Central News Agency (CNA)

The Central News Agency is Taiwan’s statutory national news agency. Founded on 1 April 1924 in Guangzhou by the Kuomintang Central Propaganda Department, it relocated to Taiwan in 1949 following the Chinese Civil War. CNA itself describes its first seven decades as a period in which it operated within Taiwan’s one-party system as a propaganda organisation and ruling-party mouthpiece. In 1996 it was transformed under the Central News Agency Establishment Act into a non-profit foundation and national news agency, formally separating it from party ownership. Its eleventh board of directors took office on 1 July 2026 under chairman Chiang Chun-nan and immediately confirmed Hu Wan-ling as president.

Media assets

News agency and digital: CNA and its Chinese-language news portal

International digital: Focus Taiwan in English, フォーカス台湾 in Japanese and Fokus Taiwan in Indonesian

CNA also established and initially operated TaiwanPlus, Taiwan’s international English-language streaming service, under contract from the Ministry of Culture. The platform launched globally in August 2021. CNA’s contract expired on 9 June 2022 and operation transferred to the Public Television Service Foundation, which began operating TaiwanPlus on 10 June.

Ownership and governance

CNA operates as a non-profit foundation established under the Central News Agency Establishment Act, with the Ministry of Culture serving as its supervisory authority. The Act describes CNA’s statutory functions as providing domestic and international news services, conducting international news communication on behalf of the country and strengthening cooperation with international news agencies. It also expressly identifies central-government budget subsidies as one of CNA’s funding sources.

CNA has a board of between nine and 15 directors, including the chair, and a supervisory board of between three and five members. All are selected by the Premier from three statutory categories: experts and scholars in mass communication, practitioners in the mass-media industry and impartial members of society. No more than half of either body may consist of members of the same political party.

The president manages the agency’s operations. Under CNA’s endowment charter, the chair nominates the president and appointment requires approval by the board.

The eleventh board took office on 1 July 2026. It consists of fifteen directors and five supervisors and is chaired by veteran journalist Chiang Chun-nan, who writes under the pen name Ssu-ma Wen-wu. Its membership spans journalism and communication, culture and the arts, law, accounting, international relations and information security and includes CNA union representative Feng Chao.

Chiang has spent much of his career in journalism and publishing, including senior roles at The Journalist, Capital Morning Post, Taiwan Daily, Taipei Times and Apple Daily, while also having served as deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council. He succeeded former culture minister Lee Yung-te, who chaired CNA’s tenth board until 30 June 2026.

Hu Wan-ling remains CNA president. She was nominated by Lee Yung-te and approved by the tenth board on 30 October 2024, taking office on 1 November. At the first meeting of the eleventh board on 1 July 2026, the directors approved her continuation in office.

The appointment structure remains CNA’s principal governance vulnerability. The statutory professional categories and same-party ceiling constrain overt partisan concentration, but the Premier appoints the entire board and supervisory board and there is no cross-party review or independent appointment mechanism comparable to that governing Taiwan’s Public Television Service Foundation.

Source of funding and budget

CNA is predominantly financed from public sources.

Its 2024 final accounts recorded total income of TWD 618.03 million. The basic central-government operating subsidy alone was TWD 310.05 million, equivalent to 50.17 per cent of total income, before additional publicly funded projects and commissioned work are taken into account. CNA recorded a deficit of approximately TWD 31.96 million that year.

The agency’s 2025 final accounts provide a clearer breakdown. Total income was TWD 635.27 million, against expenditure of TWD 644.76 million, producing a deficit of approximately TWD 9.49 million. CNA identified TWD 360.09 million as government subsidy income, comprising TWD 304.04 million in basic operating support and TWD 56.05 million in project subsidies. Direct government subsidies therefore supplied approximately 56.7 per cent of total income.

A further TWD 86.27 million came from work commissioned by government bodies. Together, government subsidies and government-commissioned activity generated approximately TWD 446.36 million, or 70.3 per cent of CNA’s total 2025 income. CNA classified TWD 188.91 million, approximately 29.7 per cent, as self-generated income.

The public-funding predominance continues in the agency’s 2026 corporate budget. CNA projected total income of TWD 660.93 million, including a basic government operating subsidy of TWD 320.05 million. Its service-income budget additionally identifies TWD 40.32 million in government-commissioned work, a TWD 50 million Ministry of Culture international-communications project and a TWD 8.8 million national-news-agency digital-resilience project. These specifically identified public sources amount to at least 63 per cent of planned income. CNA projected expenditure of TWD 693.90 million and a deficit of approximately TWD 32.96 million.

