 | |
| Type | State media |
|---|---|
| Branding | CGTN |
| Country | China |
| Availability | Global |
| Headquarters | CCTV Headquarters,Beijing |
| Owner | Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party |
| Parent | China Media Group |
| Established | 2016; 9 years ago (2016) |
Launch date | 31 December 2016, 04:00London Time/12:00Beijing Time |
| Affiliations | China Central Television China Radio International |
Official website | www |
| China Global Television Network | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 中国国际电视台 | ||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 中國國際電視台 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | China International Television Station | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 中国环球电视网 | ||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 中國環球電視網 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | China Global Television Network | ||||||||
| |||||||||
China Global Television Network (CGTN) is one of three branches of state-runChina Media Group and the international division ofChina Central Television (CCTV). Headquartered inBeijing, CGTN broadcasts news in multiple languages. CGTN is under the control of thePublicity Department of theChinese Communist Party.[1][2][3]
Several media regulators and journalist advocacy groups have accused CGTN of broadcastingpropaganda anddisinformation on behalf of the Chinese government, and airingforced confessions.[4][5][6][7][8][9]
CGTN grew out of CCTV's all-English channel, known as CCTV-9 or CCTV International, launched in 2000 and renamed CCTV News in 2010.[10] Channels in other languages were launched during the mid and late 2000s. On 1 January 2017, the six non-Chinese language television channels under CCTV International were rebranded to bear the CGTN name.[5] In 2018, CGTN was brought under the umbrella of theChina Media Group.[11][12] By 2022, CGTN had built a network of social media influencers, according to theAssociated Press.[13]
Launching CGTN was intended to create a global outlet expressingChinese government perspectives on global news, with the idea that it could compete in a niche similar toBBC orCNN.[14]: 71 Observers have noted that the "aim [of CGTN] is to influence public opinion overseas in order to nudge foreign governments into making policies favourable towards China's Communist party" through subtle means.[5] Australian researchers Thomas Fearon and Usha M. Rodrigues argued that CGTN has a "dichotomous role as a credible media competing for audience attention on the world stage, and a vital government propaganda organ domestically."[15]
| Name | Language | Launch date | Previous names |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | 20 September 1997[16] |
|
 | Spanish | 1 October 2007[16] |
|
 | French | 1 October 2007[16] |
|
 | Arabic | 25 July 2009 | CCTV-العربية |
 | Russian | 10 September 2009 | CCTV-Русский |
 | English | 1 January 2011 | CCTV-9 Documentary |
| Name | Language | Launch date | Replaced | Format | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CGTN Turk | Turkish | 2023 | CRI Turk | operates a website and various social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X) | [17] |
| CGTN Malay | Malay | CRI Malay | operates on Facebook only | [18] | |
| CGTN Hausa | Hausa | CRI Hausa | operates on Facebook only | [19] | |
| CGTN Tajikistan | Tajik | None | operates on Facebook and X only, videos translated from CGTN Russian | [20] | |
| CGTN Uzbekistan | Uzbek | operates on Facebook and X only, videos translated from CGTN Russian | [21] | ||
| CGTN Қазақша | Kazakh | operates on Facebook and X only, videos translated from CGTN Russian | [22] | ||
| CGTN Кыргызча | Kyrgyz | operates on Facebook and X only, videos translated from CGTN Russian | [23] |
According to James Palmer atForeign Policy, the contrasting aims ofRT (formerly Russia Today) and CGTN, "mirrors wider strategies: Moscow wants chaos it can exploit, while Beijing wants a stable world order—on its terms".[24] While "RT doesn't mind whether it goes to the far-left or the far-right," Chinese state media is permitted to "act from a very narrow, officially approved scope, and the risk of the political extremes is too much," according to journalist Hilton Yip.[25] On the contrary to CGTN's investments in studios and numerous overseas bureaus, "the actual content is a mix of brutally tedious propaganda and bland documentaries. The audience is always the bosses in Beijing, not the average viewer overseas".[25] Yip also noted the growing disillusionment of journalists in China who "are allowed to do little more than parrot the official line", citing a viral video of a journalist rolling her eyes at another reporter's softball question during a ministerial press conference, which "seemed to speak for many in the country who are tired of the charade that local media has become".[25]
Despite a decade of overseas expansion, the redoubling of efforts by CGTN, and to an extension other state media, to push the party's theories and principles abroad is at odds with boosting China's overseas image.[26] CGTN, along with other Chinese state media outlets, is still widely regarded as "editorially biased and full of propaganda, and they still struggle to attract large audiences", particularly in the age of widespread internet use with social media and nontraditional forms of media where the public has become "more averse to clumsy state-run propaganda than ever".[25]
