal information and for other problems, although it is not clear for what specific 

content the platform was punished.223

Also, censorship efforts do not spare foreign governments whose embassies or offi-

cials choose to open an account on the platform. In 2011, the Canadian embassy’s post 

about Chinese fugitive Lai Changxing (赖昌星) was immediately deleted for instance.224 

Censorship can take various forms, ranging from the outright deletion of the publication, 

either immediately or with a delay, to the temporary deactivation of the commenting and 

sharing features of the publications.225 In order to circumvent censorship, the U.S. embas-

sy’s account came up with the idea of sharing a politically charged article which discussed, 

among other things, Wang Lijun (王立军), a police officer, and Chen Guangcheng (陈光

诚), a Chinese activist, and their efforts to gain political asylum in the United States but 

218. Gady Epstein, “Sina Weibo,” Forbes (3 Mar. 2011). 

219. According to Statisa data: https://www.statista.com/statistics/795303/china-mau-of-sina-weibo/. “Twitter 

User Numbers Overtaken by China’s Sina Weibo,” BBC News (17 May 2017). 

220. “Sina Weibo Ends 140-character Limit Ahead of Twitter,” BBC News (20 Jan. 2016). 

221. “新浪微博的新屏蔽措施及敏感词变化” (“New blocking Measures and Evolution of Sensitive Words on 

Sina Weibo”), Greatfire.org (2 Oct. 2012). 

222. Charlotte Gao, “China’s Weibo Hires 1000 “Supervisors” to Censor Content,” The Diplomat (29 Sept. 2017); 

微博管理员 (Weibo Administrator) post on Weibo (27 Sept. 2017), https://archive.vn/P5wHf); 微博监督员 (Weibo 

Supervisor), “微博监督员工作条例” (“Weibo Monitors Labor Regulations”), Weibo (28 Sept. 2017), https://archive.

vn/4ZvVj. 

223. “China Punishes Microblog Platform Weibo for Interfering with Communication,” Reuters (10 Jun. 2020). 

224. Mark Mackinnon, “Canadian Embassy’s Posting on Lai Changxing Taken Off Chinese website,” The Globe and 

Mail (5 Aug. 2011), cited by Fergus Ryan, “Weibo Diplomacy and Censorship in China,” Policy Brief, 3, ASPI (2018).

225. Fergus Ryan, “Weibo Diplomacy and Censorship in China,” 12. 

200

by publishing a post ostensibly about Michael Jackson.226 To announce the publication of 

the 2013 report on human rights and democracy and beat the censorship, the UK embas-

sy’s account used techniques borrowed from the “Martian” language (火星文).227 Rather 

than writing “人权” (renquan) for “human rights,” the embassy split the second character 

into two, “人 (木又)” (ren (muyou)), which no longer means anything to the algorithm that 

locates the monitored keywords, but is still understandable to the human eye. Similarly, 

instead of writing “民主” (minzhu) for “democracy,” the first letters of their transliteration 

into pinyin, “MZ,” allow a reference to this word.

c. TikTok

TikTok, a video-sharing social network, is the international version of Douyin (抖音), 

launched in China in 2016 and developed by ByteDance. TikTok was launched in September 

2017 and has since grown dramatically around the world, notably in the United States 

where it counted 100 million active monthly users in August 2020, an 800% increase since 

January 2018. Globally, TikTok had approximately one billion users in January 2021.228 Like 

WeChat and Weibo, TikTok is a monitored and censored platform. An ASPI report 

found “that TikTok engages in censorship on a range of political and social topics, while 

also demoting and suppressing content.”229 The report noted that “ByteDance executives, 

including CEO Zhang Yiming (张一鸣), have stated on the record that they’ll ensure that 

their products serve to promote the CCP’s propaganda agenda. [They] made it clear that 

the party line should be integrated into the company’s apps down to the level of 

the algorithm.” For example, in 2018, a joke-sharing app developed by the company was 

removed: “The product [had] gone astray, posting content that [went] against socialist core 

values,” Zhang recounted.230 The company has since hired 4,000 additional censors and 

invested a lot of money to develop an algorithm that incorporates these “socialist core 

values.”

Another milestone was reached during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020: a former 

employee testified that “ByteDance’s army of content moderators were using the tools 

and algorithms that I helped develop to delete content, change the narrative and 

alter memories of the suffering and trauma inflicted on Chinese people during the 

COVID-19 outbreak.” He also explained that, in early 2020, the company employed 

20,000 content moderators solely tasked with surveilling the Chinese traffic. Additionally, 

he showed how automatic censorship worked: the soundtrack of livestreamed events is 

automatically transcribed into text and an algorithm then compares the text with “a long 

and constantly-updated list of sensitive words, dates and names” that normally triggers 

a report. The Cyberspace Administration of China constantly sends directives – some-

times more than a hundred a day – to ByteDance’s Content Quality Center (内容质量中

心) which then integrates them in its moderation. And its technical team receives multi-

ple demands to build “an algorithm that could automatically detect when a Douyin user 

spoke Uyghur, and then cut off the livestream session” because the moderators did not 

226. Archived publication (30 May 2012) archived on FreeWeibo.com: https://freeweibo.com/en/ 

weibo/3451371632386418. Cited by Fergus Ryan, “Weibo diplomacy.”

