Pressure of Truth
The news, with the spin made visible.
Outlet profile

Xinhua / China Military

Chinese state / PLA-controlled

Owned byXinhua News Agency is owned by the People's Republic of China and operates as a ministry-level institution of the State Council. China Military (chinamil.com.cn) is the official English-language website of PLA Daily, owned and operated by the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission.
FundingXinhua is funded primarily by the Chinese central state budget (roughly 60% of its roughly CNY 6.17 billion / ~$877 million annual budget as of 2024), with the remainder from commercial activities such as content licensing. China Military is funded through PLA and Central Military Commission appropriations.
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

Xinhua was founded in November 1931 as the Red China News Agency by the CCP in its Jiangxi Soviet base area, and was renamed Xinhua at the end of the Long March in 1935. After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, it became the country's official national news agency. It began English-language international broadcasting in 1944 and has since expanded to over 180 overseas bureaus. The agency operates at ministry level and its president is by convention a member of the CCP Central Committee; a 2022 statement by its president affirmed it would 'never depart from the party line, not even for a minute.' In 2020, the U.S. State Department designated Xinhua as a foreign mission, and it registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 2021. Reporters Without Borders has described it as 'the world's biggest propaganda agency.' China Military Online (chinamil.com.cn) launched in 2003 as the PLA Daily's English-language platform and was formally named China Military Online in 2007, with the explicit mission of shaping international perceptions of the Chinese military. Both outlets function less as independent journalism operations and more as instruments of state messaging, consistently echoing official CCP and PLA positions on Taiwan, the South China Sea, U.S. military activity in the Pacific, and bilateral trade disputes.

Sources

  1. Xinhua News Agency - Wikipedia
  2. Xinhua – State Media Monitor
  3. Xinhua News Agency - Media Bias/Fact Check
  4. Xinhua: the world's biggest propaganda agency - RSF
  5. Designation of Additional PRC Propaganda Outlets as Foreign Missions - U.S. State Department
  6. China Military (Official PLA English Site)
  7. People's Liberation Army Daily - Wikipedia
  8. Obligation of Xinhua News Agency North America - DOJ FARA
  9. China's State Media: Giants or Minnows - Council on Foreign Relations

Profile compiled 2026-07-12; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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