In his 2022 bookBeijing's Global Media Offensive: China's Uneven Campaign to Influence Asia and the World, journalistJoshua Kurlantzick wrote that CGTN "tried to build itself a presence that could rival other global broadcasters likeAl Jazeera, RT, the Turkish global broadcasterTRT World, and, the Chinese government hopes, giants likeCNN and theBBC."[27] In December 2022, he said that the government "wanted CGTN to be regarded as a credible source of information, like Al Jazeera", but described the idea as "something of a fantasy". He added: "Qatar is a small state, and it has significant foreign policy on a few certain issues. But outside of those issues, Qatar has basically left its Al Jazeera reporters alone. China was never going to be able to do that because virtually any issue could have an impact on China."[28]
Critics have accused CGTN of broadcasting misinformation and making false allegations against opponents of the Chinese government.[3] The network has been investigated and censured by Britain'sOfcom for biased coverage of the2019–2020 Hong Kong protests and the airing of forced confessions.[6][29][30][31][32] CGTN has been characterized as a vehicle for government propaganda and disinformation campaigns byReporters Without Borders,BBC, and other sources.[3][5][33][34][35][36]
Despite its revamp launching of CCTV America, critics have voiced concerns over the level of censorship exercised by the channel, especially on sensitive domestic issues in China.[25] Philip Cunningham of Cornell University, who has appeared more than 100 times on CCTV talk shows, noted that sensitive issues such as Tibet and Xinjiang were heavily edited on various programs.[37] Ma Jing, Director of CCTV America, defended the channel against such allegations by saying that the channel edits stories the same way other news organizations do. She said: "We uphold the traditional journalistic values. We consider accuracy, objectivity, truthfulness, and public accountability very important, more important than anything else."[37]
In December 2018, theU.S. Department of Justice determined that CGTN must register under theForeign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as an agent for the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party.[38] In the subsequent FARA filing with the U.S. Department of Justice dated 2 February 2019, Ms. Ma Jing wrote that CGTN maintainededitorial independence free from the state's influence and functioned similarly to other news media.[39][40] A month later, in early March 2019, she was summoned to return to China.[40]
On 18 September 2019,Nick Pollard, a British TV executive, resigned from his post as consultant and advisor to CGTN, giving his reason for leaving as being CGTN's failure to comply with Ofcom's rules on impartiality in connection to its coverage of the Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests.[41] He had joined CGTN in December 2018.[42] Ofcom had several inquiries into CGTN going on in September 2019.[43] In March 2021, CGTN was fined £225,000 byOfcom for bias in its coverage of the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, which was found to have repeatedly breached fairness and impartiality requirements.[44][45]
A September 2019 article inThe Diplomat stated that CGTN "has a consistent record of blatantly and egregiously violating journalistic standards and encouraging or justifying hatred and violence against innocent people."[46]
In July 2021,BBC News reported that CGTN initiated a drive to use foreign vloggers, such asRaz Gal-Or andLee and Oli Barrett, asstringers to denounce negative coverage ofXinjiang.[47][48] The use of these individuals prevents YouTube from labelling their content as state-sponsored content, although their videos are promoted by state media accounts. Australian cybersecurity researcher Robert Potter from Internet 2.0 said there was evidence that these vloggers were heavily promoted using a mix of50 Cent Army,click farms, fake bot accounts, andfake news websites, all to "spoof YouTube into treating it like a legitimate view."[47]Global Voices reported in October 2021 that CGTN had also hired Arabic-speaking social media influencers to frame Chinese government policies toward theUyghurs as part of an anti-terrorist measure.[49]
In February 2021, aPress Gazette investigation found that CGTN purchased ads on Facebook that denied any mistreatment of Uyghurs and promotedXinjiang internment camps as "vocational training centres."[50]
