Archived

Here is the full report: A Formula for Repression – China’s Global Grid for Community Control (pdf)

In 2022, Safeguard Defenders published 110 Overseas and Patrol & Persuade: two reports detailing the activity of over 100 overseas Chinese police stations operating in more than 50 countries.

After the report was published, many of the countries affected denounced the stations’ illegal operations. Some pursued criminal investigations. Beijing responded by claiming they had closed.

[...]

Now a new report exposes Beijing’s claim to be false. Far from closing, the evidence shows expansion.

[...]

Today, more than ten police forces from five Chinese provinces are engaged in the work of a global network of Chinese Communist Party operatives abroad. The police involvement is only the beginning, and these are not isolated initiatives by a few local governments in China.

Since late 2024, five new national policies instruct authorities across China to expand designated liaison activities abroad. The core aim is to export the domestic system of grid management to control the diaspora.

[...]

In China, the Party divides every city, town and village into grids, each square representing a few hundred households, and each with a grid manager who reports upward. The manager has ten tasks, nine of which have to do with surveillance and control. There is a file on every resident.

Anything seen as a threat to Party rule is escalated to a hub where enforcement stands ready to act.

Internationally, this system of mass surveillance, control and suppression is projected through a global grid of united front affiliated organizations or designated liaisons. They are run by the Party's "bridge and bond" to the diaspora: the Overseas Chinese Federation.

These Party liaisons provide the infrastructure other Chinese authorities - police, prosecutors, courts, justice bureaus and others - simply plug into. Or, as the Party calls it: through which they "extend their tentacles".

How the 'grid' extends abroad

The authorities sometimes use the word “grid” themselves when talking about overseas functions. In May 2019, eight months after opening their first “police-overseas-Chinese stations” [警侨驿站] abroad, the Qingtian county police, in Zhejiang Province, reported to the national police newspaper that they had hired 135 diaspora association leaders and chairs as center directors, deputies and liaison officers, and “put together an overseas grid-service informant corps of more than 1,000” [组建了1000余人的海外网格服务信息员队伍] ...

[The report describes how the Chinese grid of police stations extends abroad. It is fairly impossible to paraphrased what the report calls "The machinery: 1 + n + X + Y(y)". Everyone is stronglu encouraged to read the report (pdf).]

[...]

In its new report, the NGO Safeguard Defenders finds nearly 1,250 formally designated liaisons in at least 91 countries which exist to carry out domestic grid functions abroad.

This number is based on a conservative methodology, and a likely underrepresentation of actual activity. The Party numbers its affiliated associations abroad in the tens of thousands, every one of them a potential grid liaison in the waiting.

Included in this number are the very liaison stations Safeguard Defenders exposed years ago and were told "merely" provided services to the diaspora community. Yet the functions of service and control cannot be separated, as the official policies and public statements that form the basis for this report make clear. In fact, the power to provide or deny services directly adds to the Party liaisons’ ability to exercise control.

Every liaison designated and every task carried out by them are breaches of sovereignty. They are transnational repression embodied, affecting entire communities around the world. Their standing order to carry out any task as required by the Party represents an active national security threat.

[...]

Beneath it all sits one structure: the Party’s united front, and its global network of affiliated associations.

The names given to such designated liaisons may change; the underlying structure does not.

Policymakers must urgently devise strategies to confront this superstructure of CCP interference if the stations and their activities are to be shut down for good.

[...]

Archived

Here is the full report: A Formula for Repression – China’s Global Grid for Community Control (pdf)

In 2022, Safeguard Defenders published 110 Overseas and Patrol & Persuade: two reports detailing the activity of over 100 overseas Chinese police stations operating in more than 50 countries.

After the report was published, many of the countries affected denounced the stations’ illegal operations. Some pursued criminal investigations. Beijing responded by claiming they had closed.

[...]

Now a new report exposes Beijing’s claim to be false. Far from closing, the evidence shows expansion.

[...]

Today, more than ten police forces from five Chinese provinces are engaged in the work of a global network of Chinese Communist Party operatives abroad. The police involvement is only the beginning, and these are not isolated initiatives by a few local governments in China.

Since late 2024, five new national policies instruct authorities across China to expand designated liaison activities abroad. The core aim is to export the domestic system of grid management to control the diaspora.

[...]

In China, the Party divides every city, town and village into grids, each square representing a few hundred households, and each with a grid manager who reports upward. The manager has ten tasks, nine of which have to do with surveillance and control. There is a file on every resident.

Anything seen as a threat to Party rule is escalated to a hub where enforcement stands ready to act.

