The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won, Revised and Expanded Edition

Let a Thousand Censors Snip

News publication has an important role in ideological education, and our country’s security depends on strict control of news production.

—Chinese General Administration of Press and Publication

Chinese thought control begins with the near absence of a free press. Instead, for most Chinese citizens, all news flows from the official voice of the Communist Party and the world’s biggest propaganda mill—the Xinhua news agency.

Each of Xinhua’s almost 10,000 reporters undergo extensive political indoctrination from the government’s aptly named Central Propaganda Department. As a group, these quasi-journalists are tasked with the job of producing “all the news that fits the party line” for more than 9,000 magazines, 2,000 ...