In a 2022 research paper comparingRT and CGTN's coverage of the2020 United States presidential election, Martin Moore and Thomas Colley ofKing's College London described CGTN as using a "surface neutrality" propaganda model, noting that it "avoid[ed] expressing partisanship or framing US politics in an unduly biased or subjective way" in its coverage of the election, but it "dropp[ed] its objective tone in favour of being enthusiastically pro-China, without exception" in its coverage of geopolitical issues affecting China, and that CGTN did not publish content that was critical of or embarrassing to the Chinese government. They added: "Unlike RT, it frequently frames issues (such asthe revelations about Trump's taxes) through the prism of the Chinese interest—even if the issues have no direct bearing on China. These characteristics contravene journalistic norms of independence from government and impartiality".[4] Moore and Colley noted in another paper that during the election, "[CGTN] presented the US as poorly governed, plutocratic, racist and a destabilising international influence, and China as well governed, benign, stable, and as a rising superpower."[51]
According to a 2025 report byGraphika,generative artificial intelligence is used tolaunder articles from CGTN through various social media sites in an attempt to disguise the articles' origin.[52]
CCTV broadcast twoforced confessions of the British journalistPeter Humphrey. The first was staged in August 2013, and was filmed by a CCTV crew with Humphrey locked in an iron chair inside a steel cage, wearing handcuffs and an orange prison vest. This was before he had been indicted, tried or convicted of a crime. The second, in July 2014, was once again filmed by CCTV, not in a cage this time, but still in a prison vest and handcuffs, before he had been tried or convicted on the charge of illegal information gathering.[53] Both were aired in the UK by CGTN.[54]
On 23 November 2018, Humphrey filed a complaint toOfcom against CCTV, citing violations of the United Kingdom Broadcasting Code's Fairness and Privacy provisions. Humphrey said that both confessions were scripted and directed by the Chinese police, thepublic security bureau, while he was a prisoner, in conditions of duress amounting totorture.[54][55] On 6 July 2020, Ofcom ruled that CGTN was guilty of breaching UK broadcasting standards in both incidents. The ruling stated that CGTN had breached Humphrey's privacy and that in the channel's reporting, "material facts were presented, disregarded or omitted in a way that was unfair to Mr Humphrey".[6]
In November 2019, CGTN aired a video of a UK consular employee,Simon Cheng, in captivity "confessing" to consorting with prostitutes. Within a week, Cheng had filed a complaint with Ofcom.[56]
On 8 March 2021, CGTN was fined a total of £225,000 by Ofcom for serious breaches of fairness, privacy and impartiality rules. "We found the individuals (Simon Cheng andGui Minhai) concerned were unfairly treated and had their privacy unwarrantably infringed," Ofcom said, adding that the broadcaster had "failed to obtain their informed consent to be interviewed." It concluded that "material facts which cast serious doubt on the reliability of their alleged confessions" had been left out of the programmes, which aired pre-trial "confessions" of the two men while they were being detained. Ofcom said it was considering further sanctions.[9][57]
In August 2020, Australian CGTN television anchorCheng Lei was detained by Chinese authorities on national security grounds but no details of accusations were provided.[58][59] China'sMinistry of State Security said that Cheng provided state secrets she gathered from her work to a foreign organization through her mobile phone.[60] In October 2023, the Australian government announced that Cheng had been released and returned to Australia.[60][61]
In April 2020, the non-governmental organizationReporters Without Borders criticized CGTN for engaging indisinformation regarding COVID-19.[7] The United States Department of State described CGTN's output on COVID-19 as part of a wider government-led disinformation campaign.[62] In April 2021, theEuropean External Action Service published a report that cited Chinese state media outlets, including CGTN, as spreading disinformation to present Western vaccines as unsafe.[63][64]
In March 2021, an investigation byLe Monde claimed that a supposed French journalist for CGTN named "Laurène Beaumond" was a fabricated identity.[65]Le Figaro disputed this, saying "Beaumond" was a real French journalist fromSarthe, but had been publishing for CGTN under apseudonym.Le Figaro said they had interviewed "Beaumond", under the condition that her true identity be kept secret.[66]
In May 2021, Israel's embassy in Beijing accused CGTN of "blatantantisemitism" when it said that "powerful lobbies" of Jews and the "influence of wealthy Jews" in the United States were responsible for America's pro-Israel position during the2021 Israel–Palestine crisis.[67][68][69]
A week after the2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, CGTN journalist Stephanie Freid visitedSderot and reported that during a shootout at the local police station, "Hamas fighters and their police captives were apparently killed when Israeli forces opened fire on the station with a tank."[70] CGTN's report was cited by pro-Palestine outlets such as Indonesian news sitesRepublika[70] andTribunnews.com,[71] as well as Belgian alternative media websiteDeWereldMorgen to support the controversial claim that Israeli forces killed their own soldiers and civilians during the attack.[72]
