China News Service (CNS; ) is the second largest

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

news agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and All-news radio, radio and News broadcasting, television Broadcasting, broadcasters. A news agency may ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, after

Xinhua News Agency Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...

. China News Service was formerly run by the

Overseas Chinese Affairs Office The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council (OCAO) is an external name of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Prior to 2018, OCAO was an administrative office under the State Council of ...

, which was absorbed into the

United Front Work Department The United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (UFWD; ) is a department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which is officially tasked with "united front work". For this endeavo ...

of the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...

(CCP) in 2018. Its operations have traditionally been directed at

overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...

worldwide and residents of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

History

CNS was established in 1952 as a successor to the CCP's International News Agency. It has news offices and stations in every province in mainland China, as well as in Hong Kong and Macau. CNS also has news offices in foreign countries, including the United States, Japan, France, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. According to the

Jamestown Foundation The Jamestown Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based conservative defense policy think tank. Founded in 1984 as a platform to support Soviet defectors, its stated mission today is to inform and educate policy makers about events and trends, which ...

, CNS is "the CCP’s main propaganda organ targeting overseas Chinese." In 1990, CNS personnel were dispatched to the U.S. to found SinoVision and ''

The China Press ''The China Press'' (), commonly called ''Qiaobao'', is a Chinese-language newspaper published in the United States. ''The China Press'' was founded in 1990 by personnel dispatched to the U.S. from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and its ...

'' to counter negative perceptions of the

Chinese government The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, mili ...

following the

1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

. Since 2001, CNS has held a biannual Global Chinese Language Media Forum in China. In 2007, CNS established the China News Service Overseas Center, which provides news reports, editorials, and layout for overseas Chinese media outlets. In 2014, CNS published an editorial which derided outgoing American ambassador to China

Gary Locke Gary Faye Locke (born January 21, 1950) is an American politician and diplomat serving as the interim president of Bellevue College, the largest of the institutions that make up the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system. Locke serv ...

. The editorial was widely criticized both within China and internationally for referring to the

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

ambassador as a

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

which was interpreted as a racial slur. The article also mocked his Mandarin Chinese abilities and said that his ancestors would disown him if they knew about his loyalties. In 2018, CNS became part of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) when its host organization, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, was folded into the UFWD. The same year, a deputy head of the UFWD stated that " an important propaganda unit of the United Front, CNS must adhere to the concept of ‘newspapers run by politicians’ and thoroughly carry out political awareness work. CNS's important mission is to do good united front propaganda work within Overseas Chinese affairs.” In 2019, CNS began a campaign to increase its influence on overseas social media. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, CNS was involved in targeted

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...

and

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

campaigns during the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. According to a 2020 investigation by

ProPublica ProPublica (), legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit organization based in New York City. In 2010, it became the first online news source to win a Pulitzer Prize, for a piece written by one of its journalists''The Guardian'', April 13, 2010P ...

, CNS hired a third-party firm to create fake

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

accounts to spread

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...

and disinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2020, the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

designated China News Service, along with other Chinese

state media State media or government media are media outlets that are under financial and/or editorial control of the state or government, directly or indirectly. There are different types of state and government media. State-controlled or state-run media a ...

outlets, as a

foreign mission A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

. During the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

, CNS repeated unsubstantiated Russian state media claims that the

Bucha massacre The Bucha massacre ( uk, Бучанська різанина, Buchanska rizanyna) was the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians by Russian Armed Forces during the fight for and occupation of the Ukrainian city of Bucha amid the Russian invasi ...

was staged.

Affiliates

CNS controls the ''Chinese New Zealand Herald'', which is co-owned by

New Zealand Media and Entertainment New Zealand Media and Entertainment (abbreviated NZME) is a New Zealand newspaper, radio and digital media business. It was launched in 2014 as the formal merger of the New Zealand division of APN News & Media, APN New Zealand; The Radio Netw ...

Personnel

The editor-in-chief of CNS until February 2015 was Liu Beixian, who was later charged with bribery offenses during the

anti-corruption campaign under Xi Jinping A far-reaching anti-corruption campaign began in China following the conclusion of the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012. The campaign, carried out under the aegis of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese ...

References

External links

*
Official China News Service English website
{{Authority control Mass media in China News agencies based in China Communist propaganda Chinese propaganda organisations Organizations associated with the Chinese Communist Party Disinformation operations Information operations units and formations State media Conspiracist media Uyghur genocide denial United Front (China)

History

Affiliates

Personnel

See also

References

External links