Taiwan’s 2026 central government budget was not finally passed until 14 August, the latest annual-budget passage in the country’s constitutional history. State Media Monitor did not identify sufficiently clear post-passage documentation establishing whether the final parliamentary adjustments changed CNA’s individual allocation. The 2026 figures above therefore describe CNA’s published corporate budget; the 2025 final accounts provide the latest definitive evidence of the agency’s actual funding structure.

Editorial independence

CNA has undergone a fundamental institutional transformation from its origins as a party news organisation. Its own centenary history describes the agency’s first seventy years as a period in which it served as a propaganda organisation within a one-party system. The 1996 Establishment Act transformed it into a national news agency organised as a non-profit foundation and formally removed it from party ownership.

The statutory structure contains some safeguards against partisan concentration. Directors and supervisors must come from professional or public-interest categories, and no more than half of either body may belong to the same political party. CNA also publishes its professional journalism standards and has made its internal Editorial Handbook publicly available, covering professional rules, newsroom practices and editorial standards.

These safeguards are less extensive than those applying to the Public Television Service Foundation. In particular, the Premier appoints every CNA director and supervisor, and the agency has no independent or cross-party appointment committee separating governance appointments from the executive. Recent chairs have also included figures with previous senior government service.

State Media Monitor nevertheless identified no credible evidence during the current review period that government authorities directed individual editorial decisions or routinely intervened in CNA’s newsroom output. The appropriate finding is therefore one of editorial independence within a strongly state-managed governance structure, rather than either complete institutional insulation or demonstrated state editorial control.

AI and digital policy

CNA has a publicly available editorial policy governing generative artificial intelligence.

On 1 September 2023, the agency published its Generative AI Use Policy together with a more detailed staff application guide. CNA states that AI is to be used as an assistive tool rather than as a replacement for journalists and editors. Any component produced with generative AI must undergo rigorous editorial review before publication. The agency also commits to publicly disclosing the scope of AI use and prohibits personally identifiable information or important confidential information from being processed through AI systems. Existing legal obligations and professional journalistic ethics continue to apply.

AI is already integrated into CNA’s production systems. In August 2025 its Media Lab unveiled Zhimin Editor Assistant, a newsroom system combining twelve AI functions including translation, proofreading, headline generation, image recommendations and identification of material requiring additional fact-checking. It also developed AskCNA, which generates responses using CNA’s own news archive as a source. CNA describes these systems as tools for supporting journalists rather than autonomously publishing news.

CNA also uses AI in its multilingual publishing. Its Indonesian-language Fokus Taiwan, launched in July 2024, uses large-language-model technology to translate CNA’s English reporting into Indonesian, after which the output is reviewed by Indonesian-speaking human editors before publication.

CNA participates alongside other Taiwanese public-interest media in the Public Media AI Chatbot Collaborative Project, designed to integrate authorised news archives into a traceable retrieval system linking generated answers back to their original sources.

Taiwan’s Artificial Intelligence Basic Act has applied since January 2026 as a broader national governance framework. The National Communications Commission’s June 2026 guidelines on AI in broadcast-news production are relevant to the wider media environment but are directed at broadcast media and should not be treated as CNA’s governing editorial policy.

Classification rationale

CNA returns to Independent State Funded and State Managed (ISFM), the classification it held in 2022, following three years as Independent State Managed.

Its funding is predominantly public. The 2025 final accounts show direct government subsidies of TWD 360.09 million against TWD 635.27 million in total income, or approximately 56.7 per cent. The funding condition is therefore met without counting government procurement or commissioned work. Including TWD 86.27 million in government-commissioned revenue brings identifiable state-derived income to approximately 70.3 per cent.

Its governance is state-managed. The Premier appoints all directors and supervisors from statutory categories, the board operates within a foundation supervised by the Ministry of Culture and the president is selected through the chair and board. The same-party ceiling reduces the potential for single-party domination but does not remove executive control over the appointment structure.

Its editorial independence is maintained in practice on the evidence available. CNA was institutionally separated from party ownership in 1996, operates under published professional standards and newsroom rules, has labour representation on its current board, and State Media Monitor identified no credible evidence during the review period of government direction of individual editorial decisions.

The classification carries a meaningful structural qualification. CNA’s public funding dependence is considerably greater than recorded in the intervening period, while the Premier appoints the entire governing and supervisory structure. These are substantial forms of state funding and management. They do not, on the current evidence, demonstrate editorial control and therefore do not justify removal from the independent family.

August 2026