Internationally, this system of mass surveillance, control and suppression is projected through a global grid of united front affiliated organizations or designated liaisons. They are run by the Party's "bridge and bond" to the diaspora: the Overseas Chinese Federation.

These Party liaisons provide the infrastructure other Chinese authorities - police, prosecutors, courts, justice bureaus and others - simply plug into. Or, as the Party calls it: through which they "extend their tentacles".

How the 'grid' extends abroad

The authorities sometimes use the word “grid” themselves when talking about overseas functions. In May 2019, eight months after opening their first “police-overseas-Chinese stations” [警侨驿站] abroad, the Qingtian county police, in Zhejiang Province, reported to the national police newspaper that they had hired 135 diaspora association leaders and chairs as center directors, deputies and liaison officers, and “put together an overseas grid-service informant corps of more than 1,000” [组建了1000余人的海外网格服务信息员队伍] ...

[The report describes how the Chinese grid of police stations extends abroad. It is fairly impossible to paraphrased what the report calls "The machinery: 1 + n + X + Y(y)". Everyone is stronglu encouraged to read the report (pdf).]

[...]

In its new report, the NGO Safeguard Defenders finds nearly 1,250 formally designated liaisons in at least 91 countries which exist to carry out domestic grid functions abroad.

This number is based on a conservative methodology, and a likely underrepresentation of actual activity. The Party numbers its affiliated associations abroad in the tens of thousands, every one of them a potential grid liaison in the waiting.

Included in this number are the very liaison stations Safeguard Defenders exposed years ago and were told "merely" provided services to the diaspora community. Yet the functions of service and control cannot be separated, as the official policies and public statements that form the basis for this report make clear. In fact, the power to provide or deny services directly adds to the Party liaisons’ ability to exercise control.

Every liaison designated and every task carried out by them are breaches of sovereignty. They are transnational repression embodied, affecting entire communities around the world. Their standing order to carry out any task as required by the Party represents an active national security threat.

[...]

Beneath it all sits one structure: the Party’s united front, and its global network of affiliated associations.

The names given to such designated liaisons may change; the underlying structure does not.

Policymakers must urgently devise strategies to confront this superstructure of CCP interference if the stations and their activities are to be shut down for good.

[...]

Archived

Here is the full report: A Formula for Repression – China’s Global Grid for Community Control (pdf)

In 2022, Safeguard Defenders published 110 Overseas and Patrol & Persuade: two reports detailing the activity of over 100 overseas Chinese police stations operating in more than 50 countries.

After the report was published, many of the countries affected denounced the stations’ illegal operations. Some pursued criminal investigations. Beijing responded by claiming they had closed.

[...]

Now a new report exposes Beijing’s claim to be false. Far from closing, the evidence shows expansion.

[...]

Today, more than ten police forces from five Chinese provinces are engaged in the work of a global network of Chinese Communist Party operatives abroad. The police involvement is only the beginning, and these are not isolated initiatives by a few local governments in China.

Since late 2024, five new national policies instruct authorities across China to expand designated liaison activities abroad. The core aim is to export the domestic system of grid management to control the diaspora.

[...]

In China, the Party divides every city, town and village into grids, each square representing a few hundred households, and each with a grid manager who reports upward. The manager has ten tasks, nine of which have to do with surveillance and control. There is a file on every resident.

Anything seen as a threat to Party rule is escalated to a hub where enforcement stands ready to act.

Internationally, this system of mass surveillance, control and suppression is projected through a global grid of united front affiliated organizations or designated liaisons. They are run by the Party's "bridge and bond" to the diaspora: the Overseas Chinese Federation.

These Party liaisons provide the infrastructure other Chinese authorities - police, prosecutors, courts, justice bureaus and others - simply plug into. Or, as the Party calls it: through which they "extend their tentacles".

How the 'grid' extends abroad

The authorities sometimes use the word “grid” themselves when talking about overseas functions. In May 2019, eight months after opening their first “police-overseas-Chinese stations” [警侨驿站] abroad, the Qingtian county police, in Zhejiang Province, reported to the national police newspaper that they had hired 135 diaspora association leaders and chairs as center directors, deputies and liaison officers, and “put together an overseas grid-service informant corps of more than 1,000” [组建了1000余人的海外网格服务信息员队伍] ...

[The report describes how the Chinese grid of police stations extends abroad. It is fairly impossible to paraphrased what the report calls "The machinery: 1 + n + X + Y(y)". Everyone is stronglu encouraged to read the report (pdf).]

[...]

In its new report, the NGO Safeguard Defenders finds nearly 1,250 formally designated liaisons in at least 91 countries which exist to carry out domestic grid functions abroad.

