Congressional Offices To Stop Receiving CCP-Run China Daily

Authored by Lily Zhou via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Beijing-controlled newspaper China Daily will no longer be distributed on Capitol Hill, chairmen of two House committees said on Tuesday.

Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration, and Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said they are “pleased to announce that China Daily will no longer be circulated by National News to House offices.”

“We took action to directly block the Chinese Communist Party from using the halls of the People’s House to spread its propaganda. We appreciate National News’s swift cooperation on this important issue,” they said.

According to the Committee on House Administration, it worked with National News to find a solution after lawmakers raised frustration over the issue, and the distributor is currently winding down the distribution of China Daily in Congress.

The Epoch Times has reached out to National News for comment.

China Daily is one of several major state mouthpieces controlled by the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department. The publication’s Chinese website says its English edition “actively publicizes and explains Xi Jinping Thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era,” and strives to influence public opinion in favor of communist-ruled China.

Its U.S. distributor China Daily Distribution Corporation has been registered as a foreign agent in the United States since 1983 under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

It’s among 17 organizations designated by the U.S. State Department as “foreign missions” in 2020. Among them, 14 are news publications or broadcasters.

For years, China Daily has been delivered to Congressional offices along with other major publications to all Congressional offices unless they opted out.

Some lawmakers have called for the end of China Daily’s distribution in Congress since 2020, when the publication came under scrutiny for paying major U.S. newspapers millions in advertisement dollars to run inserts that paint the Chinese regime in a positive light and downplay its oppression of Chinese and other peoples.

The call was renewed this year by Freshman Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.), who used his first legislation as a congressman to target the distribution of China Daily and other CCP-controlled publications in Congress.

His resolution, referred to the Committee on House Administration on Feb. 5, sought to ban the distribution of all CCP-controlled publications within House facilities.

The congressman in February told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program the distribution of China Daily in Congress is “unacceptable” because the publication is “propaganda by a foreign government that’s trying to influence the highest echelons of the United States government.”

In March 2024, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio was vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he co-wrote letters to the heads of nine media companies which were accepting payment from China Daily, urging them to stop “disseminating CCP propaganda to an American audience.”

Between November 2016 and April 2024, China Daily Distribution Corporation received $78.3 million in funding from its China-based headquarters. That’s almost 97 percent of its total income during the period, according to FARA filings.

In the same period, the corporation spent nearly $81 million in printing and operation expenses, including almost $20.78 million in advertisement payments to various media outlets.