227. “英駐華使館發「火星文」避審查” (“British Embassy Uses ‘Martian’ Language to Circumvent 

Censorship”), Apple News (13 Apr. 2014); Visen Liu, “In China, Internet Censors are Accidentally Helping Revive an 

Invented “Martian” language,” Quartz (30 Jul. 2017), cited by Fergus Ryan, “Weibo diplomacy.”

228. “TikTok Statistics – Updated January 2021,” Wallaroo Media, (1 Jan. 2021). 

229. Ryan, Fritz and Impiombato, TikTok and WeChat, 3.

230. Ibid., 19.

understand the language. It eventually did not follow through with the project for tech-

nical reasons. He then explained that political contents represented only a portion of the 

deleted contents, because “Chinese netizens are fluent in self-censorship and know 

what not to say.”231

Censorship covers not only the usual topics (videos mentioning Tian’anmen, 

Tibetan independence, or Falun Gong are removed),232 but also LGBTQ+ topics (the 

hashtags #гей (“gay” in Russian), #ягей (“I am gay” in Russian), #ялесбиянка (“I am 

a lesbian” in Russian), # نس_الج#مثلي 

مثلي الجنس 

اتحول جنسي م#ال 

احول جنسي ت مال 

(“gay” in Arabic), #

نس_الج#مثلي 

مثلي الجنس 

اتحول جنسي م#ال 

احول جنسي ت مال 

(“transgender” in 

Arabic), #gei (“gay” in Estonian), #gej (“gay” in Bosnian) are automatically removed from 

the platform), and criticism of certain political leaders or regimes (“#путинвор” 

(“Putin is a thief ” in Russian)). TikTok’s justification is a “localized approach to moder-

ation” in which it restricts access to certain terms to comply with “local laws.”233 Yet the 

Guardian found that LGBTQ+ content was censored even in countries where homosex-

uality was not illegal.234

Furthermore, leaked moderation files obtained by The Intercept showed that “TikTok 

has influenced content on its platform not just by censoring videos and disap-

pearing users, but by padding feeds with content from ‘shadow accounts’ oper-

ated by company employees posing as regular users. Internal employee guidelines 

[...] suggest that ByteDance employees scoured Instagram for popular topics, down-

loaded the videos, and reshared them to TikTok to maintain a steady spray of appealing 

content.”235

Samantha Hoffman, author of an ASPI report on data collection by Chinese state-owned 

enterprises,236 added that “TikTok is a good example of a seemingly benign app that 

can give the CCP a lot of useful data … [that] can be used to understand how people 

are influenced and how they think.”237

3. Smartphones 

As hardware has an impact on software and installable applications, allowing surveillance 

and espionage, Chinese smartphone manufacturers, especially Huawei and Xiaomi, 

are regularly incriminated. Regarding Huawei especially, RSF noted that “[a] key partner 

in Chinese Internet censorship and in the persecution in Xinjiang province, Huawei has 

also been accused of installing a ‘backdoor’ in some of its products that allows secret 

access to data, and of providing its surveillance technologies to the Iranian regime.”238 

The Huawei caseis discussed in a separate section (→ p. 133). 

231. Shen Lu, “I Helped Build ByteDance’s Censorship Machine,” Protocol (18 Feb. 2021) (all the quotes from this 

paragraph).

232. Alex Hern, “Revealed: How TikTok Censors Videos that do not Please Beijing,” The Guardian (25 Sept. 2019). 

233. Ryan, Fritz and Impiombato, TikTok and WeChat, 5.

234. Alex Hern, “TikTok’s Local Moderation Guidelines Ban Pro-LGBT Content,” The Guardian (26 Sept. 2019).

235. Sam Biddle, Paulo Victor Ribeiro and Tatiana Dias, “Invisible Censorship,” The Intercept (16 Mar. 2020). 

236. Samantha Hoffman, Engineering Global Consent: The Chinese Communist Party’s Data-Driven Power Expansion, ASPI, 

International Cyber Policy Centre, Policy Brief, Report No. 21 (2019).

237. Samantha Hoffman, in Rohan Thomson, “How China Surveils the World,” MIT Technology Review (19 Aug. 

2020).

238. RSF, China’s Pursuit of a New World Meida Order, 14. 

202