‘China Press’ Has Deep Ties to the CCP but Isn’t Registered as a Foreign Agent
On the heels of the 1989 bloodshed in Tiananmen Square, U.S.–China relations hit a low point. Official Chinese media outlets suffered such backlash in America that Beijing was burning to find alternative avenues to broadcast its narrative.Then, in New York, China Press was born: a Chinese-language newspaper founded by the late Xie Yining, who made it the outlet’s mission to promote friendlier U.S.–China ties.Mr. Xie had worked as a White House correspondent for China News Service, the second largest Chinese state news agency, which the United States in 2020 designated as a foreign mission.China Press, which maintains an office in Beijing, rose as a valued asset for Beijing with its mainland China-focused coverage, at a time when “China’s voices had virtually no other outlet to spread overseas,” wrote You Jiang, the CEO of China Press, in a 2014 essay outlining the outlet’s expansion plans.During its fledgling days, top communist leaders “frequently met” with its executives, granted the newspaper rare interviews, and gifted handwritten plaques as tokens of appreciation, gestures that “undoubtedly aided China Press in establishing itself as an authority on China news coverage,” Mr. You recounted. He described overseas Chinese media such as his as “a key supplementary part” of CCP overseas propaganda.With such privileges, China Press thrived. By their own account, the regime’s “ever-growing global influence” and the “brisk expansion of mainland Chinese immigrants” made China Press the “fastest-developing Chinese language newspaper in America.”Premium PicksThe Chinese name for China Press, Qiaobao, translates to “Chinese diaspora newspaper.” CCP officials have described such overseas Chinese language media as one of “three treasures” used to further its control among the Chinese diaspora.The word Qiao, or diaspora, is also a homophone for bridge, which the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the ministry-level department that directs Beijing’s covert global influence operation, invoked in the early 1990s as it looked for ways to reshape global discourse, according to a former press officer for the body.“These ‘Qiao’ publications carry power that the ‘official army’ cannot wield,” the press officer recalled CCP officials saying. The officer told The Epoch Times that they were told they could “go global” by using the publications as a bridge.China Press rose to the occasion.The China Press building in Alhambra, Calif., on Nov. 16, 2018. Xie Yining, founder and chairman of the China Press, was shot to death inside the publication’s office on Nov. 16, 2018. (Linda Jiang/The Epoch Times)China Press now flaunts itself as the only Chinese media in the United States that uses simplified characters and has a Beijing-based news center to cater to immigrants from mainland China.Its bright red logo, a color favored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has made its way into Chinese grocery stores and newspaper stands in some of the biggest U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Washington area.It has gained constant favor by CCP officials. Writing in 2015 in dedication to China Press on its 25th anniversary, then New York Chinese Consul General Zhang Qiyue called it “a Chinese language U.S. newspaper building a bridge between the United States and China.”China Press’ media executives are regulars at high-profile media forums held in China and have nabbed several exclusive interviews with the communist regime’s highest leaders, including regime leader Jiang Zemin, vice premier Qian Qichen, a Chinese ambassador to the United States, and Yang Jiechi, when he was foreign minister in 2007.A handwritten plaque from Jiang hung on the wall of Mr. You’s New York office, according to a former editor there who requested anonymity.With the United States growing wary of Chinese influence peddling, the role of overseas media as a propaganda arm has also gained scrutiny.“Communist China’s reach knows no bounds. News outlets must be on guard against Beijing’s deceptive tactics, which seek to undermine our interests and values and manipulate the flow of information,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told The Epoch Times. “We must remain vigilant and resolute in defending our freedoms against these threats.”Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), the outgoing chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, told The Epoch Times last year that “there should be a warning sign” making clear the entity is “an appendage of the CCP and its propaganda.”In a short clip titled “United Front 101” in December 2023, he called out China Press by its Chinese name, Qiaobao.“Several overseas Chinese media outlets are owned or controlled by the UF [United Front] work department through Chinese news services, including Qiaobao, which operates in the U.S,” he said.A Firm Reporting PolicyIn July 1997, China Press boasted of being the only overseas Chinese-language newspaper allowed to attend the ceremony for Hong Kong’s handover back to Chinese control.I