This number is based on a conservative methodology, and a likely underrepresentation of actual activity. The Party numbers its affiliated associations abroad in the tens of thousands, every one of them a potential grid liaison in the waiting.

Included in this number are the very liaison stations Safeguard Defenders exposed years ago and were told "merely" provided services to the diaspora community. Yet the functions of service and control cannot be separated, as the official policies and public statements that form the basis for this report make clear. In fact, the power to provide or deny services directly adds to the Party liaisons’ ability to exercise control.

Every liaison designated and every task carried out by them are breaches of sovereignty. They are transnational repression embodied, affecting entire communities around the world. Their standing order to carry out any task as required by the Party represents an active national security threat.

[...]

Beneath it all sits one structure: the Party’s united front, and its global network of affiliated associations.

The names given to such designated liaisons may change; the underlying structure does not.

Policymakers must urgently devise strategies to confront this superstructure of CCP interference if the stations and their activities are to be shut down for good.

[...]

Archived

Here is the full report: A Formula for Repression – China’s Global Grid for Community Control (pdf)

In 2022, Safeguard Defenders published 110 Overseas and Patrol & Persuade: two reports detailing the activity of over 100 overseas Chinese police stations operating in more than 50 countries.

After the report was published, many of the countries affected denounced the stations’ illegal operations. Some pursued criminal investigations. Beijing responded by claiming they had closed.

[...]

Now a new report exposes Beijing’s claim to be false. Far from closing, the evidence shows expansion.

[...]

Today, more than ten police forces from five Chinese provinces are engaged in the work of a global network of Chinese Communist Party operatives abroad. The police involvement is only the beginning, and these are not isolated initiatives by a few local governments in China.

Since late 2024, five new national policies instruct authorities across China to expand designated liaison activities abroad. The core aim is to export the domestic system of grid management to control the diaspora.

[...]

In China, the Party divides every city, town and village into grids, each square representing a few hundred households, and each with a grid manager who reports upward. The manager has ten tasks, nine of which have to do with surveillance and control. There is a file on every resident.

Anything seen as a threat to Party rule is escalated to a hub where enforcement stands ready to act.

Internationally, this system of mass surveillance, control and suppression is projected through a global grid of united front affiliated organizations or designated liaisons. They are run by the Party's "bridge and bond" to the diaspora: the Overseas Chinese Federation.

These Party liaisons provide the infrastructure other Chinese authorities - police, prosecutors, courts, justice bureaus and others - simply plug into. Or, as the Party calls it: through which they "extend their tentacles".

How the 'grid' extends abroad

The authorities sometimes use the word “grid” themselves when talking about overseas functions. In May 2019, eight months after opening their first “police-overseas-Chinese stations” [警侨驿站] abroad, the Qingtian county police, in Zhejiang Province, reported to the national police newspaper that they had hired 135 diaspora association leaders and chairs as center directors, deputies and liaison officers, and “put together an overseas grid-service informant corps of more than 1,000” [组建了1000余人的海外网格服务信息员队伍] ...

[The report describes how the Chinese grid of police stations extends abroad. It is fairly impossible to paraphrased what the report calls "The machinery: 1 + n + X + Y(y)". Everyone is stronglu encouraged to read the report (pdf).]

[...]

In its new report, the NGO Safeguard Defenders finds nearly 1,250 formally designated liaisons in at least 91 countries which exist to carry out domestic grid functions abroad.

This number is based on a conservative methodology, and a likely underrepresentation of actual activity. The Party numbers its affiliated associations abroad in the tens of thousands, every one of them a potential grid liaison in the waiting.

Included in this number are the very liaison stations Safeguard Defenders exposed years ago and were told "merely" provided services to the diaspora community. Yet the functions of service and control cannot be separated, as the official policies and public statements that form the basis for this report make clear. In fact, the power to provide or deny services directly adds to the Party liaisons’ ability to exercise control.

Every liaison designated and every task carried out by them are breaches of sovereignty. They are transnational repression embodied, affecting entire communities around the world. Their standing order to carry out any task as required by the Party represents an active national security threat.

[...]

Beneath it all sits one structure: the Party’s united front, and its global network of affiliated associations.

The names given to such designated liaisons may change; the underlying structure does not.

Policymakers must urgently devise strategies to confront this superstructure of CCP interference if the stations and their activities are to be shut down for good.

[...]

Archived

At a meeting in Beijing last month attended by senior propaganda officials, Cui Shixin (崔士鑫), a veteran journalist with a storied career in the Party-run press system, was appointed head of China’s official association for working journalists. Cui, who most recently served as deputy editor-in-chief of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily (人民日报), is in many respects the ideal media leader by the Party’s standards, and his appointment offers a reference point for how journalistic values are defined in China.