In December 2021, Chinese professional tennis playerPeng Shuai disappeared after publicizing sexual assault allegations against formerChinese vice premierZhang Gaoli. CGTN's official account on Twitter subsequently posted an "email" professed to be from her claiming she was okay, but attracted questions over its authenticity as a cursor was visible in the screenshot of the third line.[73] TheWomen's Tennis Association did not believe the email was genuine.[74]
In March 2022, CGTN paid for digital ads onFacebook targeting global users with briefings and newscasts featuring pro-Kremlin talking points about theRussian invasion of Ukraine afterMeta Platforms banned Russian state media advertisement buys.[75][76] CGTN has promoted unsubstantiated Russian claims of biological weapons labs in Ukraine.[77][78][79][80]
In 2023, CGTN ran paid ads on social media platforms in multiple countries and languages denouncing thedischarge of radioactive water of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which critics labeled part of a concerteddisinformation campaign.[81][82][83]
CGTN's dramatic television series are popular among foreign viewers, particularly viewers in the Middle East.[14]: 71 Among the more popular series with foreign viewers areShanghai Qing (Minning Town) andXiao Huanxi (A Little Reunion).[14]: 71
In 2018, theUnited States Department of Justice directedCGTN America, the U.S. division of CGTN, to register as aforeign agent under theForeign Agents Registration Act (FARA).[26] CGTN America said in its FARA filings on 1 February 2019 that it disagreed with the Justice Department's decision, but registered nonetheless.[84] In 2020, theUnited States Department of State designated CGTN and its parent company, CCTV, asforeign missions.[85][86]
On 4 February 2021,Star China Media (the UK broadcast license holder for CGTN) had its broadcast license revoked by UK broadcasting regulatorOfcom.[87] Ofcom found that Star had no editorial oversight over the channel it was broadcasting, and was instead acting as a third-party distributor for CGTN's feed.[87] Ofcom also denied an application to transfer the broadcast license to the China Global Television Network Corporation (CGTNC), on the grounds that CGTNC was "controlled by a body which is ultimately controlled by theChinese Communist Party".[87] UK law prohibits license holders from being controlled by political bodies.[88] In a statement, Ofcom said:
We have given CGTN significant time to come into compliance with the statutory rules. Those efforts have now been exhausted. Following careful consideration, taking account of all the facts and the broadcaster's and audience's rights to freedom of expression, we have decided it is appropriate to revoke the licence for CGTN to broadcast in the UK. We expect to conclude separate sanctions proceedings against CGTN for due impartiality and fairness and privacy breaches shortly.[89]
In whatCNN Business characterised as "an apparent tit-for-tat move", the Chinese government banned theBBC World News TV channel from airing in China on 11 February. Given that BBC World News could only be received in so-called foreign compounds (such as internationally owned hotels) inmainland China in the first place, it was unclear what impact, if any, this ban would have.[90] Following the license revocation, CGTN no longer had permission to broadcast in Germany, due to its German license being approved by Ofcom,[91] but it resumed broadcasting viaVodafone Germany in March 2021.[92]
CGTN later sought and received agreement from French regulatory authorities to broadcast in France, which would allow them to broadcast in member states of theCouncil of Europe, including the United Kingdom.[93]
In August 2021, Ofcom levied additional fines on CGTN's UK license holder, Star China Media, for breaches of rules around fairness and privacy.[94] The channel announced later in the month that the channel has returned to the UK by launching onFreeview. Ofcom later claimed the channel uses theVision TV Network, an internet-baseddatacasting service.[95]
In March 2021, the Australian television networkSBS suspended the English and Mandarin broadcasts of CGTN and CCTV respectively, which were broadcast on SBS as part of itsWorld Watch program, over human rights complaints concerning the airings of "forced confessions."[8][96] CGTN responded in a statement that CCTV had signed a cooperation agreement with SBS to broadcast some of CCTV's Chinese programs for free in 2006, but CGTN did not authorize SBS to broadcast its English programs.[97]
.svg)
_cap_insignia.svg)
.png)
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)"Para pejuang Hamas dan tawanan polisi mereka tampaknya tewas ketika pasukan Israel melepaskan tembakan ke stasiun tersebut dengan sebuah tank," ujar laporan CGTN.
Jurnalis Stephanie Freid dari CGTN Tiongkok mengunjungi Sderot seminggu kemudian. Dia melaporkan bahwa Sderot "adalah kota yang diambil alih oleh pejuang Hamas. Banyak orang terbunuh, dan terjadi baku tembak. Dan buktinya ada di reruntuhan kantor polisi ini. Itu diambil di sini. Hingga 20 orang di sini terbunuh, termasuk tahanan yang ditahan di stasiun tersebut."
| Mainland |
| ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hong Kong |
| ||||||||
| Macau |
| ||||||||