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On the heels of the 1989 bloodshed in Tiananmen Square, U.S.–China relations hit a low point. Official Chinese media outlets suffered such backlash in America that Beijing was burning to find alternative avenues to broadcast its narrative.
Then, in New York, China Press was born: a Chinese-language newspaper founded by the late Xie Yining, who made it the outlet’s mission to promote friendlier U.S.–China ties.
During its fledgling days, top communist leaders “frequently met” with its executives, granted the newspaper rare interviews, and gifted handwritten plaques as tokens of appreciation, gestures that “undoubtedly aided China Press in establishing itself as an authority on China news coverage,” Mr. You recounted. He described overseas Chinese media such as his as “a key supplementary part” of CCP overseas propaganda.
With such privileges, China Press thrived. By their own account, the regime’s “ever-growing global influence” and the “brisk expansion of mainland Chinese immigrants” made China Press the “fastest-developing Chinese language newspaper in America.”
The word Qiao, or diaspora, is also a homophone for bridge, which the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the ministry-level department that directs Beijing’s covert global influence operation, invoked in the early 1990s as it looked for ways to reshape global discourse, according to a former press officer for the body.
“These ‘Qiao’ publications carry power that the ‘official army’ cannot wield,” the press officer recalled CCP officials saying. The officer told The Epoch Times that they were told they could “go global” by using the publications as a bridge.
China Press rose to the occasion.
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The China Press building in Alhambra, Calif., on Nov. 16, 2018. Xie Yining, founder and chairman of the China Press, was shot to death inside the publication’s office on Nov. 16, 2018. (Linda Jiang/The Epoch Times)
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Its bright red logo, a color favored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has made its way into Chinese grocery stores and newspaper stands in some of the biggest U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Washington area.
A handwritten plaque from Jiang hung on the wall of Mr. You’s New York office, according to a former editor there who requested anonymity.
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With the United States growing wary of Chinese influence peddling, the role of overseas media as a propaganda arm has also gained scrutiny.
“Communist China’s reach knows no bounds. News outlets must be on guard against Beijing’s deceptive tactics, which seek to undermine our interests and values and manipulate the flow of information,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told The Epoch Times. “We must remain vigilant and resolute in defending our freedoms against these threats.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), the outgoing chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, told The Epoch Times last year that “there should be a warning sign” making clear the entity is “an appendage of the CCP and its propaganda.”
A Firm Reporting Policy
In July 1997, China Press boasted of being the only overseas Chinese-language newspaper allowed to attend the ceremony for Hong Kong’s handover back to Chinese control.Its special coverage began 30 days ahead of the event. Ten editorials appeared during that period, offering full-throated support for the handover.
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A man holds a poster of the famous “Tank Man” standing in front of Chinese military tanks at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5, 1989, during a commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square event, in Victoria Park in Hong Kong on June 4, 2020. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)
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Such an admonishment would have been nothing remarkable in any Chinese state-controlled media. China Press, though, is ostensibly a privately-held entity established in the United States.
For any coverage that reflects on the “dark side of Chinese society,” he instructed reporters to “investigate in depth to see if they are real.”
Mr. You returned to China in 2020, the former editor said.

The China Press office in New York City on April 8, 2024. (Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times)
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‘Lifeline’
The Beijing-based Overseas Chinese Affairs Office’s chief responsibility is to direct the CCP’s “United Front” work, which reshapes narratives, advances the regime’s agenda, and suppresses dissident voices.
China Press has denied direct affiliation with the office, but its former staff see it differently. A former China Press reporter, who returned to China before the pandemic, had named the office as his workplace on social media. “United Front work” was a main duty he highlighted in his LinkedIn work experience at the outlet.
A look at China Press’ financing also raises questions.
“With little advertising and no one buying it, where does it get money?” a former assignment editor at a state media outlet in China told The Epoch Times, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.
He surmised that its funding, in no small sum, comes from China News Service, which is overseen by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. The funds might not come from Chinese authorities or the news service directly, she said, but through other Chinese entities to mask its origin.
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Independently, two former China Press staff members said the same thing.
“China Press doesn’t make money. Its lifeline is the CCP,” the paper’s former editor told The Epoch Times.
The second, a former reporter, agreed.
“When the country is the financier, there’s definitely a way,” he told The Epoch Times. “What if they take a piece of paper and exaggerate some transaction numbers? They can also go through official channels or get money from the Chinese consulate. There’s no way to find out. They can do business with companies based here.”
Even with the alleged money factor aside, the close affinity between China Press and Chinese state entities is hard to ignore.
In the annual “overseas Chinese media advanced training courses” hosted in Beijing, senior staffers from China Press, and its broadcast-focused sister outlet SinoVision, present themselves as eager students.