[...]

The October 24 meeting of the All-China Journalists Association (中华全国新闻工作者协会), or ACJA, promoted Cui to vice chair and secretary of its secretariat, formalizing his role as head of the association.

[...]

Under the leadership of the Party’s Central Propaganda Department, which sets the country’s media policy, the ACJA plays a key role in the training and discipline of journalists, including enforcing an ethics code that treats loyalty to Party principles as the first duty of the press.

[...]

Cui is not so much a journalist as a veteran Party media leader, a man honed and trained inside a newspaper that promotes the Party’s policies and serves as “the vanguard of the country’s news and public opinion front,” meaning that it guides and defines the lines that media across China hold.

His most important posting, and one celebrated by state media, came in 2007, when he volunteered and was sent to Tibet Daily (西藏日报), the Party-run “mouthpiece” of the Tibet region. He went under a 1994 program of “paired assistance” (对口支援) that sends staff from central institutions to work temporarily with counterparts in Tibet. The People’s Daily, the Central Committee paper, was paired with Tibet Daily, the regional Party committee’s paper. Cui stayed about seven years, first as deputy editor-in-chief and then, from 2012, as editor-in-chief.

[...]

A 2011 profile by People’s Daily Online says that Cui arrived “with the particular zeal of a People’s Daily reporter” (带着人民日报记者特有的热忱). In Party media language, that zeal means commitment to the paper’s role as the Party’s mouthpiece, and Cui’s job was to ensure that Tibet Daily would play that role in the region.

[...]

According to official profiles, he turned the paper [the Tibet Daily] into a regional copy of the People’s Daily. He built each page around regular columns, let commentary set the tone, and set rules on how to cover the news.

[...]

Cui’s zeal proved useful in March 2008, when protests led by monks erupted in Tibet, demanding freedom, respect for human rights, and a safe return for the Dalai Lama to China. Tibet has long been a sensitive topic for Chinese media, and state outlets ignored the peaceful protests, while authorities blamed the Dalai Lama for the unrest. Back in Lhasa, Cui wrote four “commentator articles” (评论员文章) — referring to unsigned pieces that speak for the paper as an institution — over a 10-day period. All blamed the “Dalai separatist forces” (达赖分裂势力).

[...]

[Back in the 2000s] one journalist who even ventured to openly question the censorship around Tibet was Chang Ping (长平), then deputy editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Weekly (南都周刊) in Guangzhou, a magazine under the Party-run Nanfang Daily Group [...] Chang wrote an article for FTChinese (FT中文网) called “Tibet: Truth and Nationalist Sentiment” (西藏:真相与民族主义情绪). The article not only criticized the news blackout around protests in Tibet that year, but also asked, provocatively, whether China’s ethnic majority Han Chinese harbored the same sense of cultural superiority toward Tibetans and other minorities that they resented in Western coverage of China. After the piece was published, Chang was swiftly removed from his post and shuffled aside to a research job.

[...]

Eighteen years after Lhasa was gripped by violence, Cui Shixin’s zeal and loyalty have earned him a position at the top of China’s official journalism hierarchy. He now leads the organization that is meant to represent the Party in representing the country’s estimated one million journalists. Chang Ping, who in that same year represented a different sort of voice, of the journalist as a free-thinking professional, has long since moved on, living in exile in Germany.

[...]

Archived

At a meeting in Beijing last month attended by senior propaganda officials, Cui Shixin (崔士鑫), a veteran journalist with a storied career in the Party-run press system, was appointed head of China’s official association for working journalists. Cui, who most recently served as deputy editor-in-chief of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily (人民日报), is in many respects the ideal media leader by the Party’s standards, and his appointment offers a reference point for how journalistic values are defined in China.

[...]

The October 24 meeting of the All-China Journalists Association (中华全国新闻工作者协会), or ACJA, promoted Cui to vice chair and secretary of its secretariat, formalizing his role as head of the association.

[...]

Under the leadership of the Party’s Central Propaganda Department, which sets the country’s media policy, the ACJA plays a key role in the training and discipline of journalists, including enforcing an ethics code that treats loyalty to Party principles as the first duty of the press.

[...]

Cui is not so much a journalist as a veteran Party media leader, a man honed and trained inside a newspaper that promotes the Party’s policies and serves as “the vanguard of the country’s news and public opinion front,” meaning that it guides and defines the lines that media across China hold.

