Xinhua News opens bureau in The Hague

China’s state news agency Xinhua News earlier this year opened a new press bureau in The Hague as part of the government’s policy to influence international public opinion.

China has reserved $ 6.7 billion in efforts to storm the western media market. Xinhua is opening a new North American head office in a skyscraper on Times Square in New York. In July it launched CNC World, a 24-hour English-language news channel meant to compete with CNN, BBC World and Al-Jazeera.

‘Soft power’

The moves are part of a broader push by China's government to enhance its ‘soft power’ abroad by countering the dominance of Western news outlets and conveying a Chinese perspective on events. Xinhua, founded in the 1930s when China's Communist Party was still a revolutionary organisation, has made efforts in recent years to go beyond serving as a government mouthpiece. In China, it has made a push to compete with Reuters and Bloomberg LP as a provider of financial information.

But the news agency still draws controversy for bending the news of events like the ethnic riots in China last summer.

The Hague Bureau

The new The Hague Bureau is staffed by journalist Pan Zhi. According to Pan, the Netherlands is very important to China as it is its second largest European trading partner.  Pan also says that the growing popularity of the Netherlands among students and tourists has increased interest in the country. Since March he has filed some 400 wire stories about the Netherlands (including photos) in Chinese and English, including an article about the national elections and the World Cup defeat ‘Netherlands in orange sadness’.

Wire stories from Xinhua are extremely popular in developing countries because the press agency charges foreign newspapers little or nothing to reprint its stories. This in contrast with extremely expensive press bureaus like Reuters and AP.

Xinhua is a press bureau with 130 foreign offices and publishes more than 20 newspapers and a dozen magazines. 

Visit the website at: www.xinhuanet.com/english2010/