THE People’s Daily Online, the most popular comprehensive online news platform in China with more than 820 million viewers both domestically and internationally, has welcomed a group of international journalists to its headquarters in Beijing, introducing them to its the various online media platforms utilised to inform, educate and entertain the Chinese People and also to present a true multi-dimensional and all-round image of China to the world.
During the visit on Friday 18 April, the international journalists who are being hosted in China by the China International Press Communication Center (CIPCC) for a study tour, were introduced to the Online Department headed by Yi Tan and the New Media Department led by Liuyi Fan.
The Online and New Media departments are just part of a much greater news establishment owned by the Communist Party of China (CPC), which includes the People’s Daily Newspaper.
The Online Department, founded in 1997, produces in-depth stories, policy analysis and recommendations as well as opinion and commentary and further to its Chinese Mandarin versions, it also produces versions in seven of China’s ethnic minority languages and 18 foreign languages, including English, French, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, German, Portuguese, Swahili, Italian, Kazakh (Cyrillic script), Thai, Malay, Greek, Vietnamese, Urdu and Hindu.
“The People’s Daily Online was officially founded in 1997 and in 1998, our English website was launched and we have been providing versions of our Chinese language news and current affairs in 15 foreign languages, and just last week, we launched three more foreign language branches. These are the Vietnamese, Urdu and Hindu branches.
“We have 119 million followers around the world [apart from China] and we have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok,” Mr Yi said.
Further to being a media outlet, Mr Yi said the People’s Daily Online also derives revenues from e-commerce, e-health services, e-information technology and e-capital investment app services and went on public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2012.
“To date, the People’s Daily Online has established 33 branches on the Chinese mainland and set up 14 subsidiary companies or representative offices outside the mainland, and the industry funds under the management of our People’s Daily Online have already been invested in dozens of different projects.
“So this is the showroom of our services. This app provides health services and this one provides e-commerce. Have you heard about rural revitalisation and poverty eradication in China? This one is related to it. We have our own e-commerce support for the minority ethnic groups.
“This is the Chinese representative liqour or Baiju, which is made from sorghum. It is like red wine in the West and vodka in Russia
“This company has provided job opportunities to 15,000 sorghum farmers and helped them increase their revenues. The second one is black fungus made in Shanxi Province in northwest China. This county used to be very poor. It was listed as one of the impoverished counties in China, but in recent years, they made more black beer from the fungus supply chain and have seen their revenues quickly increase, and are peasants no more,” Mr Yi said.
In her introduction of her department, Ms Fan said, “first of all, you might know that we are a newspaper, but we are more than that. We also have our new media platforms and have users exceeding 830 million on our various platforms.”
She said further to news apps such as the Chinese News App, English App and Urdu App, the People’s Daily has video apps and moreover, has accounts on various social media platforms both in China and abroad.
“For example, we have our account on the Chinese version of Tencent, as well as Weishi, the Chinese version of TikTok (Douyin) and other video platforms. We also have our accounts on various news platforms and also on WeChat. So we try to build a new media platform that is as comprehensive as possible to cover as many people as possible.
“But as I’m from the New Media English App, I deal with international communication support for development and will focus on the English App in my introduction. This is actually a very young app, which we started work on in 2017.
“As you can see, this is not a typical news video, we try to make it fun by chatting with people about their views, and more young people might be interested such news format presentation.
“As a news agency, we interview people from all walks of life, ranging from politicians, to musicians and designers etc for the production of our news videos.”
Ms Fan said to keep up with modern technology, the People’s Daily Online produced its first ever Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated video this year, which tells of the story of the Chinese cultural Monster Nian.
She said further to video production, the People’s Daily Online also uses Instagram to send out stories of China based on the realisation that sometimes misunderstanding simply comes from not knowing and therefore tries to present its stories from different views as much as possible.
Ms Fan said China Daily also produces animated videos as it realised that many young people like animation, and that animation presents a huge amount of information within a limited time.
Furthermore, she said China Daily also produces documentaries and in 2024, it produced a five-series documentary to explain where the ‘awesome’ development of rural China came from and the ‘first three governance’ model in rural China.
“We believe that a lot of people are not familiar with the Chinese development, and view China just as a big countryside place. But if you actually go to the rural areas, you would see that the development there is just amazing”
Ms Fan said another documentary produced in 2024, featured President Xi Jinping’s foresight and sense of mission as the leader of the Chinese People and nation and his environmental protection ambition for China, which also embodies the dream of hundreds of millions of Chinese,for a harmonious co-existence between humanity and nature.
Thereafter the introduction of these two online departments of the China Daily to the international journos, they were given the opportunity to discuss, ask questions and exchange views on the Chinese media landscape and the role the People’s Daily play in China to the world with Mr Yi and Ms Fan as well as the Deputy Director of the Communication Department, Chengliang Wu.
The visit to the People’s Daily Online was amongst a number of visits organised for the international journos by the CIPCC.
By DELI-SHARON OSO
In Beijing, China