His most important posting, and one celebrated by state media, came in 2007, when he volunteered and was sent to Tibet Daily (西藏日报), the Party-run “mouthpiece” of the Tibet region. He went under a 1994 program of “paired assistance” (对口支援) that sends staff from central institutions to work temporarily with counterparts in Tibet. The People’s Daily, the Central Committee paper, was paired with Tibet Daily, the regional Party committee’s paper. Cui stayed about seven years, first as deputy editor-in-chief and then, from 2012, as editor-in-chief.

[...]

A 2011 profile by People’s Daily Online says that Cui arrived “with the particular zeal of a People’s Daily reporter” (带着人民日报记者特有的热忱). In Party media language, that zeal means commitment to the paper’s role as the Party’s mouthpiece, and Cui’s job was to ensure that Tibet Daily would play that role in the region.

[...]

According to official profiles, he turned the paper [the Tibet Daily] into a regional copy of the People’s Daily. He built each page around regular columns, let commentary set the tone, and set rules on how to cover the news.

[...]

Cui’s zeal proved useful in March 2008, when protests led by monks erupted in Tibet, demanding freedom, respect for human rights, and a safe return for the Dalai Lama to China. Tibet has long been a sensitive topic for Chinese media, and state outlets ignored the peaceful protests, while authorities blamed the Dalai Lama for the unrest. Back in Lhasa, Cui wrote four “commentator articles” (评论员文章) — referring to unsigned pieces that speak for the paper as an institution — over a 10-day period. All blamed the “Dalai separatist forces” (达赖分裂势力).

[...]

[Back in the 2000s] one journalist who even ventured to openly question the censorship around Tibet was Chang Ping (长平), then deputy editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Weekly (南都周刊) in Guangzhou, a magazine under the Party-run Nanfang Daily Group [...] Chang wrote an article for FTChinese (FT中文网) called “Tibet: Truth and Nationalist Sentiment” (西藏:真相与民族主义情绪). The article not only criticized the news blackout around protests in Tibet that year, but also asked, provocatively, whether China’s ethnic majority Han Chinese harbored the same sense of cultural superiority toward Tibetans and other minorities that they resented in Western coverage of China. After the piece was published, Chang was swiftly removed from his post and shuffled aside to a research job.

[...]

Eighteen years after Lhasa was gripped by violence, Cui Shixin’s zeal and loyalty have earned him a position at the top of China’s official journalism hierarchy. He now leads the organization that is meant to represent the Party in representing the country’s estimated one million journalists. Chang Ping, who in that same year represented a different sort of voice, of the journalist as a free-thinking professional, has long since moved on, living in exile in Germany.

[...]

Archived

At a meeting in Beijing last month attended by senior propaganda officials, Cui Shixin (崔士鑫), a veteran journalist with a storied career in the Party-run press system, was appointed head of China’s official association for working journalists. Cui, who most recently served as deputy editor-in-chief of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily (人民日报), is in many respects the ideal media leader by the Party’s standards, and his appointment offers a reference point for how journalistic values are defined in China.

[...]

The October 24 meeting of the All-China Journalists Association (中华全国新闻工作者协会), or ACJA, promoted Cui to vice chair and secretary of its secretariat, formalizing his role as head of the association.

[...]

Under the leadership of the Party’s Central Propaganda Department, which sets the country’s media policy, the ACJA plays a key role in the training and discipline of journalists, including enforcing an ethics code that treats loyalty to Party principles as the first duty of the press.

[...]

Cui is not so much a journalist as a veteran Party media leader, a man honed and trained inside a newspaper that promotes the Party’s policies and serves as “the vanguard of the country’s news and public opinion front,” meaning that it guides and defines the lines that media across China hold.

His most important posting, and one celebrated by state media, came in 2007, when he volunteered and was sent to Tibet Daily (西藏日报), the Party-run “mouthpiece” of the Tibet region. He went under a 1994 program of “paired assistance” (对口支援) that sends staff from central institutions to work temporarily with counterparts in Tibet. The People’s Daily, the Central Committee paper, was paired with Tibet Daily, the regional Party committee’s paper. Cui stayed about seven years, first as deputy editor-in-chief and then, from 2012, as editor-in-chief.

[...]

A 2011 profile by People’s Daily Online says that Cui arrived “with the particular zeal of a People’s Daily reporter” (带着人民日报记者特有的热忱). In Party media language, that zeal means commitment to the paper’s role as the Party’s mouthpiece, and Cui’s job was to ensure that Tibet Daily would play that role in the region.

[...]

According to official profiles, he turned the paper [the Tibet Daily] into a regional copy of the People’s Daily. He built each page around regular columns, let commentary set the tone, and set rules on how to cover the news.

[...]

