Pressure of Truth
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Outlet profile

Xinhua / Global Times

Chinese state

Owned byXinhua is a ministry-level agency of China's State Council, directly owned by the Chinese government. Global Times is owned by People's Daily Press, the publishing arm of People's Daily, which is the official organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
FundingXinhua is funded primarily by the Chinese state budget, which accounts for roughly 60% of its reported annual budget of approximately CNY 6.17 billion (about $877 million USD), with the remainder from commercial activities. Global Times relies primarily on advertising revenue but operates under its CCP-owned parent company with no editorial independence from the party.
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

Xinhua News Agency was founded on November 7, 1931, in Jiangxi Province as the 'Red China News Agency' under the Chinese Communist Party and was renamed Xinhua ('New China') in 1937 in Yan'an. After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, Xinhua became the official state wire service, now operating at the ministry level under the State Council, distributing content globally in multiple languages. Chinese law requires Xinhua to serve as the primary channel for official news distribution inside China. In February 2020, the U.S. State Department designated Xinhua as a foreign mission under the Foreign Missions Act, and Xinhua's North American operation formally registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in May 2021. Global Times was founded in 1993 by People's Daily as a commercially oriented tabloid targeting a domestic audience with nationalist-inflected international news coverage; its English-language edition launched in 2009. While Global Times is technically distinct from formal CCP pronouncements, analysts note its aggressive posture on Taiwan, the South China Sea, and U.S.-China relations often functions as a vehicle for testing or amplifying CCP messaging. The U.S. State Department designated Global Times as a foreign mission in June 2020. Global Times drew significant international criticism in 2022 for amplifying Russian disinformation during the Ukraine invasion, including unsubstantiated claims about U.S.-funded bioweapons labs and denials of the Bucha massacre. Regarding the Trump administration's second term, Xinhua characterized the United States in 2025 as marked by 'chaos and polarization' and criticized Trump's trade war policies, though both outlets covered the May 2026 Xi-Trump summit in Beijing in favorable diplomatic terms.

Sources

  1. Xinhua News Agency - Wikipedia
  2. Global Times - Wikipedia
  3. Xinhua – State Media Monitor
  4. China's Xinhua registers as a foreign agent - Foreign Lobby
  5. State Department Designates Chinese Media Outlets as Foreign Missions (Feb 2020)
  6. Designation of Additional Chinese Media Entities as Foreign Missions (June 2020) - State Dept.
  7. Xinhua: U.S. in 2025 — chaos and polarization
  8. Xinhua Headlines: Xi-Trump meeting charts course for constructive strategic stability
  9. Inside the Global Times, China's hawkish state tabloid - Quartz
  10. Global Times (China) - Media Bias/Fact Check
  11. China's Foreign Missions in the United States - USCC

Profile compiled 2026-07-18; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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