Chinese choir members stand together at a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on July 1, 2021. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
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No U.S. Oversight
Unlike official Chinese state-affiliated entities such as China Daily, China Press’s private ownership has shielded it from U.S. oversight. The newspaper is not registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. Justice Department, which would compel more transparency on its activities.
In practice, though, whether the entity is privately held makes little difference, say China analysts and people who have worked with Beijing-linked entities for years.
“If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck,” Sarah Cook, an independent researcher and lead author on the Freedom House think tank’s 2022 report on Beijing’s global media influence, told The Epoch Times.
The former assignment editor in China, already a green card holder living in the United States, said he was approached in recent years by a Chinese person who offered him a job at any overseas Chinese media of his choosing. China Press was one of the options.
The former Overseas Chinese Affairs Office press officer received an order in the 1990s to feed regular content to China Press for its new special section “promoting accomplishments from China’s nation-building efforts.”
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Such sections have only expanded over the years. The newspaper’s digital edition contains dedicated coverage of cities and governments all over China. In one, it touts how a village’s “miraculous” poverty eradication program is “going global.”
“China Press is an overseas propaganda tool for the CCP,” the ex-Overseas Chinese Affairs Office press officer, who also requested anonymity, told The Epoch Times.
Zhang Jing, a former news editor with New York-based World Journal and Hong Kong’s Ming Pao, also said as much.
“The only difference is in name,” she told The Epoch Times.
In a “free environment like America,” China Press can do a lot to aid the regime, she said.
“China Press is basically an oxygen pipeline” for Beijing.
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A screenshot shows that the China Press newspaper is not listed with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times, U.S. Department of Justice)
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‘Believe It’s True’
The Chinese community in the United States is the largest overseas population outside Asia. An estimated more than 5.4 million Chinese live in the United States as of 2022, according to Census data.
Of them, two-thirds speak their native tongue at home, and one-third has a limited command of English, leading to a reliance on Chinese-language sources for information.
In this immigrant population, China Press sees opportunity.
The question is, who decides what’s real versus fake?
All mentions of Falun Gong have now disappeared from China Press’s website. Gone also are trigger events such as the Tiananmen massacre or June 4.

A restaurant owner watches live television coverage of a meeting in Beijing between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, in Singapore on Nov. 7, 2015. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)
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Full-sized ads run in the newspaper for days, broadcasting what the Party wants heard in large red characters.
It’s perhaps no surprise that Chinese officials return the favor.
In his words, it has “opened an important window” for overseas Chinese to “understand the homeland.”
The former China Press reporter said he never read the newspaper, even while working there. “It’s just a job,” he said. At most, he said, he checked to see if his articles were published.
“A lot of people from Fujian read China Press,” he said, referring to the province on the southeastern Chinese coast that accounts for a large portion of the Chinese immigrant population in the United States.
“They will trust its words because our fellow overseas Chinese still love their country,” he said. “When they read China Press, they will believe it’s true.”
It’s also convenient for the Chinese Communist Party to launder information: whatever it prints in support of the regime, the mainland media can quote it and cast it as a sentiment from the United States, because it “represents American Chinese,” he said.
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Seeding ‘Future Propagators’
To achieve the regime’s directive to “tell the China story well,” the idea is to have more voices—to “tell it together,” said Sun Yumei, vice president of the Overseas Chinese Newspaper of Europe, at a Beijing-based conference in 2022 strategizing how to spread Chinese influence. Her outlet serves a similar function to China Press.
She placed particular emphasis on grooming the younger generation of overseas Chinese to become the “future propagator of China stories.”
China Press has been doing exactly that for years.
Ostensibly providing an opportunity for Chinese-American teens to gain real-life journalistic skills, China Press started a “junior reporter club” in 2013, selecting a small cohort for an organized China tour each year. By 2019, the nationwide program had drawn nearly 200 U.S.-raised teens with Chinese language skills.
Chinese authorities played the part of a gracious host, granting the young visitors rare access and time with senior officials and encouraging them to build a career in China. Chinese media outlets printed ebullient remarks from the participants.
Chinese state media reports suggest the effort to transform young hearts and minds was working.
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The Confucius Institute building on the Troy University campus in Troy, Ala., on March 16, 2018. (Kreeder13 via Wikimedia Commons)
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Political Warfare?
The pandemic appeared to have hit China Press hard.“The ads aren’t meant for the reader, it’s for the Chinese consulate,” said the former China Press reporter. “Where else would you put up such ads except on China Press?”

People walk by a building (C) that is suspected of being a Beijing-controlled secret police station used to repress dissidents living in the United States, in New York City's Chinatown on April 18, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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Entities like China Press also serve more covert functions for the regime, said Ms. Zhang, the former World Journal editor.
Chinese authorities can send personnel from the mainland to work at these U.S.-based organizations, which are used as a cover, she alleged.
A former senior reporter who retired from a pro-Beijing Chinese newspaper in New York, who spoke to The Epoch Times under the alias Zhao Wei, confirmed that has happened. She recalled one China Press manager admitting to having been “dispatched over” from China.
“I don’t know how long I can work here,” the person said, according to Ms. Zhao. She suspects that the person was part of China’s intelligence services.
The Epoch Times was unable to independently verify her claims.
Some members of Congress who have examined China Press’s background find it troubling.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who has pushed for stronger measures to deter Chinese influence operations, introduced a bill in March called “Countering China’s Political Warfare Act” to target United Front groups.
“The China Press was established by the propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party, the United Front, to whitewash the CCP’s crimes and human rights abuses,” he told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Banks said the newspaper “should be investigated and punished” for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires entities representing foreign interests to make disclosures.
This is where he said his bill can make a difference: to empower authorities to “sanction the real owners of the China Press in Beijing for engaging in political warfare against the United States.”
The Epoch Times sent a list of questions to China Press, but didn’t receive a response by publication time.
Hannah Cai and Sophia Lam contributed to this report.
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