Cui’s zeal proved useful in March 2008, when protests led by monks erupted in Tibet, demanding freedom, respect for human rights, and a safe return for the Dalai Lama to China. Tibet has long been a sensitive topic for Chinese media, and state outlets ignored the peaceful protests, while authorities blamed the Dalai Lama for the unrest. Back in Lhasa, Cui wrote four “commentator articles” (评论员文章) — referring to unsigned pieces that speak for the paper as an institution — over a 10-day period. All blamed the “Dalai separatist forces” (达赖分裂势力).

[...]

[Back in the 2000s] one journalist who even ventured to openly question the censorship around Tibet was Chang Ping (长平), then deputy editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Weekly (南都周刊) in Guangzhou, a magazine under the Party-run Nanfang Daily Group [...] Chang wrote an article for FTChinese (FT中文网) called “Tibet: Truth and Nationalist Sentiment” (西藏:真相与民族主义情绪). The article not only criticized the news blackout around protests in Tibet that year, but also asked, provocatively, whether China’s ethnic majority Han Chinese harbored the same sense of cultural superiority toward Tibetans and other minorities that they resented in Western coverage of China. After the piece was published, Chang was swiftly removed from his post and shuffled aside to a research job.

[...]

Eighteen years after Lhasa was gripped by violence, Cui Shixin’s zeal and loyalty have earned him a position at the top of China’s official journalism hierarchy. He now leads the organization that is meant to represent the Party in representing the country’s estimated one million journalists. Chang Ping, who in that same year represented a different sort of voice, of the journalist as a free-thinking professional, has long since moved on, living in exile in Germany.

[...]

Archived

At a meeting in Beijing last month attended by senior propaganda officials, Cui Shixin (崔士鑫), a veteran journalist with a storied career in the Party-run press system, was appointed head of China’s official association for working journalists. Cui, who most recently served as deputy editor-in-chief of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily (人民日报), is in many respects the ideal media leader by the Party’s standards, and his appointment offers a reference point for how journalistic values are defined in China.

[...]

The October 24 meeting of the All-China Journalists Association (中华全国新闻工作者协会), or ACJA, promoted Cui to vice chair and secretary of its secretariat, formalizing his role as head of the association.

[...]

Under the leadership of the Party’s Central Propaganda Department, which sets the country’s media policy, the ACJA plays a key role in the training and discipline of journalists, including enforcing an ethics code that treats loyalty to Party principles as the first duty of the press.

[...]

Cui is not so much a journalist as a veteran Party media leader, a man honed and trained inside a newspaper that promotes the Party’s policies and serves as “the vanguard of the country’s news and public opinion front,” meaning that it guides and defines the lines that media across China hold.

His most important posting, and one celebrated by state media, came in 2007, when he volunteered and was sent to Tibet Daily (西藏日报), the Party-run “mouthpiece” of the Tibet region. He went under a 1994 program of “paired assistance” (对口支援) that sends staff from central institutions to work temporarily with counterparts in Tibet. The People’s Daily, the Central Committee paper, was paired with Tibet Daily, the regional Party committee’s paper. Cui stayed about seven years, first as deputy editor-in-chief and then, from 2012, as editor-in-chief.

[...]

A 2011 profile by People’s Daily Online says that Cui arrived “with the particular zeal of a People’s Daily reporter” (带着人民日报记者特有的热忱). In Party media language, that zeal means commitment to the paper’s role as the Party’s mouthpiece, and Cui’s job was to ensure that Tibet Daily would play that role in the region.

[...]

According to official profiles, he turned the paper [the Tibet Daily] into a regional copy of the People’s Daily. He built each page around regular columns, let commentary set the tone, and set rules on how to cover the news.

[...]

Cui’s zeal proved useful in March 2008, when protests led by monks erupted in Tibet, demanding freedom, respect for human rights, and a safe return for the Dalai Lama to China. Tibet has long been a sensitive topic for Chinese media, and state outlets ignored the peaceful protests, while authorities blamed the Dalai Lama for the unrest. Back in Lhasa, Cui wrote four “commentator articles” (评论员文章) — referring to unsigned pieces that speak for the paper as an institution — over a 10-day period. All blamed the “Dalai separatist forces” (达赖分裂势力).

[...]

[Back in the 2000s] one journalist who even ventured to openly question the censorship around Tibet was Chang Ping (长平), then deputy editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Weekly (南都周刊) in Guangzhou, a magazine under the Party-run Nanfang Daily Group [...] Chang wrote an article for FTChinese (FT中文网) called “Tibet: Truth and Nationalist Sentiment” (西藏:真相与民族主义情绪). The article not only criticized the news blackout around protests in Tibet that year, but also asked, provocatively, whether China’s ethnic majority Han Chinese harbored the same sense of cultural superiority toward Tibetans and other minorities that they resented in Western coverage of China. After the piece was published, Chang was swiftly removed from his post and shuffled aside to a research job.

