People’s Daily

People’s Daily is the official organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, first published on 15 June 1948. People’s Daily Press is a public institution directly under the Central Committee, operating 23 internal departments, one subordinate public institution, 72 dispatched agencies, more than 20 affiliated newspapers and periodicals and a number of subsidiary enterprises. Among them is People.cn, listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, whose audited accounts make this one of the few Chinese state media organisations whose commercial revenue can be examined directly.

Media assets

Newspapers: People’s Daily, the Overseas Edition, the Tibetan-language edition, and Global Times

Periodicals: among more than 20 affiliated titles, Health Times, China Economic Weekly, Global People and National Humanity History

Digital: the People’s Daily app, operated directly by People’s Daily Press; People.cn, the listed digital subsidiary; and Huanqiu.com and Haiwainet within the People.cn group

Data and technology: People’s Data and the content technology services described below

Ownership and governance

People’s Daily Press is a public institution directly under the CCP Central Committee and the Party’s own news organ, not a state enterprise or a body under government supervision. The paper was formally designated the Central Committee’s organ on 1 August 1949. Following a restructuring approved by the Central Committee in 2009 and subsequently adjusted, it operates a president responsibility system under the leadership of an editorial committee. Its 72 dispatched agencies comprise 31 provincial branches, Hong Kong and Macao branches and 39 overseas branches.

Leadership sits at the level of the Party’s central cadre system. Yu Shaoliang, born in July 1964, has been President since 27 September 2024, having previously served as Editor-in-Chief. Chen Jianwen succeeded him as Editor-in-Chief on 28 October 2024; born in September 1965, he came to the post from the Guangdong provincial standing committee where he headed the provincial propaganda department, having earlier been a vice-chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and deputy secretary of the Working Committee for Central and State Organs. He is an alternate member of the Party’s 20th Central Committee. Ye Zhenzhen became a Deputy President in November 2025 and concurrently serves as chairman of People.cn, a position he has held since 2019.

State Media Monitor identified no independent governing board, statutory charter guaranteeing editorial autonomy, independent appointing mechanism or external oversight body. The editorial committee that leads the organisation is internal to it and appointed through the same Party channels.

Source of funding and budget

People’s Daily Press does not publish consolidated accounts, but its listed subsidiary does, and those filings are the most detailed financial disclosure available for any Chinese state media organisation State Media Monitor maps.

People.cn, listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange under code 603000, reported operating revenue of CNY 2.075 billion for 2025, down 0.62 per cent year on year, with net profit attributable to shareholders of CNY 213 million, up 1.67 per cent. Internet information services supplied CNY 2.010 billion of that total, more than 96 per cent. Within it, advertising and publicity services generated CNY 1.023 billion, content technology services CNY 538 million, data and information services CNY 319 million, and network technology services CNY 130 million, the last being the only segment to grow. Four core business lines accounted for 96.89 per cent of total revenue. Total assets stood at CNY 5.452 billion, and net assets attributable to listed company shareholders at CNY 3.886 billion.

The composition matters as much as the total. Content technology and data services together supply about 41 per cent of the listed company’s revenue. The annual report describes the content technology business as covering content risk review, multimodal content governance, digital government, smart Party building and compliance services for AI-generated content, supplied to media organisations, internet platforms, government bodies and enterprises. People’s Data and related People.cn businesses provide public opinion monitoring, data rights and asset services, content risk control and communication analysis to Party and government bodies, media, internet platforms and corporate clients, and People.cn markets overseas social media operation and overseas public opinion analysis on the same basis.

These are the accounts of the listed subsidiary, not of the parent. People’s Daily Press is People.cn’s controlling shareholder and ultimate controller, but it also operates many other newspapers, periodicals and businesses whose finances are not consolidated into those filings, and it receives public support as a central fiscal institution. State Media Monitor identified no current disclosure establishing the proportion of the group’s total resources derived from public funding.

Editorial independence

People’s Daily is the authoritative statement of Party position rather than an outlet reporting on it. Its editorials and commentaries are read across the Chinese system and internationally as the Party’s own voice, and it employs writing task groups producing signed commentary under standing pseudonyms that indicate the level of authority behind a given text. No legal framework or independent oversight body exists to assess or guarantee its impartiality, and none is intended to.

Commentators have long noted that Global Times, the group’s nationalist tabloid, operates with more latitude than the parent title, a distinction that reflects the different functions the two serve rather than any structural independence at either.

The group’s data and technology business raises a further question that ordinary media analysis does not reach. Through People’s Data and its content technology division, the organisation sells content moderation, risk control and public opinion analysis services to Party and government bodies, media, platforms and corporate clients. An organisation that both states the authoritative editorial line and sells the technology used to police compliance with it occupies an unusual position, and the scale of the second business is documented in a way the first is not.

AI and digital policy

People.cn has positioned artificial intelligence at the centre of its commercial strategy. The 2025 annual report describes increased research and development investment in AI and big data through the National Key Laboratory of Communication Content Cognition, which is supervised by People’s Daily Press and hosted by People.cn, and a transition toward becoming a technology-oriented enterprise. Its content technology products are built around automated content recognition, moderation and risk control, and it reported 950 million direct users across its PC and mobile platforms in 2025.

Since 2023 the group has also developed a mainstream values corpus for AI training. People’s Daily reports that by June 2026 it contained more than 96 million selected texts and roughly 790,000 question and answer pairs, and had been deployed with major Chinese model developers. The organisation is therefore not only using artificial intelligence but supplying ideologically curated training material to the systems others build.

State Media Monitor identified no publicly available People’s Daily editorial policy governing the use of generative artificial intelligence in news production, the disclosure of AI-assisted or AI-generated material to audiences, or the use of synthetic presenters. The contrast with China Media Group, which has adopted a formal AI usage standard and published successive development white papers, is notable within the same media system.

China’s regulatory framework applies regardless. Provisions on the administration of deep synthesis internet information services have required labelling of synthetically generated content since January 2023, and measures on labelling AI-generated content took effect on 1 September 2025, requiring both explicit and implicit identifiers.

Classification rationale

People’s Daily remains classified Captured Public/State-Managed (CaPu).

It is Party-owned and Party-governed in the most direct institutional form. People’s Daily Press is a public institution directly under the CCP Central Committee, not a government-owned company, and the newspaper is the Central Committee’s own organ. Its President and Editor-in-Chief are appointed through the central cadre system, the latter an alternate member of the Central Committee. No independent governing board, charter, appointing mechanism or external oversight exists.

Its editorial agenda is set by the Party. The publication exists to state Party positions authoritatively, and it is read as doing so. No statute or body provides any counterweight.

Predominant state funding is not demonstrated, and this is the condition that places People’s Daily in CaPu rather than State-Controlled. People’s Daily Press receives public support and operates as a central fiscal institution, while also generating circulation, advertising and other commercial income. Its listed subsidiary People.cn alone reported audited operating revenue of CNY 2.075 billion in 2025 from advertising and publicity, content technology, data and information services and network technology.

The listed company’s accounts do not constitute consolidated accounts for People’s Daily Press as a whole, and State Media Monitor identified no current disclosure establishing the proportion of the group’s total resources derived from public funding. The People.cn figures therefore demonstrate substantial commercial activity within the group without establishing the funding ratio of the parent organisation.

August 2026