[...]

Eighteen years after Lhasa was gripped by violence, Cui Shixin’s zeal and loyalty have earned him a position at the top of China’s official journalism hierarchy. He now leads the organization that is meant to represent the Party in representing the country’s estimated one million journalists. Chang Ping, who in that same year represented a different sort of voice, of the journalist as a free-thinking professional, has long since moved on, living in exile in Germany.

[...]

Archived

At a meeting in Beijing last month attended by senior propaganda officials, Cui Shixin (崔士鑫), a veteran journalist with a storied career in the Party-run press system, was appointed head of China’s official association for working journalists. Cui, who most recently served as deputy editor-in-chief of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily (人民日报), is in many respects the ideal media leader by the Party’s standards, and his appointment offers a reference point for how journalistic values are defined in China.

[...]

The October 24 meeting of the All-China Journalists Association (中华全国新闻工作者协会), or ACJA, promoted Cui to vice chair and secretary of its secretariat, formalizing his role as head of the association.

[...]

Under the leadership of the Party’s Central Propaganda Department, which sets the country’s media policy, the ACJA plays a key role in the training and discipline of journalists, including enforcing an ethics code that treats loyalty to Party principles as the first duty of the press.

[...]

Cui is not so much a journalist as a veteran Party media leader, a man honed and trained inside a newspaper that promotes the Party’s policies and serves as “the vanguard of the country’s news and public opinion front,” meaning that it guides and defines the lines that media across China hold.

His most important posting, and one celebrated by state media, came in 2007, when he volunteered and was sent to Tibet Daily (西藏日报), the Party-run “mouthpiece” of the Tibet region. He went under a 1994 program of “paired assistance” (对口支援) that sends staff from central institutions to work temporarily with counterparts in Tibet. The People’s Daily, the Central Committee paper, was paired with Tibet Daily, the regional Party committee’s paper. Cui stayed about seven years, first as deputy editor-in-chief and then, from 2012, as editor-in-chief.

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A 2011 profile by People’s Daily Online says that Cui arrived “with the particular zeal of a People’s Daily reporter” (带着人民日报记者特有的热忱). In Party media language, that zeal means commitment to the paper’s role as the Party’s mouthpiece, and Cui’s job was to ensure that Tibet Daily would play that role in the region.

[...]

According to official profiles, he turned the paper [the Tibet Daily] into a regional copy of the People’s Daily. He built each page around regular columns, let commentary set the tone, and set rules on how to cover the news.

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Cui’s zeal proved useful in March 2008, when protests led by monks erupted in Tibet, demanding freedom, respect for human rights, and a safe return for the Dalai Lama to China. Tibet has long been a sensitive topic for Chinese media, and state outlets ignored the peaceful protests, while authorities blamed the Dalai Lama for the unrest. Back in Lhasa, Cui wrote four “commentator articles” (评论员文章) — referring to unsigned pieces that speak for the paper as an institution — over a 10-day period. All blamed the “Dalai separatist forces” (达赖分裂势力).

[...]

[Back in the 2000s] one journalist who even ventured to openly question the censorship around Tibet was Chang Ping (长平), then deputy editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Weekly (南都周刊) in Guangzhou, a magazine under the Party-run Nanfang Daily Group [...] Chang wrote an article for FTChinese (FT中文网) called “Tibet: Truth and Nationalist Sentiment” (西藏:真相与民族主义情绪). The article not only criticized the news blackout around protests in Tibet that year, but also asked, provocatively, whether China’s ethnic majority Han Chinese harbored the same sense of cultural superiority toward Tibetans and other minorities that they resented in Western coverage of China. After the piece was published, Chang was swiftly removed from his post and shuffled aside to a research job.

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Eighteen years after Lhasa was gripped by violence, Cui Shixin’s zeal and loyalty have earned him a position at the top of China’s official journalism hierarchy. He now leads the organization that is meant to represent the Party in representing the country’s estimated one million journalists. Chang Ping, who in that same year represented a different sort of voice, of the journalist as a free-thinking professional, has long since moved on, living in exile in Germany.

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Archived

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Since August 2013, Xi Jinping has emphasized the importance of “telling China’s story well,” a euphemistic phrase for what he called “external propaganda” elsewhere in the same speech. The goal is to support China’s foreign policy goals — and the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy — by spreading positive narratives about China among international audiences. Now, a growing number of Chinese universities are leaping headlong into this whole-of-society project by opening international communication schools (国际传播学院) meant to train the country’s next generation of storytellers.

These schools are another key aspect of a rapidly expanding national system to support external propaganda. In 2021, Xi Jinping called on universities to cultivate “reserve talent” (后备人才) for international communication. The purpose is to train people who will carry China’s message abroad — including journalists, translators, and analysts for state media and think tanks.

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Hang on, don’t other universities do this too?

Outside of China, the [the] American University in Washington, D.C., has been offering a master’s degree in Intercultural and International Communication since 1968. The program says it “examines the geopolitical, technological, economic, and cultural relations among peoples, societies, nations, and communities,” and trains students to work across cultures. In Taiwan, National Chengchi University (國立政治大學) has been offering an English-language master’s degree in international communication since 2006, which similarly focuses on cross-cultural communication with an Asia-Pacific regional focus.

China’s schools, by contrast, are clear about their primary role as facilitating communication for the Party-state. At the Communication University of China’s founding ceremony for its international communication institute this May, President Zhang Shuting (张树庭) pledged that the university would build “a new high ground in serving the country’s international communication capacity building” and “shoulder the mission of the national team” (扛起国家队使命).

Announcing a partnership with the government run Xinhua News Agency, Shanghai’s Fudan University said it would transform Xinhua’s global network into a “practical classroom” for students.

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Archived

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked the Chinese government to explain how it protects children aged 16 to 18 from hazardous labor. The question, which is included in the formal List of Issues adopted by the Committee on October 2, 2026, reflects research by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), an NGO, documenting abuses of vocational school student interns under 18.

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The CHRD report Genuine Free Choice? Child Labor and Mandatory Student Internships in China (opens pdf), published in May 2026. That research focuses on two overlapping issues: abuses within mandatory vocational school internship programs affecting students under 18, and the illegal hiring of children under 16. Despite domestic legislation and China’s ratification of the CRC and key International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, abuses of child labor persist across industries.

[...]

The List of Issues covers a wide range of children’s rights concerns. The Committee asked the Chinese government critical questions about abuses including discrimination against Tibetan and Uyghur children, restrictions on their religious and linguistic rights, barriers to education, family separation, and reprisals against children who speak out. It also asked about the implications for children of laws adopted since China’s last review in 2013, including Hong Kong’s national security laws and the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, in effect since July 1, 2026.

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CHRD’s findings call into question Chinese authorities’ willingness to enforce domestic laws, including the Law on the Protection of Minors and the Regulations on the Management of Vocational School Student Internships, to protect children. The violations also reflect non-compliance with the Chinese government’s obligations under the CRC and ILO conventions.

Chinese authorities should make child labor data publicly available—including complaints received through the national hotline and labor inspection findings on hazardous child labor—and investigate labor dispatch agencies that unlawfully broker student interns, CHRD says.

Reporting channels independent of school administrations are also needed, so that students do not fear that reporting abuse, or withdrawing from an internship, will jeopardize their ability to graduate.

Archived

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked the Chinese government to explain how it protects children aged 16 to 18 from hazardous labor. The question, which is included in the formal List of Issues adopted by the Committee on October 2, 2026, reflects research by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), an NGO, documenting abuses of vocational school student interns under 18.

[...]

The CHRD report Genuine Free Choice? Child Labor and Mandatory Student Internships in China (opens pdf), published in May 2026. That research focuses on two overlapping issues: abuses within mandatory vocational school internship programs affecting students under 18, and the illegal hiring of children under 16. Despite domestic legislation and China’s ratification of the CRC and key International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, abuses of child labor persist across industries.

[...]

The List of Issues covers a wide range of children’s rights concerns. The Committee asked the Chinese government critical questions about abuses including discrimination against Tibetan and Uyghur children, restrictions on their religious and linguistic rights, barriers to education, family separation, and reprisals against children who speak out. It also asked about the implications for children of laws adopted since China’s last review in 2013, including Hong Kong’s national security laws and the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, in effect since July 1, 2026.

[...]

CHRD’s findings call into question Chinese authorities’ willingness to enforce domestic laws, including the Law on the Protection of Minors and the Regulations on the Management of Vocational School Student Internships, to protect children. The violations also reflect non-compliance with the Chinese government’s obligations under the CRC and ILO conventions.

Chinese authorities should make child labor data publicly available—including complaints received through the national hotline and labor inspection findings on hazardous child labor—and investigate labor dispatch agencies that unlawfully broker student interns, CHRD says.

Reporting channels independent of school administrations are also needed, so that students do not fear that reporting abuse, or withdrawing from an internship, will jeopardize their ability to graduate.